The Effects of Factions: Federalist 10 Explained *Part 1* | A Primary Source Close Read w/ BRI

0:03 Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Bill of Rights Institute’s Primary Source Close Reads. Today we’re going to be taking a look at Federalist Number 10. That’s one of the 85 Federalist Papers that were put together. And in this, this one, we’re going to explore factions and how it is that Republican governments, smaller Republican governments, create factions and how it is that the constitutional system works to correct this.

0:25 So let’s take a look. So before we get to the text itself, let’s just kind of get a big question on the table and then also take a look at some historical context. So the big question is thinking about factions is important. Factions are something that arise within organizations, within groups of people when they get together. But ultimately what Publius is talking

0:46 about, what this Federalist Paper is talking about is how is it that we can ensure that those factions don’t lead to something that takes the government away from operating towards the common good? So we’ll return to this question throughout, but that’s sort of a framing question I want to keep in mind. As I mentioned, again, we’re looking at Federalist 10. This is one of 85 papers that was written between August of 1787 and August of 1788,

1:08 specifically in New York, talking about trying to convince others that the Constitution ought to be ratified. So the Philadelphia Convention had come together. There was a new Constitution put forward that was going to replace the Articles Confederation. The Articles had had problems, particularly with factions in different states, aligning with different interests. And so this is part of a long series

1:29 of arguments trying to get people to vote for the new Constitution, to ratify it, as per the Constitution states in Article Seven. Let’s take a look at the text. So Federalist Ten, so the text actually says the same subject. Continue if you’re actually looking at a copy of the Federalist Papers, but that subject is the utility

1:50 of the Union as a safeguard against domestic faction and insurrection. Okay, so in other words, how is it that this new Union, the new Constitution in the Union it forms, going to prevent domestic faction and insurrection from occurring? So Publius here states that it’s to the people of New York. And he says, among the numerous advantages promised by a well-constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately

2:13 developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction. The friend of popular government never finds himself so much alarm for their character and fate as when he contemplates their propensity to this dangerous device of factions. However anxiously we may wish that these complaints had no foundation, the evidence of known facts will not permit us to deny that they are in some degree true.

2:36 In other words, what Publius is saying here, and in this case Publius was James Madison, is that when people talk about popular government, meaning government elected by people, by individuals that there is always a tendency that factions arise and that that tendency is a dangerous one and is often a charge raised against

2:56 popular government as to why it won’t work. And so Publius here is trying to be transparent and say look, we understand that factions are a problem and by the way this new constitution is going to deal with that problem in some really interesting ways. So Publius goes on now to define what a faction is important in any conversation or argument. So he says by a faction I understand

3:16 the number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole who are united in actuated by some common impulse of passion or of interest adverse to the rights of other citizens or to the permanent aggregate interests of the community. In other words, fashions are people that have sort of common interests around something that may not be aligned with the common interests of all.

3:40 And what he’s saying here is that these are things that do arise. And I have on the right here I’ve included a painting called The County Election by George Caleb Bingham which we have a great art analysis of that my colleague Mary Patterson did a BRIdge from the Past if you’re interested. But here I think it’s interesting because in that painting you see kind of these different factions coming about.

4:02 Infections should not be understood necessarily as political parties although political parties are a type of faction. But factions can be anything. And ultimately what faction is is a group of people who are interested in something that directly impacts them and that may come at the expense of the interests of others. And so the question that Publius put forward is how is it that we can even deal with these things called factions because they are

4:26 going to arise in popular government because people have their own interests, their own passions and ideas that they’re going to pursue. So he says there’s two real ways you can do this. You can either. And he says there are two methods for curing the mischiefs of faction. The one by removing its causes. The other by controlling its effects. So you can get rid of what it is that causes factions or you can control

4:50 those factions because you’re just not going to be able to get rid of them. And so talking about those causes he says there are 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, passions and the same interests. So in other words you can get rid

5:11 of liberty because liberty the freedom for us to make choices and to go about our daily lives, causes, factions, we all become interested in our own things. Or you can force people into all thinking the exact same, having the same opinions, the same passions, the same interests make us all sort of solely focused and interested in the same things.

5:33 So in talking about removing the causes pupils goes on to say this it could never be more truly said that of the first remedy that of getting rid of liberty, that it is worse than the disease. In other words, if you remove liberty that is far worse than just dealing with the problems that factions pose because I’m saying this amazing line liberty is to faction what error is

5:54 to fire an ailment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less a 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. In other words, if you get rid of liberty,

6:16 you’re getting rid of the essence of life, right? Like you get rid of fire or you get rid of air because you’re worried about fires breaking out. You’re not going to get rid of air. We need it to survive. Likewise he’s saying here we need liberty. The whole point of this entire constitution, this entire experiment in self government is to preserve and advance liberty and to get rid of that would be horrific.

6:38 Then he goes on to say well what about this other experience? Or the second expedient place here to brackets giving every citizen the same opinions, passions and interests, right? It’s impractical. Impracticable. He said as the first would be unwise. As long as the reason a man continues to be fallible and he is at liberty to exercise it, the different opinions will be formed, right?

6:59 As long as we are all able to come up with our own ideas and we’re free to think and free to pursue our own interests it’s not practical to give everybody the same interest because they’re not going to have it because it’s also a part of that idea of liberty. So this then leads to producers conclusion look, we can’t get rid of liberty, liberty is essential to our lives

7:19 and that liberty then gives us these different interests and passions and so that he concludes that the latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity according to the different circumstances of civil society. In other words, factions exist, they’re going to exist and the only

7:39 question that we have now in front of us is what are we going to do about them? Because they’re not going anywhere. It’s a part of why we have a popular government in the first place and it’s going to be a part of any popular government that we create. So it goes on to say the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. So I’ve included this in here just because

8:00 it’s interesting he says in different parts of civil society. And here he’s giving a concrete example. I’ve only included excerpts of the text, so I haven’t gone through all of this argument here, but this one, I think, stands out to us. He’s talking about landed interests. Look, this is a practical example. He’s saying, we all have different choices. We all have this liberty to make choices. And one of the things that comes about is the unequal distribution of property.

8:22 It exists. This is something we have today. But later, he’s writing obviously in 1787, later in the 19th century. You have a lot of thinkers who grapple with this, Karl Marx being a big one. What do we do with these classes that emerge? What do we do with these different unequal distribution of property? Here Publius is saying, look, this is something that exists. There’s always going to be these different interests that are existing within our

8:46 society because we all have these different sort of attainments in land and property and in interests, mercantile interests, money interests. And he says the regulation of these various things is actually what it is, that the task of the modern legislation

9:08 involves the regulation of these various interests. In other words, we’ve got these things that all come together in society. What modern legislators are supposed to do, modern 18th century modern legislators, is balance these things out. That’s a challenge. It involves the spirit of party in faction and necessary and ordinary operations of government. Meaning people are going to come to the table with these different things,

9:30 these different interests, these different backgrounds. The idea is that we have to balance these out. Justice ought to hold the balance between them. In an ideal world, we’re going to use justice as a lens to balancing out how these different interests are going to function. But we’re not going to understand that justice perfectly right on to say here it would be vain.

9:55 It would be vain to say that enlightened statesmen will be able to adjust these clashing interests and rather than subservient to the public good, enlightened statesment, 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. In other words, we can’t know enough indirect and remote considerations.

10:16 We can’t possibly know how all of these different ideas and things and interests are going to weigh against each other. Sometimes it’s referred to in some circles as the knowledge problem, right? We can’t know enough to know and perfectly balances out, which will rarely prevail immediate interest. So we’ve got immediate interest in front of us. I, as a legislature, I need to get something done.

10:38 Sure, it’s going to have long term hard effects, but I know that this immediate thing needs to get done. So, in other words, this is a big challenge, right? What are we going to do? How are we going to tackle this? So he says the inference to which we are brought. In other words, the conclusion that we’re faced with now is that the causes of faction cannot be removed.

10:59 They’re not going anywhere. We have these interests. He gives that practical example of what these interests are and that the only relief is going to be in controlling its effects, so we can’t get rid of the causes, so we’re going to control its effects. And on the right here, I have another cartoon. Again, this one found like the previous one was in our Life Liberty, Pursuit, Happiness text.

11:22 This is from 1798, so only about ten years after Publius is writing this. And it shows sort of the disruption that was happening in Congress after the XYZ affair and whether or not the United States should be siding with France or with Great Britain and going to France and causes big stir. But the reason I have that included is

11:42 because it shows these factions are existing. They’re going to exist. And so what Publius says that is so smart in his argument is, look, this is what it’s going to be, and so how is it that we can control them? So, just to do a quick recap, Publius is arguing that these factions are inevitable.

12:02 He’s saying, what can we do? Well, we can either remove their causes or we can control their effects. And here he’s concluding, look, there’s no way we can remove these causes, because in removing the causes, it is going to be far worse than if we just had the facts themselves. It’s self defeating. If we’re going to have popular government, we’re going to have factions. So the question now becomes, what are we going to do about it?

12:24 In the next part and the next essay, or sorry, in the next video, I’m going to be breaking down how it is that Publius says this new constitution is going to help us in controlling the effects of factions. So I hope you’ll join me. Thank you so much.