Federalist 10 pdf

Reply to Maryland Landholder X. Fabius I. Fabius II. Reasons for Dissent. Fabius IV. Fabius V. A Farmer. Fabius VI. Speech at Virginia Ratifying Convention. Speech at the Virginia Ratifying Convention. First Speech of June The Ninth Pillar. Oration on the Fourth of July Letter to Alexander Hamilton. Report of the House Select Committee.

Public Opinion. House Debate on the Establishment of Post Roads. British Government. Pacificus No. Letter to Philip Mazzei. Witherspoon Letter about Isaac Newton. Bill of Rights. Objections at the Constitutional Convention. James Wilson's State House Speech. The Federal Farmer IV. A Federalist Essay. John DeWitt II. Brutus II. Atticus III. A Countryman II. Speech to the Pennsylvania Convention. The Dissent of the Minority of the Convention of P Letter to James Madison with Objections to the Pro Letter to Alexander Donald.

New Hampshire Ratification Convention: Virginia Ratifying Convention Amendment Proposals. New York Ratifies with 31 proposed amendment New York Ratifying Convention July 26, Letter to James Madison about Improving the Consti Letter to Thomas Jefferson about the Bill of Right Amendments to the Constitution of the United State Federalist No. Chapter 7: The Debate over Ratification.

A Citizen of Philadelphia. Address to the People of the United States. Letter to Henry Knox. Letter to David Shepard. A Foreign Spectator X. A Foreign Spectator XV.

A Foreign Spectator XX. Letter to Patrick Henry. Roger Sherman to Governor Samuel Huntington, trans Caesar, Letter I. Centinel I. Federal Farmer II. Federal Farmer III. Federal Farmer V. Convention Essay. One of the Four Thousand. Caesar, Letter II. Brutus I. Atticus II. Calling Massachusetts State Convention. John DeWitt I. Monitor Essay. Cato III. The Georgia State Convention. Philo-Publius I. Gouverneur Morris to George Washington, October Virginia Calls for State Convention.

A Landholder I. Pennsylvania elects 69 delegates. Centinel III. Letter to Bushrod Washington. Delaware calls for state convention. A Landholder II. Connecticut Elects delegates for State Convent Brutus III. Essay by A Georgian. Philo-Publius II. The Landholder III. Cato V. Agrippa I. Speech to the Pennsylvania Convention, November A Landholder IV.

A Democratic Federalist, November 26, Agrippa II. A Pennsylvania Farmer. New Jersey Elects 38 Delegates. Brutus IV. Philo-Publius III.

Letter to David Stuart. Agrippa III. Centinel IV. Philo-Publius IV. Agrippa IV. A Landholder V. Georgia Elects 26 Delegates. Speech to the Pennsylvania Convention, December 4, Delaware Ratifies Delaware Ratifying Convention Meets.

Agrippa V. Pennsylvania ratifies Cato VI. Brutus V. Letter to Charles Carter. A Landholder VII. Agrippa VII. The New Jersey Form of Ratification: New Jersey Convention. The Jefferson-Madison Exchange. Atticus IV. Agrippa VIII. Federal Farmer VI. Centinel VII. Centinel VIII. Dates of Ratification of the Constitution. The Problem of Judicial Review.

John DeWitt IV. Federal Farmer VII. America Essay. Agrippa X. Cato VII. Brutus VII. Connecticut ratifying convention. Federal Farmer IX. Letter to Governor Edmund Randolph. Federal Farmer X. Agrippa XI. The Connecticut Convention Ratifies: Common Sense, January 11, Federal Farmer XI. Federal Farmer XII. Speech to the Massachusetts Convention. Those politicians and statesmen, who have been the most celebrated for the soundness of their principles, and for the justness of their views, have declared in favor of a single executive and a numerous legislature.

They have with great propriety considered energy as the most necessary qualification of the former, and have regarded this as most applicable to power in a single hand; while they have with equal propriety considered the latter as best adapted to deliberation and wisdom, and best calculated to conciliate the confidence of the people and to secure their privileges and interests.

That unity is conducive to energy will not be disputed. Decision, activity, secrecy, and 5 dispatch will generally characterise the proceedings 6 of one man, in a much more eminent degree, than the proceedings of any greater number; and in proportion as the number is increased, these qualities will be diminished. This unity may be destroyed in two ways; either by vesting the power in two or more magistrates of equal dignity and authority; or by vesting it ostensibly in one man, subject in whole or in part to the controul and co-operation of others, in the capacity of counsellors to him.

Of the first the two consuls of Rome may serve as an example; of the last we shall find examples in the constitutions of several of the states. New-York and New-Jersey, if I recollect right, are the only states, which have entrusted the executive authority wholly to single men. They are both liable, if not to equal, to similar objections; and may in most lights be examined in conjunction. The experience of other nations will afford little instruction on this head. As far however as it teaches any thing, it teaches us not to be inamoured of plurality in the executive.

But it gives us no specimens of any peculiar advantages derived to the state, from the circumstance of the 8 plurality of those magistrates. That the dissentions between them were not more frequent, or more fatal, is matter of astonishment; until we advert to the singular position in which the republic was almost continually placed and to the prudent policy pointed out by the circumstances of the state, and pursued by the consuls, of making a division of the government between them.

The Patricians engaged in a perpetual struggle with the Plebeians for the preservation of their antient authorities and dignities; the consuls, who were generally chosen out of the former body, were commonly united by the personal interest they had in the defence of the privileges of their order.

In addition to this motive of union, after the arms of the republic had considerably expanded the bounds of its empire, it became an established custom with the consuls to divide the administration between themselves by lot; one of them remaining at Rome to govern the city and its environs; the other taking the command in the more distant provinces. This expedient must no doubt have had great influence in preventing those collisions and rivalships, which might otherwise have embroiled the peace of 9 the republic.

But quitting the dim light of historical research, and attaching ourselves purely to the dictates of reason and good sense, we shall discover much greater cause to reject than to approve the idea of plurality in the executive, under any modification whatever.

Wherever two or more persons are engaged in any common enterprize or pursuit, there is always danger of difference of opinion. If it be a public trust or office in which they are cloathed with equal dignity and authority, there is peculiar danger of personal emulation and even animosity.

From either and especially from all these causes, the most bitter dissentions are apt to spring. Whenever these happen, they lessen the respectability, weaken the authority, and distract the plans and operations of those whom they divide. If they should unfortunately assail the supreme executive magistracy of a country, consisting of a plurality of persons, they might impede or frustrate the most important measures of the government, in the most critical emergencies of the state.

And what is still worse, they might split the community into the most 10 violent and irreconcilable factions, adhering differently to the different individuals who composed the magistracy.

Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.

But if they have been consulted and have happened to disapprove, opposition then becomes in their estimation an indispensable duty of self love. They seem to think themselves bound in honor, and by all the motives of personal infallibility to defeat the success of what has been resolved upon, contrary to their sentiments.

Men of upright, benevolent tempers have too many opportunities of remarking with horror, to what desperate lengths this disposition is sometimes carried, and how often the great interests of society are sacrificed to the vanity, to the conceit and to the obstinacy of individuals, who have credit enough to make their passions and their caprices interesting to mankind.

Perhaps the question now before the public may in its consequences afford melancholy proofs of the effects of this despicable frailty, or rather detestable vice in the human character. Upon the principles of a free government, inconveniencies from the source just mentioned must necessarily be submitted to in the formation of the legislature; but it is unnecessary and therefore unwise to introduce them into the constitution of the executive.

It is here too that they may be most pernicious. In the legislature, promptitude of decision is oftener an evil than a benefit. The differences of opinion, and the jarrings of parties in that department of the government, though they may sometimes obstruct salutary plans, yet often promote deliberations and circumspection; and serve to check excesses in the majority. When a resolution too is once taken, the opposition must be at an end.

That resolution is a law, and resistance to it punishable. But no favourable circumstances palliate or atone for the disadvantages of dissention in the executive department. The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them every where 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 co-operate 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 monied 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 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?

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 over-burden 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 enquiries are directed. Let me add that it is the great desideratum, by which alone 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 co-existent 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.