James Madison Factions

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In James Madison’s “The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection” (Federalist Paper number 10) he discusses factions and he defines factions as a group or party of people that are united by the same common goal or interest without considering the effects it will have on the citizens and the communities. An example of how factions relate to tyranny would be when the colonies were wanting to break away from King George and the British government. The colonists didn’t like not having a say or a voice in government and not being allowed to participate in government or politics. By not giving the opportunity for the people to participate in government, this lead to tyranny. The colonists wanted to avoid tyranny, that is why …show more content…

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. Madison expressed that it is impossible to destroy liberty because one cannot make everyone have the same ideologies, so it’s impossible to extinguish factions. Madison expressed that he preferred a small republic over a large republic. With a large republic a representative would have been picked by a big number of citizen in a large republic than in a small republic. In a small republic it would make it more challenging for ineligible candidates to gain a position in