Madisons Federalist

1
Madisons Federalist 10
2
Deficiencies of Small Republics

• History shows faction plagued small republics
• Post-revolutionary experience is no exception.
• Under monarchies, factions were limited to
  personal followings
• In republics, factions are more diverse.

3
Human Nature

• The causes of faction lie in human nature.
• Unassisted reason is weak man opines.
• Self-love (partiality) is stronger than
  dispassionate reason.
• Political opinions often follow interests.
• But partiality can make opinions themselves a
  source of political faction.

4
Property interests

• Differing property interests are the most common
  and durable source of faction.
• Class warfare (the rich vs. the poor) is endemic
  to republics.
• Successful republics have heretofore depended
  upon saviors dispassionate and wise individuals
  who could adjust the competing claims to rule.

5
Visionary Solutions

• Political philosophers have attempted to remake
  human nature, so as not to be dependant upon
  political saviors.
• Ideal republics have been imagined where every
  citizen has the same passions, interests, and
  opinions concerning the good.
• Human nature repeatedly resists such solutions.

6
Modernity provides new opportunities

• Large monarchies have provided security and a
  degree of economic freedom, but not political
  liberty.
• Diverse economic interests have sprung up in the
  wake of the new nation-states.
• Manufacturing, merchandising, and banking have
  supplanted agriculture as the chief source of
  wealth.

7
Economic Complexity

• Adjusting complex economic relations is now the
  principal task of government, not regulating
  morality.
• Yet no one person can adjust a complex economy
  there will be no Solon of the commercial code.
• These economic forces must make the rules
  governing their own behavior.

8
Deficiencies of Small Republics

• Scarcity of wealth because of limited and
  undeveloped economic interests
• Subject to popular frenzy because individual
  responsibility is buried in group meetings
• At the mercy of persuasive popular orators
• Class rivalry divides the community and
  sacrifices individual and minority interests.

9
Madisons Solution

• Expand the territory to take in a greater variety
  of local interests.
• Provide economic freedom to allow economic
  interests to mature and diversify.
• Employ the principle of representation to provide
  for a multiplicity of viewpoints.
• Make decisions by majority rule to prevent
  minorities from gaining control.

10
Madisons Theory in Four Words

• LARGE
• COMMERCIAL
• REPRESENTATIVE
• DEMOCRACY
• The Solution To the Problem of Majority Tyranny

11
How it Works

• It is difficult for oppressive majorities to
  combine in the first place.
• If they do combine is certainly difficult for
  them to either disguise what they are doing or
  coordinate their actions.
• Any policy that gets made must accommodate itself
  to a multiplicity of interests scattered over a
  large territory.

12
In Madisons Own Words

• Extend the sphere (of government), 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.

13
Cohesive vs. Coalition Majorities

• Closed ranks united in class consciousness
• Ideologically fused
• Govern through comprehensive legislative programs
• Tendency to adopt extreme solutions

• Loose confederations crossing class lines
• Ideologically confused
• Produce piecemeal legislation then perish
• Bias towards compromise

14
Cohesive vs. Coalition Majorities

• Shut out the voice of opposition
• Neglected minorities go into permanent opposition
• Political leaders are firebrands and
  revolutionaries

• Respectful of minority and individual rights
• Minorities temper there demands in order to
  negotiate
• Political leaders are conciliatory power brokers

15
Cohesive vs. Coalition Majorities

• The result orderly government breaks down.
• The poor and the wealthy take turns oppressing
  and plundering one another.
• Eventually, everyone tires of democracy.

• The result social and economic changes take
  place slowly and predictably.
• A dominant middle class emerges.
• The majority governs through calm deliberation
  and rule of law.