James Madison’s attempt to answer the following question:

“How will the new Constitution protect the liberty of citizens against the tyranny of the majority?”

• Framers of the Constitution were emphatically not in favor of pure democracy, in this case, because in a pure democracy the majority will always win out the minority. Thus, no protection from minority views.

FACTIONS

“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.”

• Factions are such a threat to liberty that Madison uses the word “violence” to describe their actions.

“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 interest of the community.”

• A faction is a group of citizens whose desires to dominate governments so that they might impose their own interest on the whole society, to which Madison and other Federalists consider a great danger.

SOLUTION TO THE VIOLENCE OF FACTIONS

“There are two methods of curing the mischiefs of faction: the one, removing its causes; the other, by controlling its effects.”

• (1) Stop the factions from forming or (2) Let them try to form and limit their power.

  • Number one is a worse option, as it necessarily destroys liberty.

“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 ailment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly too 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 tendency.”

• To destroy liberty in service of controlling factions is worse than having factions in the first place.

“As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed.”

• The best way to control a faction’s effects is through a Republican Government as opposed to a pure democracy.

“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.”

• Size and diversity of the nation.

  • Madison says that as the nation grows in population, “You take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you will 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.”

  • “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.”

    • As more people are added to the nation, more and more factions will necessarily form, which was two consequences.

      • (1) Power of factions will be diluted by large population, so that no one faction can always get their way.

      • (2) Competition of factions results in compromise in order to pass legislation that considers the common good of society and not merely the interests of one group.