Federalist Item No. 10
The Federalist article no. 10 is the first of James Madison , one of the founding fathers of the United States , written essay in a series of 85 essays 1787-88 in the newspapers "Independent Journal" , "New York Packet" and "Daily Advertiser ” and published collectively under the name Federalist Papers .
Article No. 10 appeared on November 23, 1787 as a continuation of Federalist Article No. 9 under the title "Continuation of the topic: The utility of the union as protection from factions and insurrections within" ( The Same Subject Continued: The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection ) in the New York Packet under the pseudonym " Publius ".
Article No. 10 is now considered the most significant of the 85 Federalist Articles.
Historical background
The 1777 adopted Confederation ( Articles of Confederation ) of the United States had proved a few years after its ratification in 1781 as insufficient to ensure an efficient government of the State Union. In 1787 the Philadelphia Convention was convened to revise the articles, but as a result drafted a new constitution . In September 1787 the draft was passed on to constitutional conventions in the individual states for ratification. From September 1787, the opponents of the Federation ("Anti-Federalists") agitated in the Anti-Federalist Papers against the ratification of the draft constitution. The Federalist essays by Alexander Hamilton , James Madison and John Jay countered this on the part of the Republicans .
content
. In Federalist No. 10 item represents Madison the view that a representative democracy better than a direct democracy was likely an factions - to control or form political parties and to meet their dangers. States with a large area and population are superior to smaller states, while the federal structure of the Union ensures that local interests are also taken into account.
The formation of factions is based on nature and human freedom
According to Madison, conflicts between rival interest groups ( factions ) destabilize the government and disregard the common good . He defines a faction as follows:
"By a faction I understand a group of citizens - that can be a majority or a minority of the whole - that is united by the common impulse of a passion or interest and is motivated to act, which contradicts the rights of other citizens or is in the permanent and common interest of the community. "
Human reason is fallible, but man is free to use it. Therefore, different opinions will always develop which, because of human self-love, are linked to passions and are therefore emphatically represented. People have different and unequal skills, which makes them differently successful in their businesses, for example in acquiring property. From the different interests and views, for example of debtors and creditors with regard to the protection of property as a state task, a division of society into interest groups and political parties results. The unequal distribution of property, which divides people into different classes, is one of the most frequent and permanent causes of faction formation.
The regulation of the different and mutually overlapping interests is the main task of modern legislation and takes into account the spirit of parties and factions themselves in the necessary and everyday actions of the government. The formation of factions can be countered on the one hand by restricting freedom, on the other hand by bringing about equality of opinion and interests among citizens. The first option is unrealistic, as freedom is essential for political life:
"Freedom is to factions what air is to fire, an elixir of life without which they immediately suffocate."
The second possibility of establishing equality of opinion and interests is not feasible due to human nature. Madison concludes that the possible harm from factioning can only be limited by controlling its effects.
Control of the faction problem through representation and large numbers of voters
Madison describes the aim of his analysis on the one hand to secure the common good and civil rights against faction formation, while preserving the spirit and form of democracy. Moral or religious motives did not guarantee sufficient control.
Naturally, the faction problem applies to groups that are in the majority. A faction that is in the minority will not be able to enforce its goals in the election. In the case of a majority faction, the democratic form of government makes it possible for the prevailing passions or interests to fall victim to both the common good and the rights of other citizens. This can be countered by either preventing the same passions or interests from reigning in a majority at the same time, or by making a majority faction incapable of exerting oppression through a large number and wide distribution of representatives.
In a democracy that is small in terms of area and population, majorities would quickly emerge, even for goals that are undesirable in themselves and which could easily be achieved by means of the democratic government. Nothing prevents them from suppressing the weaker party or individual uncomfortable citizens. In a direct democracy ( democracy ) every citizen votes directly on laws, in a representative democracy ( republic ), on the other hand, the citizens elect a small group of representatives who are entrusted with the government. This is more beneficial to the common good, since representatives can make decisions more independently than individual citizens who are guided by their own interests. Regardless of how small the (representative, democratically governed) republic is, there must be a certain minimum number of MPs in order to prevent clubbing. Likewise, in a large republic, the number of MPs would have to be limited in order to keep track of the crowd.
If the government is in the hands of MPs, this allows the government to expand to large areas and high populations. This in turn makes it possible to find “suitable characters” when selecting the delegates. An extensive state area makes manipulation (" vicious art ") through election propaganda more difficult because of the great distances . Likewise, a corrupt MP must bribe a much larger number of voters than is necessary in a small population. Finally, representative democracy also allows the influence of factions to be limited regionally.
Advantage of a federal organization of the republic
In Federalist Article No. 10, Madison points out that the federal organization of the Union strikes a balance between the desired diversity within a large population and the need to adequately address local circumstances and smaller interests. State agencies and local subordinate agencies could meet local needs.
Opposite position of the anti-federalists
The authors of the Anti-Federalist Papers contradicted the idea that a republic as extensive as the constitution foreseen, with such pronounced contradictions, could endure. The later Vice President George Clinton wrote under the pseudonym " Cato ":
“Whoever seriously considers the immense extent of territory comprehended within the limits of the United States, with the variety of its climates, productions, and commerce, the difference of extent, and number of inhabitants in all; the dissimilitude of interest, morals, and policies, in almost every one, will receive it as an intuitive truth, that a consolidated republican form of government therein, can never form a perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, promote the general welfare , and secure the blessings of liberty to you and your posterity, for to these objects it must be directed: this unkindred legislature therefore, composed of interests opposite and dissimilar in their nature, will in its exercise, emphatically be, like a house divided against itself. "
The general opinion of the anti-federalists was that a republic the size of a single state could endure, but not one as extensive as the Union. The argument was supported by the fact that most of the individual states had focused on a specific industry: trade and shipping in the north, plantation economy in the south. The antifederalists' prediction that the deep contradictions between the economic interests of individual states would lead to disputes is confirmed by some historians in the outbreak of the Civil War . In a letter to Thomas Jefferson , Madison himself reported that there had been a dispute over different economic interests during the drafting of the constitution.
The discussion about the ideal size of a republic was not limited to the two options of a comprehensive union or the preservation of the respective individual states. In a letter to Richard Price , Benjamin Rush noted that some members of Congress had proposed an Eastern, Central, and Southern Confederation that would externally form an offensive and defensive alliance.
The anti-federalists relied mainly on Montesquieu , who in his work The Spirit of Laws had argued that a republic could only exist successfully in a small territory. Brutus ( Robert Yates ) pointed out that both ancient Greece and Rome were originally small states, and that their expansion came with the change from a liberal form of government to tyranny .
Madison continues the controversy over the size of a republic in Federalist Articles 14 and 39 .
See also
literature
- Angela and Willi Paul Adams: Hamilton / Madison / Jay: The Federalist Articles: Political Theory and Constitutional Commentary by the American Founding Fathers. With the English and German text of the US Constitution . Schöningh, Paderborn 2004, ISBN 3-8252-1788-4 , pp. 38-44 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Federalist Article No. 10 in the Library of Congress , accessed April 2, 2018
- ↑ Benjamin Fletcher Wright: Editor's introduction: Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay. The Federalist . Metro Books (Reprint Harvard University Press), 2002, ISBN 1-58663-572-7 , pp. 34 .
- ^ Douglass Adair: The Tenth Federalist Revisited . In: The William and Mary Quarterly . 8, No. 1, 1951, pp. 48-67 , JSTOR : 1920733 .
- ↑ Mathew Manweller: The People vs. the Courts: Judicial review and direct democracy in the American legal system . Academica Press, Bethesda 2005, ISBN 978-1-930901-97-1 , pp. 22 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
- ↑ Thomas Gustafson: Representative Words: Politics, Literature, and the American Language, 1776-1865 . Cambridge University Press, 1992, ISBN 978-0-521-39512-0 , pp. 290 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
- ↑ Quoted from Adams & Adams (2004): Die Federalist-Artikel, p. 51. In the original: “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 impulses of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community. "
- ↑ Quoted from Adams & Adams (2004): Die Federalist-Artikel, p. 51. In the original: "Liberty is to faction, what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires."
- ↑ In the absence of a German translation of Cato III known to the editor, the original text was left and a separate translation was created: “Anyone who considers the immense extent of the land area within the borders of the United States, with different climates, production and trade, the differences in population density and -number; the diversity of interests, morals and political lines of almost everyone will automatically lead to the thought that a republican form of government under one roof will never form a complete union, create justice, ensure peace of mind, promote the common good and the blessings of freedom for you and your descendants, because they should pursue these goals: therefore this cold legislation, which by its nature is built up according to opposing and incompatible interests, will be as capable of acting as a house that is divided in itself. "
- ^ Roger L. Ransom: Economics of the Civil War . Ed .: University of California. Riverside 2001 ( archive.org [accessed June 13, 2019]).
- ↑ James Madison to Thomas Jefferson , October 24, 1787 . The Founders' Constitution. Volume 1, Chapter 17, Document 22. University of Chicago Press. Retrieved June 13, 2019.
- ^ Benjamin Rush to Richard Price, October 27, 1786. In: The Founders' Constitution. Vol. 1, chap. 7, Document 7. University of Chicago Press, accessed June 25, 2019 .
- ↑ a b Brutus No. 1. In: The Founders' Constitution. Vol. 1, chap. 4, Document 14th University of Chicago Press, accessed June 25, 2019 .
- ↑ Montesquieu, On the Spirit of Laws , Volume I, Book VIII, Chapter XVI