The Same Subject Continued
(The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection)
From the New York Packet. Friday, November 23, 1787.
To the People of the State of New York:
AMONG the numerous advantages promised by a well
constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed
than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction.
The friend of popular governments never finds himself so much
alarmed for their character and fate, as when he contemplates
their propensity to this dangerous vice. He will not fail, therefore,
to set a due value on any plan which, without violating the
principles to which he is attached, provides a proper cure for
it. The instability, injustice, and confusion introduced into
the public councils, have, in truth, been the mortal diseases
under which popular governments have everywhere perished; as
they continue to be the favorite and fruitful topics from which
the adversaries to liberty derive their most specious declamations.
The valuable improvements made by the American constitutions
on the popular models, both ancient and modern, cannot certainly
be too much admired; but it would be an unwarrantable partiality,
to contend that they have as effectually obviated the danger
on this side, as was wished and expected. Complaints are everywhere
heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally
the friends of public and private faith, and of public and personal
liberty, that our governments are too unstable, that the public
good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that
measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of
justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior
force of an interested and overbearing majority. However anxiously
we may wish that these complaints had no foundation, the evidence,
of known facts will not permit us to deny that they are in some
degree true. It will be found, indeed, on a candid review of
our situation, that some of the distresses under which we labor
have been erroneously charged on the operation of our governments;
but it will be found, at the same time, that other causes will
not alone account for many of our heaviest misfortunes; and,
particularly, for that prevailing and increasing distrust of
public engagements, and alarm for private rights, which are
echoed from one end of the continent to the other. These must
be chiefly, if not wholly, effects of the unsteadiness and injustice
with which a factious spirit has tainted our public administrations.
By a faction, I understand a number of citizens,
whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole,
who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion,
or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or
to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.
There are two methods of curing the mischiefs
of faction: the one, by removing its causes; the other, by controlling
its effects.
There are again two methods of removing the causes
of faction: the one, by destroying the liberty which is essential
to its existence; the other, by giving to every citizen the
same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests.
It could never be more truly said than of the
first remedy, that it was worse than the disease. Liberty is
to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it
instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish
liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes
faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which
is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its
destructive agency.
The second expedient is as impracticable as the
first would be unwise. As long as the reason of man continues
fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions
will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his
reason and his self-love, his opinions and his passions will
have a reciprocal influence on each other; and the former will
be objects to which the latter will attach themselves. The diversity
in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate,
is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests.
The protection of these faculties is the first object of government.
From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring
property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property
immediately results; and from the influence of these on the
sentiments and views of the respective proprietors, ensues a
division of the society into different interests and parties.
The latent causes of faction are thus sown in
the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different
degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances
of civil society. A zeal for different opinions concerning religion,
concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation
as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously
contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other
descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human
passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed
them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed
to vex and oppress each other than to cooperate for their common
good. So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual
animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself,
the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient
to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent
conflicts. But the most common and durable source of factions
has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those
who hold and those who are without property have ever formed
distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and
those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed
interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a
moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity
in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes,
actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of
these various and interfering interests forms the principal
task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party
and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the
government.
No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause,
because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and,
not improbably, corrupt his integrity. With equal, nay with
greater reason, a body of men are unfit to be both judges and
parties at the same time; yet what are many of the most important
acts of legislation, but so many judicial determinations, not
indeed concerning the rights of single persons, but concerning
the rights of large bodies of citizens? And what are the different
classes of legislators but advocates and parties to the causes
which they determine? Is a law proposed concerning private debts?
It is a question to which the creditors are parties on one side
and the debtors on the other. Justice ought to hold the balance
between them. Yet the parties are, and must be, themselves the
judges; and the most numerous party, or, in other words, the
most powerful faction must be expected to prevail. Shall domestic
manufactures be encouraged, and in what degree, by restrictions
on foreign manufactures? are questions which would be differently
decided by the landed and the manufacturing classes, and probably
by neither with a sole regard to justice and the public good.
The apportionment of taxes on the various descriptions of property
is an act which seems to require the most exact impartiality;
yet there is, perhaps, no legislative act in which greater opportunity
and temptation are given to a predominant party to trample on
the rules of justice. Every shilling with which they overburden
the inferior number, is a shilling saved to their own pockets.
It is in vain to say that enlightened statesmen
will be able to adjust these clashing interests, and render
them all subservient to the public good. Enlightened statesmen
will not always be at the helm. Nor, in many cases, can such
an adjustment be made at all without taking into view indirect
and remote considerations, which will rarely prevail over the
immediate interest which one party may find in disregarding
the rights of another or the good of the whole.
The inference to which we are brought is, that
the CAUSES of faction cannot be removed, and that relief is
only to be sought in the means of controlling its EFFECTS.
If a faction consists of less than a majority,
relief is supplied by the republican principle, which enables
the majority to defeat its sinister views by regular vote. It
may clog the administration, it may convulse the society; but
it will be unable to execute and mask its violence under the
forms of the Constitution. When a majority is included in a
faction, the form of popular government, on the other hand,
enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both
the public good and the rights of other citizens. To secure
the public good and private rights against the danger of such
a faction, and at the same time to preserve the spirit and the
form of popular government, is then the great object to which
our inquiries are directed. Let me add that it is the great
desideratum by which this form of government can be rescued
from the opprobrium under which it has so long labored, and
be recommended to the esteem and adoption of mankind.
By what means is this object attainable? Evidently
by one of two only. Either the existence of the same passion
or interest in a majority at the same time must be prevented,
or the majority, having such coexistent passion or interest,
must be rendered, by their number and local situation, unable
to concert and carry into effect schemes of oppression. If the
impulse and the opportunity be suffered to coincide, we well
know that neither moral nor religious motives can be relied
on as an adequate control. They are not found to be such on
the injustice and violence of individuals, and lose their efficacy
in proportion to the number combined together, that is, in proportion
as their efficacy becomes needful.
From this view of the subject it may be concluded
that a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting
of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the
government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs
of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every
case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and
concert result from the form of government itself; and there
is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker
party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies
have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have
ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights
of property; and have in general been as short in their lives
as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic politicians,
who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously
supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their
political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly
equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions,
and their passions.
A republic, by which I mean a government in which
the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different
prospect, and promises the cure for which we are seeking. Let
us examine the points in which it varies from pure democracy,
and we shall comprehend both the nature of the cure and the
efficacy which it must derive from the Union.
The two great points of difference between a democracy
and a republic are: first, the delegation of the government,
in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the
rest; secondly, the greater number of citizens, and greater
sphere of country, over which the latter may be extended.
The effect of the first difference is, on the
one hand, to refine and enlarge the public views, by passing
them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose
wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country,
and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely
to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations. Under
such a regulation, it may well happen that the public voice,
pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be more
consonant to the public good than if pronounced by the people
themselves, convened for the purpose. On the other hand, the
effect may be inverted. Men of factious tempers, of local prejudices,
or of sinister designs, may, by intrigue, by corruption, or
by other means, first obtain the suffrages, and then betray
the interests, of the people. The question resulting is, whether
small or extensive republics are more favorable to the election
of proper guardians of the public weal; and it is clearly decided
in favor of the latter by two obvious considerations:
In the first place, it is to be remarked that,
however small the republic may be, the representatives must
be raised to a certain number, in order to guard against the
cabals of a few; and that, however large it may be, they must
be limited to a certain number, in order to guard against the
confusion of a multitude. Hence, the number of representatives
in the two cases not being in proportion to that of the two
constituents, and being proportionally greater in the small
republic, it follows that, if the proportion of fit characters
be not less in the large than in the small republic, the former
will present a greater option, and consequently a greater probability
of a fit choice.
In the next place, as each representative will
be chosen by a greater number of citizens in the large than
in the small republic, it will be more difficult for unworthy
candidates to practice with success the vicious arts by which
elections are too often carried; and the suffrages of the people
being more free, will be more likely to centre in men who possess
the most attractive merit and the most diffusive and established
characters.
It must be confessed that in this, as in most
other cases, there is a mean, on both sides of which inconveniences
will be found to lie. By enlarging too much the number of electors,
you render the representatives too little acquainted with all
their local circumstances and lesser interests; as by reducing
it too much, you render him unduly attached to these, and too
little fit to comprehend and pursue great and national objects.
The federal Constitution forms a happy combination in this respect;
the great and aggregate interests being referred to the national,
the local and particular to the State legislatures.
The other point of difference is, the greater
number of citizens and extent of territory which may be brought
within the compass of republican than of democratic government;
and it is this circumstance principally which renders factious
combinations less to be dreaded in the former than in the latter.
The smaller the society, the fewer probably will be the distinct
parties and interests composing it; the fewer the distinct parties
and interests, the more frequently will a majority be found
of the same party; and the smaller the number of individuals
composing a majority, and the smaller the compass within which
they are placed, the more easily will they concert and execute
their plans of oppression. Extend the sphere, and you take in
a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less
probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive
to invade the rights of other citizens; or if such a common
motive exists, it will be more difficult for all who feel it
to discover their own strength, and to act in unison with each
other. Besides other impediments, it may be remarked that, where
there is a consciousness of unjust or dishonorable purposes,
communication is always checked by distrust in proportion to
the number whose concurrence is necessary.
Hence, it clearly appears, that the same advantage
which a republic has over a democracy, in controlling the effects
of faction, is enjoyed by a large over a small republic,—is
enjoyed by the Union over the States composing it. Does the
advantage consist in the substitution of representatives whose
enlightened views and virtuous sentiments render them superior
to local prejudices and schemes of injustice? It will not be
denied that the representation of the Union will be most likely
to possess these requisite endowments. Does it consist in the
greater security afforded by a greater variety of parties, against
the event of any one party being able to outnumber and oppress
the rest? In an equal degree does the increased variety of parties
comprised within the Union, increase this security. Does it,
in fine, consist in the greater obstacles opposed to the concert
and accomplishment of the secret wishes of an unjust and interested
majority? Here, again, the extent of the Union gives it the
most palpable advantage.
The influence of factious leaders may kindle a
flame within their particular States, but will be unable to
spread a general conflagration through the other States. A religious
sect may degenerate into a political faction in a part of the
Confederacy; but the variety of sects dispersed over the entire
face of it must secure the national councils against any danger
from that source. A rage for paper money, for an abolition of
debts, for an equal division of property, or for any other improper
or wicked project, will be less apt to pervade the whole body
of the Union than a particular member of it; in the same proportion
as such a malady is more likely to taint a particular county
or district, than an entire State.
In the extent and proper structure of the Union,
therefore, we behold a republican remedy for the diseases most
incident to republican government. And according to the degree
of pleasure and pride we feel in being republicans, ought to
be our zeal in cherishing the spirit and supporting the character
of Federalists.
PUBLIUS
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