{"id":1845,"date":"2004-11-03T14:03:00","date_gmt":"2004-11-03T19:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=1845"},"modified":"2022-10-09T14:45:53","modified_gmt":"2022-10-09T18:45:53","slug":"federalist-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=1845","title":{"rendered":"Federalist # 10"},"content":{"rendered":"

I woke up at around 5:30 this morning. There’s a huge wind here in Manhattan today, and the sound of it battering against my window woke me up. I got up, I listened to the election on the radio for a bit, made some coffee, wrote in my journal my thoughts, reflections, feelings on this day.<\/p>\n

Then … I was passing by the bookcase in my kitchen (or, let me be clear, one<\/i> of the bookcases in my kitchen – each “room” in my tiny apartment has more than one bookcase in it) – I caught a glimpse of The Federalist Papers, and pulled it out. I thought: Yeah, man. Let’s take a look at this today. It seems appropriate.<\/p>\n

(I have mentioned before my kick-ass library <\/a>and how much I love to have those books around. It’s for moments like that. “Damn, I feel like peeking into the Federalist Papers right now … and lookee here, by golly, I can!!”)<\/p>\n

This morning, I read Federalist # 10, perhaps the most famous of all of the essays. Penned by James Madison, it is a brilliant essay on party-politics, and the dangers of factions. Now granted – Madison very famously changed his tune later in life, when he hooked up with Jefferson, and they began planning an opposition party.<\/p>\n

From Mr. We-Must-Try-To-Prevent-the-Forming-of-Parties to Mr. Let’s-Set-Up-a-Party-In-Opposition …<\/p>\n

That was Madison’s journey.<\/p>\n

Ironically, Madison and Jefferson ended up heading the party that would be known as the “Republicans” – They set themselves up against the “Federalists” – led by Alexander Hamilton. (Hamilton, of course, was Madison’s former friend and co-writer of the Federalist Papers. Madison, indeed, may have written the most famous one of the papers – but Hamilton’s contribution is beyond compare. Did that man ever sleep???) Madison and Hamilton, once so in agreement, diverged strongly … Madison feared Hamilton’s version of Federalism (which seemed to Madison just another version of aristocracy) – and Hamilton couldn’t stand Madison’s proposals for a more wide-spread distribution of power.<\/p>\n

Anyway. James Madison discusses in Federalist # 10 (you can read the text of it here<\/a>) the inevitability of factions (you cannot make a nation of millions of people with diverse backgrounds agree – nor should you try – look at Communist Russia – any kind of thought-control or toe-the-correct-party-line is totalitarianism. Also, more practically, it is nearly impossible to find two individual men who agree on EVERYTHING, let alone an entire nation) – so there will always be different opinions, etc. – but in # 10 Madison describes how important all those little pesky checks and balances in the Constitution are, and he describes this in a way unparalleled in its clarity. The dude had a brilliant legal mind.<\/p>\n

I’ll excerpt a couple of my favorite parts of it – but I was really <\/i>glad I read it this morning, at the tailend of one of the ugliest elections I can remember.<\/p>\n

It reminded me (as well as the brief and positive conversation I had with both my parents last night about America, this democratic process, the “civic duty”, the high voter turnout, etc.) that what I REALLY love (more than any candidate for President, more than any politician ever) is this country<\/i>, and our form of government.<\/p>\n

THAT is what I revere. THAT is what I am proud of. I participated yesterday. We all did. This is why this country is great. Our form of government is bigger than any candidate – the Office is larger than the Man.<\/p>\n

James Madison understood this to his core. So did all those Founding Father blokes. Actually, perhaps this is the wrong way to say it. It wasn’t so much that they “understood” this, because, after all, the entire thing was an improvisation, an experiment at that point. But they knew what it was that they feared. They were some of the deepest cynics to have ever walked this earth. Perfection is impossible. There is no utopia. There is ALWAYS a serpent in the garden. Man is corruptible. So – taking all of this as a given – they set out to create a government of LAWS, not MEN. They feared man’s corruptibility so much that there literally could not be enough checks and balances in our constitution. They knew that there was a possibility of a government becoming deadlocked with so many checks and balances. So be it. Better a deadlock than a tyranny.<\/p>\n

Madison writes:<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The following is one of my favorite excerpts (it comes from the beginning of the essay) – but I highly recommend you go read the rest.<\/a><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

There are two methods of curing the mischiefs of faction: the one, by removing its causes; the other, by controlling its effects.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

God bless America.<\/p>\n

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