The Points of James Madison in Writing the Federalist 10

Federalist 10 was written by James Madison on November 22, 1787. The tenth paper was written to address factions, or a group of people who gather together to protect their special interests and political opinions. Factions can be amounted to a majority or a minority of the whole and also work against the public interests and overlook the rights of other citizens. By writing this paper, James Madison is trying to make a point that the Constitution will establish a government that can control factions. Madison addresses the existence of factions by saying they are unavoidable. Men will always have different opinions and own different amounts of property. Socioeconomic class and opinions can create factions because people like to accompany themselves with others similar to themselves. It also addresses this existence by connecting self-love to a man's reason. As long as this connection exists, his opinions and passions will influence each other. According to Madison, there are only to methods of controlling a faction.

One method is by removing factions. There are only 2 ways to remove factions: destroy liberty or give every citizen the same opinions, passions, and interests. Destroying liberty would be foolish because it is essential to political life. Making every person the same would be impractical and destroying liberty would be unwise. The second method is to control the effects of a faction. Madison then states that there are 2 solutions to controlling the effects of the factions. The first is the principle of majority rule and the second is creating large republics that can "refine and enlarge" the views of the public. James Madison believes that the government created by the Constitution will be able to control the effects of a faction by perhaps these 2 solutions. There is one main difference between a republic and a direct democracy. In a republic, people vote on representatives that make the laws. In a direct democracy the citizens help make the laws directly. There are pluses and negatives to having a republic. A plus would be that the representatives would be able to protect the common good of the people. A negative would be that a man with evil motives could be elected and then betray the interests of the people.

Even though there are 2 sides of having a republic, it would still be able to control the effects of factions. In a direct democracy it would be hard to control these effects because one faction (the strongest and largest) will have all control. Because it is the citizens making the decisions instead of just a limited group of Elites, there would be no way to protect the rights of the people due to the one controlling faction. A representative democracy would be able to limit factions because a larger republic (like the one in the United States) will consist of many parties, therefore it would be harder for one party to suppress all the others. Also, in a large republic a representative would need a larger amount of votes. Therefore, it would be better for the representative to vote with the interests of the people rather than his own. This would limit factions because it makes it harder to create one. Once the people recognize a faction, they can vote against it. Just like the many parties could suppress the one specific faction. Madison states the primary object of government is the protection of the diversity of abilities in men especially the rights of property. These abilities are how men receive the rights to property.

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The more talented the person is, the more they own. The most common faction is due to unequal distribution of property. James Madison, I fully agree with you on your perspective of a Representative government being the best form of government to protect individual liberties. This is because a republic is able to take every citizen's personal interests and transform this idea into 1 main interest. Even though every person may not be happy, it is for the common good of the people. If every person voted for every law, a census would never be able to be formed. Citizens would be looking out for only themselves. This could create chaos and lead to 1 faction taking control. Instead, we have representatives that we choose that make the decisions for us. If the representative is looking out for the common good of the people he will consult with them first before deciding on a law. I think your perspective is spot on in the republic being the best form of government to protect our individual liberties I think the government does an acceptable job of guarding against factions. They definitely are able to guard the United States from violent factions like Al Qaeda.

Ever since 9/11 the government has done everything it can to stop Al Qaeda from doing harm to the United States and other countries. However, I think the citizens of the United States play a major role in guarding factions. The people are able to prevent one party, either the democrats or the republicans, from completely taking over the government. Because of this, we are able to stop one faction from controlling all the laws and bills passed through the United States government.

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