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Faction In 1787 James Madison's Republic System

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If you were to look up “faction” in a dictionary the definition would read: a group or clique within a larger group, party, government, or organization. On November 22, 1787 James Madison would publish Federalist Paper #10, exemplifying his understanding of the word “faction” and how to solve the issue involving such matters. During his creation and publication of Federalist Paper #10 Madison defined faction as "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, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community". When analyzing Federalist Paper #10 a “Republic system” becomes apparently …show more content…

Destroying liberty would be the first, “liberty is to faction, what air is to fire”-#10. However Madison understood that this was impossible to perform because liberty is what the people had recently fought for during the Revolution and the fact that it is essential to political life. The second would be the economic diversity. This is what complicates the people from sharing similar/same opinions. A man’s ability to do a certain job is what gets him income to, how much he works to build his assets is what separates people between classes, and he believed that inequality of property is a right that should be protected. Madison conveys his point that the damage caused by factions can decreased if you control its effects. He believed that pure democracy would not cure factions and thought direct democracy a danger to person’s individual rights and supported a representative democracy to protect individual liberty from majority rule. "A pure democracy can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will be felt by a majority, and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party. Hence it is, that democracies have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their

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Tola APGOPO 10/9/12 Exemplar Large Republic: Best Control of Effects of Factions Federalist 10 Summary: In Federalist 10, James Madison or Publius asserts that the Constitution establishes a government capable of controlling the violence and damage caused by factions. He states that Antifederalist complain that the government is too unstable, claim rival parties disregard the public good, and that decisions are made by the majority rather than by justice and the rights of the minority. Madison goes on to define a faction as a group of citizens, either a majority or minority, whose actions are motivated by a passion or interest that hurts the rights of other citizens or goes against the best interests of the

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Madison suggests removing the problem of faction “by destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence (book).” He then goes on to say right after that in the fifth paragraph that destroying liberty would not work because it defeats the purpose of creating a free society and in the sixth paragraph he calls it impractical (need to cite?). Calling it impractical is a good point because if someone were to try and take liberty from everyone people would revolt and fight for their rights and possibly become more set in their faction which is the opposite of what they want. “Liberty is to faction what air is to fire” what Madison means is that wanting to get rid of liberty because of factions is like trying to get rid of air because it fuels fire, and without air we would die(book). The other thing Madison states in his first argument is the idea of “giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests (book).

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Madison's Views On Faction Summary

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1.) What does Madison mean by the term “Faction”? What is a modern term we would use today? Madison uses the term faction to refer to groups of individuals arguing not for the rights or good of the community as a whole, but rather that which would benefit those who hold similar positions or interests. Different factions represent different ideas, leading to conflict and debate.

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James Madison's 'Main Ideas In Federalist 10'

1861 Words | 8 Pages

James Madison’s main ideas in Federalist 10 were about factions and how to remove the causes but also control the effects. He described a faction as “By a faction, I understand a number if 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 (“The Federalist #10).” Madison was correct in his statements about removing the causes and controlling the effects of factions. During the time Federalist 10 was written the Federalists were using the papers to help convince the states to ratify the Constitution.

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James Madison’s Federalist 10 was written amid criticisms that a republican form of government had never been successful on a large scale. Madison’s argument was that a well-constructed union could control factions. He argued that in order to control factions from their causes, we would need to either give up liberty or free thought. Since we cannot infringe upon these two natural rights, we must move on to controlling the effects. A republic, Madison argues, would be able to do this because the people choose the representatives, and they choose representatives who they feel best represent their opinions.

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What Is Madison's Arguments Against The Establishment Of Factions?

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I don't know that I really agree with either one of these positions! You see, in Federalist #10, Madison argues against the establishment of factions, which some people have taken to mean that he was opposed to political parties - not separate branches of government. Madison states that factions can be destroyed by limiting individual liberty (which is undesirable) or by creating a homogeneous society (which is impractical. Because the causes of factionalism cannot be curbed, its effects must be limited by making a republic large enough, with enough checks and balances, such that a majority faction cannot gain power at the expense of minority factions, fooling voters and exploiting their passions. In federalist 51, the idea of having three

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10 in an attempt to ratify the Constitution, the new form of government for the United States. In the Federalist Paper No. 10, Madison analyzed the way to deal with facts, made a comparison between a pure democracy and a republic, and made another comparison on whether a small government or a large government would be the best for America. He informed the people that there is not a way to completely get rid of factions, but there are ways to deal with them. One great way to deal with factions is by having a government that knows how to control and deal with their effects. Madison believes that a republic can do that job better than a democracy, because a democracy is a small society of people who can not admit there is a cure to factions.

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Madison brings up that it isn’t possible to divide power absolutely equally and “In republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates.” (2). And so, the legislative branch will be divided even more to try and combat the unbalance of power. Madison thought this system was a good method because he believed that it was part of human nature to have conflicting ideas and wants, and so each branch could keep the others in line and therefor no one power is above the others. Furthermore, Madison believes a bigger government with multiple branches is better because then it becomes difficult for one

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Supreme Courts Dbq

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Thus causing even more conflict, especially amongst those not in the South. Another controversial issue was federalism because Marshall gave the national government a vast amount of power over state 's rights, and Taney believed more in giving power to the state rather than the national government. In addition, this is when outside groups started forming and lobbying their influence over government decisions, whether it is pertaining to slavery, rights, or economic interests. James Madison regarded “factions” or interest groups with concern when authoring segments of the Federalist Papers. The problem he envisioned was that eliminating them from the political scene was a threat to democratic principles, a cure worse than the disease.

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James Madison's Arguments In Favor Of The Constitution

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James Madison starts this most popular of the Federalist papers by explaining that one of the toughest arguments in favor of the constitution is the principal that it establishes a government able to control the disturbance and damage made by factions. James Madison describes factions as groups of individuals in communities who gather around together in unity to promote and protect their special economic interests as well as political opinions. Even though these factions exhibit differences as well as distinguishing marks that separate them from each other, they constantly and continue work towards the public interest which gains support from inhabitants within those factions. And at times might infringe upon the social and communal rights

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James Madison’s writing of Federalist No. 10 examines the issues regarding the original Articles of Confederation, weighing and balancing the options of creating an effective government from a Federalist perspective. Madison’s attempt is to give the majority the power such as in a true democracy, though this raises the issue such that the majority may be in the wrong. In this, people of the minorities such as Madison himself being a wealthy citizen would need to “watch out” for the majority that they just gave the power to. Madison discussed how a republic system may be a solution to such a problem. He feels as if a republic would solve many of these solutions, yet cause more at the same time.

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The only way one can control factions is to interfere with the causes of factions, and by doing that it controls the effects. When the ambitions and desires of one party are overwhelming, they try to get as much as they can; they won’t stop unless it is equally distributed amongst the parties. An example would be the separation of powers, (Legislative, Executive, and Judicial) the three different branches are given specific jobs and powers so that one branch cannot over power another. Madison concludes that, “you can’t extinguish the factions.” In the Federalists Papers Madison, describes liberty and factions like air and fire; fire cannot survive without air.

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Factions could not be prevented, but they could be controlled. James Madison stated in “ The Federalist No. 10”, “as each representative will be chosen by a greater number of citizens in the large than in the small republic… and the suffrages of the people being more free, will be more likely to centre in men who possess the most attractive merit and the most diffusive and established characters”. With a representative from a larger body of people, the individual will represent a greater percentage of the population and have to act with civic virtue. That one representative would be more virtuous and efficient as he or she must be able to satiate everyone’s beliefs. Additionally, the Founders incorporated the very values of a republican government into the culture of the United States.

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Madison addresses the concerns of the Federalist by first defining factions. “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.” (Madison). Then he suggests that the only two ways to deal with the problem are to either eliminate factions by removing their causes or limit their impact by controlling their effects. From this portion of the essay, my understanding is that since people have their own self-interests and these self-interests clash with others, the government needs to be able to pass laws for the common good of all instead of any one specific group.

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Factions and Federalist Essay No. 10 The federalist papers were a series of 85 essays written to convince the citizens of New York to ratify the constitution. Federalist essay No.10, written by James Madison, discusses political factions and their effects. Madison’s definition of a faction is clearly stated in the essay.

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