September 4, 2025 • 24 mins
Dr. Alan Gibson delves into James Madison's groundbreaking argument in Federalist 10 that challenges traditional thinking about republics and factions. Madison innovatively argues that a large, diverse republic better protects against majority tyranny than a small, homogeneous one by using the multiplicity of interests as a stabilizing force.
• Madison boldly challenges the small republic thesis prevalent in classical republican theory
• Factions form around opinions, passions, and interests, with economic interests being the most durable source
• Two approaches exist for handling factions: removing causes (by destroying liberty or homogenizing society) or controlling effects
• Majority factions pose the greatest threat as they can use democratic processes to tyrannize minorities
• Large republics with diverse interests make it difficult for majority factions to form and act in concert
• Representative systems with large districts tend to elect more capable, impartial representatives
• The multiplicity of interests in an extended republic creates moderation and impartial resolution of disputes
• Madison's experience with religious freedom in Virginia informed his thinking about factional conflict
• For AP Government students, this material connects to Topic 1.3 on government powers and individual rights
We encourage you to read Federalist 10 directly while listening to this episode for deeper understanding. Each reading reveals new insights into this foundational text of American political thought.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome back everyone to Civics in a Year.
We are continuing ourconversation with Dr Alan Gibson
on Federalist 10.
If you have not listened to theprevious episode, please go
ahead and do so first.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Madison, in contrast, is going to be the person who
boldly challenges the smallrepublic thesis.
Okay, challenges the smallrepublic thesis, okay.
First, he doesn't believe thatit's possible to have really a
very large government orterritory at all governed and
have a homogeneity of interest.
Even the state governments havediversity, a lot of diversity
(00:40):
within them, and the stategovernments Hamilton's going to
say this in Federalist no 9, areactually much bigger and much
more diverse than anything thatwas set forth in the ancient
world with regard to Republicanforms of government.
So Madison doesn't make that asmuch as he makes the argument
(01:02):
that diversity itself is abenefit as opposed to a big
problem.
Anyway, the thing that Madisonsays most, his greatest
innovation, is to argue that ifyou grant liberty, you end up
with diversity, and thatdiversity itself can provide
(01:26):
stability and can provide abetter kind of foundation for
stability in the large republicthan the superficial hope that
you're going to actually achievea homogeneity of interest in a
small republic.
He says that you're not goingto do that.
(01:47):
Anyway, madison really ischallenging several aspects of
the small republic thesis.
Republics in the ancient worldwere democracies in which people
met in person, in which thewhole population of citizens
(02:07):
which was not of course thewhole population of inhabitants
but the whole population ofcitizens, would meet in
assemblies to decide questions.
This is Athenian democracy atleast, and Madison
differentiates a republic from ademocracy.
But these ancient republicswere democracies.
(02:28):
It's direct democracy, what hecalls pure democracy, the
principle of representation,which was really not known in
the ancient world or deployed inrepublics in the way that it's
(02:49):
going to be in the United Statesand then all subsequent
republics in world history.
So anyway, he challenges that.
He argues against, again,standard Republican theory that
it's wrong or impossible to tryto cure the mischiefs of faction
by removing their causes.
(03:10):
Remember, he's going to controltheir effects.
And most importantly, he arguesthat a large republic with a
multiplicity of religious andinterests will be more stable
and more just in itsadministration than a small
republic.
What that comes down to is thenumerous interests in the
extended republic are going tocheck and balance each other and
(03:32):
provide that stability.
So again, that's sort of thecore point.
Now I can back up here and thengo through the argument pretty
much as it appears in the 10thFederalist Paper.
There are a few variations here, but I'll talk about a number
of different things and thenjust sort of provide the details
of Madison's argument.
(03:53):
So he starts out talking abouthow Republican governments face
the problem of faction.
He uses the phrase it's thediseases most incident to
Republican government.
What are those diseases?
They're the diseases caused bythe problem of faction, and
Americans have experienced theseproblems in their state
(04:15):
governments and they've also.
These problems have appearedthroughout the history of
Republican governments, and wehave this narrative.
He then defines a faction, andthat is an interesting part of
this.
His definition of a faction ispretty much consistent with
ancient understandings offactions.
(04:38):
He says by a faction Iunderstand a number of citizens,
whether amounting to a majorityor minority of the whole, and
of course he's going to focus onthe majority.
That is going to be the mostthreatening form of factionalism
, because the majority can getits way using the forms of the
(05:03):
Constitution.
The majority faction can usethe Constitution to create a
tyrannical act.
Okay, and so Republicangovernments operate off the
principle majority rule,majority factions can rule under
the forms of the Constitution,but they can rule in their own
(05:27):
favor, favor, and they canviolate people's rights.
He's worried about what we callmajority tyranny, democratic
despotism, a phenomenon thatMontesquieu I'm sorry that
Tocqueville, and also JohnStuart Mill are going to fast on
to really firmly in their thing.
So anyway, he says factions, anumber of citizens, majority or
(05:49):
minority of the whole, who areunited and actuated by some
common impulse of passion or ofinterest.
And so united and actuated justmeans brought together and made
active, charged or broughttogether and activated would be
another way of saying this bypassions or interest, and these
(06:13):
are adverse to the rights ofother citizens and the permanent
and aggregate interest of thecommunity.
So factions are opposed to therights of people and the
permanent and aggregate or thecommon interest.
So that definition offactionalism is pretty much in
(06:33):
line with how factions beenunderstood for a long time.
Anyway, madison then gives atypology of faction.
So we know that factions aregoing to take place as either
majorities or minorities, and wehave to worry about majorities
more.
But also, how are they going toform?
(06:54):
What types of factions are wegoing to get?
Later in the analysis he saysthat we're going to have
factions concerning opinions,passions and interests.
Okay, and opinions are thoseconcerning government and
religion.
So he's talking there aboutideology and faith and how
religion can become politicized.
(07:16):
We know that, of course, inAmerica and people can disagree
with each other and divide intothese groups opposing each other
based upon their politicalideologies as well.
Passions, he says, are expressedas an attachment to different
rulers.
So this is an old-fashionedunderstanding of faction, as a
(07:39):
faction is the followers, isconstituted by the followers of
a certain leader.
So the Trump faction, the Obamafaction, the Clinton faction
you might think of those kindsof these are the group of people
who follow a particular leaderand they're going to be in
conflict with people who followa different leader.
(08:01):
And then, finally, he callsinterest or property the most
constant and durable source offaction.
This is a really importantpoint and something that AP
graders actually look for toowhen they talk about this kind
of thing.
So he's saying that we're goingto have most of our conflict,
(08:22):
most of the time, over economicinterest, more than we are even
over passions or ideology,passions for different rules or
ideologies.
We're going to have economicconflict and he does recognize
in their, incidentally interestgroup conflict, the differences,
the kinds of conflicts thatpeople have as a result of being
(08:42):
a member of one interest groupversus another interest group.
And, incidentally, I shouldhave said this earlier faction
is most analogous to interestgroups today.
Sometimes students want to makefactions analogous to political
parties.
They're more like what he'stalking about is more like what
we call interest groups.
Talking about is more like whatwe call interest groups.
(09:10):
Anyway, these kinds of conflictcan be conflicts between
interest groups, but they canalso be class conflicts.
They can be conflicts betweenpeople who have property and
people who do not have property,or rich versus poor, or that
kind of thing.
So, anyway, you've got thisproblem of faction, then you've
got a definition of faction,then you've got this typology of
faction, and then he makes thisfamous division and he says
(09:33):
there are two methods of curingthe mischief of faction.
You can either try to removethe causes or control the
effects.
And you can remove the causesby destroying liberty.
Obviously you don't want to gothat direction.
That's unwise.
He says it's a cure worse thanthe disease and he sets up
(09:56):
almost this kind of.
He sets up this direct analogyand he says faction is to add to
, is to liberty, as error is tofire.
Okay, so, uh, if you have, ifyou grant liberty, you're going
to end up with faction andfaction and error is also
necessary to have fires, andfire is good and it nourishes,
(10:20):
but fire is is also bad in someways.
Anyway, he says it cannot beless folly to abolish liberty,
which is essential to politicallife because it nourishes
faction, than it is to wish theannihilation of air, which is
essential to animal life becauseit imparts, to fire its
(10:44):
destructive agency.
So that's one way to remove thecauses, and he doesn't want
that.
And the other way is to give toeveryone, to give to all the
citizens the same opinions,patterns, of interest.
He calls this impracticable and,like I said earlier, though,
this is the strategy that mostRepublican theorists have had up
(11:08):
until this time period abouthow to deal with the problem of
faction.
Many of them have said that youhave to try to use things like
religious belief or a commoneducation or civic education, or
also even rules about thedistribution of property in a
particular place, to preventthere from being all this
(11:30):
factionalism.
You try to give to everyone thesame opinions, passions and
interests.
He calls that impractical.
He doesn't believe there's beenan experiment in it that has
worked.
That method, incidentally, iskind of caricatured in Plato's
Republic, where he talks aboutthe communism of the guardian
(11:51):
class and how they're not goingto have any property and also
the establishment of certainkinds of beliefs that reach
across and unify people.
So Madison says he'sexperimented, thought about
these two ways of removing thecauses.
He says we're going to have tocontrol the effects, we're going
(12:12):
to grant liberty, we're goingto end up with factions and
factionalism and we're stillgoing to have to try to control
the effects of these factions.
But the effects of all factionsare not the same.
The effects of majorityfactions are much more
consequential, more destructivethan the effects of minority
(12:35):
factions.
Minority factions, thepolitical system could handle
them, they can be outvoted inthe normal processes of
government.
But majority factions can againuse the forms of government to
effect their violence.
Madison says what this means isthat the ancient form of a
(13:00):
republic, a pure democracy, hasno remedy for majority factions.
People meet in their assembly,they vote, they're right there
with each other, they know eachother's opinions, passions and
interests and the majoritycoalesces and they abuse the
rights of the minority.
Madison then defines theproblem as and he calls this his
(13:25):
great desiderato, and hedescribes the problem as
reconciling majority rule withthe protection of power,
individual rights and thepromotion of the public good,
but and here's the catch withoutviolating the form of
(13:47):
Republican government.
So we need a Republican remedyfor a Republican problem of
majority factionalism.
He then essentially lays outtwo solutions to this.
He then essentially lays outtwo solutions to this.
One of them and this is verythe language in this is very
(14:08):
convoluted.
In this part it's the only partof the 10th federalist paper
that's kind of really hard toread or obscure.
Anyway he says that you'regoing to, in effect, elect
representatives from largegeographical districts.
You don't have to have as manyrepresentatives in a large
republic in proportion tocitizens as you do in a small
(14:28):
republic, and so what that isgoing to do is you're going to
create much larger geographicdistricts.
Madison then argues that that'sgoing to increase the
probability for the election ofthe best representatives.
You're going to get these wiseguardians of the public good if
(14:48):
you elect them from largegeographical districts.
He says that unworthycandidates will be less able to
practice what he calls thevicious arts by which such
elections are conducted, and thevicious arts is a term of craft
from Shakespeare.
It has to do with witchcraft,and so this is the idea of using
(15:12):
rhetoric, in effect, to stirpeople up.
This is the he's worried.
He's saying you're going to getfewer demagogues if you elect
people from large geographicdistricts.
There are other reasons whylarge geographic districts are
better for elections.
One thing that happens is youhave fewer people in the
(15:33):
legislative branch itself andthat turns out you have to raise
the number to a certain levelto get a deliberative assembly.
But if you go beyond that level, if you get too many people in
there, actually the politicalsystem he says in Federals 52
and 58 operates with more of anoligarchic tendency.
(15:54):
Fewer members actuallyparticipate in a really large
legislative body than amoderately sized one, and that's
when he thinks is best fordeliberation.
And this is related to thenumber of representatives and
how big the districts are aswell.
But he places the most emphasisand this is where he's
(16:15):
considered most innovative insaying that the extended
republic will reach out across avariety of interests in the
nation and religious sects inthe nation and that that will
prevent majority factions fromcoalescing on principles other
(16:38):
than justice and the public good.
And that comes from Federalistno 51 when he reintroduces this
idea.
Anyway, if you have an extendedrepublic, you're going to have
a greater number of individuals,a greater distance between the
people and the people and theirrepresentatives and especially,
you're going to have a greatervariety of interest in religious
(17:01):
sects in the nation.
That's going to make it lessprobable that the majority knows
it's a majority.
You have to know that you're amajority to want to act upon
that impulse.
They're going to be less likelyto know they're a majority and
then they're going to have theseobstacles or barriers to acting
(17:21):
in concert with each other.
Now I want to put a particulartwist on this and you can make
up your own to the students I'mspeaking to.
You can make up your own mindwhether you put this in your
advanced placement exam becauseit may not fit with their
template or their grading schemeand know how these things are
done.
But anyway, here's what'sreally going on in both of those
(17:45):
arguments for expandedelectoral districts and for
extent of territory anddiversity of interest.
Both of them promote theimpartial arbitration of
factional disputes.
So what Madison wants and hetalks about this early in Ted
Farrell's paper is there to beimpartiality in the resolution
(18:11):
of factional disputes.
So you need a third party kindof decision about when these two
, when these different groups,go against each other.
But you can't have a thirdparty that's completely
independent of the parties in aRepublican form of government
because they elect the peoplewho are the representatives.
(18:33):
They can't be totallyindependent.
So what you do is you electthem in a large republic from
large districts.
They turn out to be the kind ofpeople who are better able to
make impartial judgments infactional disputes.
And you have them, you create agreater independence as a
(18:56):
result of extended territory forthem to be able to make those
kinds of decisions.
Extended territory for them tobe able to make those kinds of
decisions.
Madison also believes that,especially within the
legislative body, that thediversity of interest will
themselves moderate each otherand that that will create, will
move the resolution that comesout of legislative deliberations
(19:19):
more in line with an impartialresolution of that dispute.
So this solves the greatdesideratum.
You have majority rule, but inan extended republic it is
moderate and impartial majorityrule and it prevents majority
(19:43):
tyranny without precludingmajority rule if that makes
sense.
And so that's kind of the coreof what he's doing there, with
that little addendum of.
It's not exclusively myinterpretation, but the
interpretation I share of thisdocument with several other
(20:04):
people.
Core points here to think aboutwhen you're studying for an
advanced placement thing in thisis that.
Remember that Madison thinksthat economic factions are the
most constant and durable sourceof faction.
They're the most constant anddurable source of faction.
You should definitely rememberthat the solution for the
(20:28):
problem of the mischiefs offaction is found in controlling
their effects, not trying tosuppress them in any way to
either abolish liberty or togive to everyone the same
opinions, passion.
You're not going to remove thecauses.
You have to deal with theeffects, because we're a liberty
, we're a country that grantsliberty.
First, and you know those arethe most important core points.
(20:53):
And then the thesis of thewhole paper is basically that
it's a multiplicity of interestthat will have a kind of elixir
for the problem of majorityfactionalism.
Madison, incidentally, haddealt with the problem of
majority factionalism indisputes regarding religious
freedom in the state of Virginiaduring this time period and he
(21:16):
had seen that the multiplicityof interest or, I'm sorry, the
multiplicity of religious sectsin Virginia had sort of gone.
You know, had been in conflictwith each other to some degree,
but their interactions hadmoderated the conflict between
them.
So once the established churchwas overthrown and all of these
(21:38):
different religious sects weregoing to be treated on the same
ground, then you could have aneutral or impartial
relationship of the state tothese different religious groups
and one majority would not beable to oppress the other
religious sects in the state ofVirginia.
So that's my version ofFederalist no 10.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Perfect, dr Gibsonson , that was amazing.
And for our ap gov friends,brutus one and federalist 10 are
required documents and if youare a teacher or a student
studying for the test, a lot ofwhat dr gibson hit was under
topic 1.3, government powers andindividual rights.
So thank you for that deep diveon Federalist 10.
(22:25):
And for students listening toas we were doing this.
I actually had a copy ofFederalist 10 up and was going
through it with Dr Gibson andunderstanding.
I mean, I've read Federalist 10as a teacher hundreds of times,
but every time I read itthere's something different.
So thank you so much for that.
Welcome back everyone to Civics in a Year.
We are continuing ourconversation with Dr Alan Gibson
on Federalist 10.
If you have not listened to theprevious episode, please go
ahead and do so first.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Madison, in contrast, is going to be the person who
boldly challenges the smallrepublic thesis.
Okay, challenges the smallrepublic thesis, okay.
First, he doesn't believe thatit's possible to have really a
very large government orterritory at all governed and
have a homogeneity of interest.
Even the state governments havediversity, a lot of diversity
(00:40):
within them, and the stategovernments Hamilton's going to
say this in Federalist no 9, areactually much bigger and much
more diverse than anything thatwas set forth in the ancient
world with regard to Republicanforms of government.
So Madison doesn't make that asmuch as he makes the argument
(01:02):
that diversity itself is abenefit as opposed to a big
problem.
Anyway, the thing that Madisonsays most, his greatest
innovation, is to argue that ifyou grant liberty, you end up
with diversity, and thatdiversity itself can provide
(01:26):
stability and can provide abetter kind of foundation for
stability in the large republicthan the superficial hope that
you're going to actually achievea homogeneity of interest in a
small republic.
He says that you're not goingto do that.
(01:47):
Anyway, madison really ischallenging several aspects of
the small republic thesis.
Republics in the ancient worldwere democracies in which people
met in person, in which thewhole population of citizens
(02:07):
which was not of course thewhole population of inhabitants
but the whole population ofcitizens, would meet in
assemblies to decide questions.
This is Athenian democracy atleast, and Madison
differentiates a republic from ademocracy.
But these ancient republicswere democracies.
(02:28):
It's direct democracy, what hecalls pure democracy, the
principle of representation,which was really not known in
the ancient world or deployed inrepublics in the way that it's
(02:49):
going to be in the United Statesand then all subsequent
republics in world history.
So anyway, he challenges that.
He argues against, again,standard Republican theory that
it's wrong or impossible to tryto cure the mischiefs of faction
by removing their causes.
(03:10):
Remember, he's going to controltheir effects.
And most importantly, he arguesthat a large republic with a
multiplicity of religious andinterests will be more stable
and more just in itsadministration than a small
republic.
What that comes down to is thenumerous interests in the
extended republic are going tocheck and balance each other and
(03:32):
provide that stability.
So again, that's sort of thecore point.
Now I can back up here and thengo through the argument pretty
much as it appears in the 10thFederalist Paper.
There are a few variations here, but I'll talk about a number
of different things and thenjust sort of provide the details
of Madison's argument.
(03:53):
So he starts out talking abouthow Republican governments face
the problem of faction.
He uses the phrase it's thediseases most incident to
Republican government.
What are those diseases?
They're the diseases caused bythe problem of faction, and
Americans have experienced theseproblems in their state
(04:15):
governments and they've also.
These problems have appearedthroughout the history of
Republican governments, and wehave this narrative.
He then defines a faction, andthat is an interesting part of
this.
His definition of a faction ispretty much consistent with
ancient understandings offactions.
(04:38):
He says by a faction Iunderstand a number of citizens,
whether amounting to a majorityor minority of the whole, and
of course he's going to focus onthe majority.
That is going to be the mostthreatening form of factionalism
, because the majority can getits way using the forms of the
(05:03):
Constitution.
The majority faction can usethe Constitution to create a
tyrannical act.
Okay, and so Republicangovernments operate off the
principle majority rule,majority factions can rule under
the forms of the Constitution,but they can rule in their own
(05:27):
favor, favor, and they canviolate people's rights.
He's worried about what we callmajority tyranny, democratic
despotism, a phenomenon thatMontesquieu I'm sorry that
Tocqueville, and also JohnStuart Mill are going to fast on
to really firmly in their thing.
So anyway, he says factions, anumber of citizens, majority or
(05:49):
minority of the whole, who areunited and actuated by some
common impulse of passion or ofinterest.
And so united and actuated justmeans brought together and made
active, charged or broughttogether and activated would be
another way of saying this bypassions or interest, and these
(06:13):
are adverse to the rights ofother citizens and the permanent
and aggregate interest of thecommunity.
So factions are opposed to therights of people and the
permanent and aggregate or thecommon interest.
So that definition offactionalism is pretty much in
(06:33):
line with how factions beenunderstood for a long time.
Anyway, madison then gives atypology of faction.
So we know that factions aregoing to take place as either
majorities or minorities, and wehave to worry about majorities
more.
But also, how are they going toform?
(06:54):
What types of factions are wegoing to get?
Later in the analysis he saysthat we're going to have
factions concerning opinions,passions and interests.
Okay, and opinions are thoseconcerning government and
religion.
So he's talking there aboutideology and faith and how
religion can become politicized.
(07:16):
We know that, of course, inAmerica and people can disagree
with each other and divide intothese groups opposing each other
based upon their politicalideologies as well.
Passions, he says, are expressedas an attachment to different
rulers.
So this is an old-fashionedunderstanding of faction, as a
(07:39):
faction is the followers, isconstituted by the followers of
a certain leader.
So the Trump faction, the Obamafaction, the Clinton faction
you might think of those kindsof these are the group of people
who follow a particular leaderand they're going to be in
conflict with people who followa different leader.
(08:01):
And then, finally, he callsinterest or property the most
constant and durable source offaction.
This is a really importantpoint and something that AP
graders actually look for toowhen they talk about this kind
of thing.
So he's saying that we're goingto have most of our conflict,
(08:22):
most of the time, over economicinterest, more than we are even
over passions or ideology,passions for different rules or
ideologies.
We're going to have economicconflict and he does recognize
in their, incidentally interestgroup conflict, the differences,
the kinds of conflicts thatpeople have as a result of being
(08:42):
a member of one interest groupversus another interest group.
And, incidentally, I shouldhave said this earlier faction
is most analogous to interestgroups today.
Sometimes students want to makefactions analogous to political
parties.
They're more like what he'stalking about is more like what
we call interest groups.
Talking about is more like whatwe call interest groups.
(09:10):
Anyway, these kinds of conflictcan be conflicts between
interest groups, but they canalso be class conflicts.
They can be conflicts betweenpeople who have property and
people who do not have property,or rich versus poor, or that
kind of thing.
So, anyway, you've got thisproblem of faction, then you've
got a definition of faction,then you've got this typology of
faction, and then he makes thisfamous division and he says
(09:33):
there are two methods of curingthe mischief of faction.
You can either try to removethe causes or control the
effects.
And you can remove the causesby destroying liberty.
Obviously you don't want to gothat direction.
That's unwise.
He says it's a cure worse thanthe disease and he sets up
(09:56):
almost this kind of.
He sets up this direct analogyand he says faction is to add to
, is to liberty, as error is tofire.
Okay, so, uh, if you have, ifyou grant liberty, you're going
to end up with faction andfaction and error is also
necessary to have fires, andfire is good and it nourishes,
(10:20):
but fire is is also bad in someways.
Anyway, he says it cannot beless folly to abolish liberty,
which is essential to politicallife because it nourishes
faction, than it is to wish theannihilation of air, which is
essential to animal life becauseit imparts, to fire its
(10:44):
destructive agency.
So that's one way to remove thecauses, and he doesn't want
that.
And the other way is to give toeveryone, to give to all the
citizens the same opinions,patterns, of interest.
He calls this impracticable and,like I said earlier, though,
this is the strategy that mostRepublican theorists have had up
(11:08):
until this time period abouthow to deal with the problem of
faction.
Many of them have said that youhave to try to use things like
religious belief or a commoneducation or civic education, or
also even rules about thedistribution of property in a
particular place, to preventthere from being all this
(11:30):
factionalism.
You try to give to everyone thesame opinions, passions and
interests.
He calls that impractical.
He doesn't believe there's beenan experiment in it that has
worked.
That method, incidentally, iskind of caricatured in Plato's
Republic, where he talks aboutthe communism of the guardian
(11:51):
class and how they're not goingto have any property and also
the establishment of certainkinds of beliefs that reach
across and unify people.
So Madison says he'sexperimented, thought about
these two ways of removing thecauses.
He says we're going to have tocontrol the effects, we're going
(12:12):
to grant liberty, we're goingto end up with factions and
factionalism and we're stillgoing to have to try to control
the effects of these factions.
But the effects of all factionsare not the same.
The effects of majorityfactions are much more
consequential, more destructivethan the effects of minority
(12:35):
factions.
Minority factions, thepolitical system could handle
them, they can be outvoted inthe normal processes of
government.
But majority factions can againuse the forms of government to
effect their violence.
Madison says what this means isthat the ancient form of a
(13:00):
republic, a pure democracy, hasno remedy for majority factions.
People meet in their assembly,they vote, they're right there
with each other, they know eachother's opinions, passions and
interests and the majoritycoalesces and they abuse the
rights of the minority.
Madison then defines theproblem as and he calls this his
(13:25):
great desiderato, and hedescribes the problem as
reconciling majority rule withthe protection of power,
individual rights and thepromotion of the public good,
but and here's the catch withoutviolating the form of
(13:47):
Republican government.
So we need a Republican remedyfor a Republican problem of
majority factionalism.
He then essentially lays outtwo solutions to this.
He then essentially lays outtwo solutions to this.
One of them and this is verythe language in this is very
(14:08):
convoluted.
In this part it's the only partof the 10th federalist paper
that's kind of really hard toread or obscure.
Anyway he says that you'regoing to, in effect, elect
representatives from largegeographical districts.
You don't have to have as manyrepresentatives in a large
republic in proportion tocitizens as you do in a small
(14:28):
republic, and so what that isgoing to do is you're going to
create much larger geographicdistricts.
Madison then argues that that'sgoing to increase the
probability for the election ofthe best representatives.
You're going to get these wiseguardians of the public good if
(14:48):
you elect them from largegeographical districts.
He says that unworthycandidates will be less able to
practice what he calls thevicious arts by which such
elections are conducted, and thevicious arts is a term of craft
from Shakespeare.
It has to do with witchcraft,and so this is the idea of using
(15:12):
rhetoric, in effect, to stirpeople up.
This is the he's worried.
He's saying you're going to getfewer demagogues if you elect
people from large geographicdistricts.
There are other reasons whylarge geographic districts are
better for elections.
One thing that happens is youhave fewer people in the
(15:33):
legislative branch itself andthat turns out you have to raise
the number to a certain levelto get a deliberative assembly.
But if you go beyond that level, if you get too many people in
there, actually the politicalsystem he says in Federals 52
and 58 operates with more of anoligarchic tendency.
(15:54):
Fewer members actuallyparticipate in a really large
legislative body than amoderately sized one, and that's
when he thinks is best fordeliberation.
And this is related to thenumber of representatives and
how big the districts are aswell.
But he places the most emphasisand this is where he's
(16:15):
considered most innovative insaying that the extended
republic will reach out across avariety of interests in the
nation and religious sects inthe nation and that that will
prevent majority factions fromcoalescing on principles other
(16:38):
than justice and the public good.
And that comes from Federalistno 51 when he reintroduces this
idea.
Anyway, if you have an extendedrepublic, you're going to have
a greater number of individuals,a greater distance between the
people and the people and theirrepresentatives and especially,
you're going to have a greatervariety of interest in religious
(17:01):
sects in the nation.
That's going to make it lessprobable that the majority knows
it's a majority.
You have to know that you're amajority to want to act upon
that impulse.
They're going to be less likelyto know they're a majority and
then they're going to have theseobstacles or barriers to acting
(17:21):
in concert with each other.
Now I want to put a particulartwist on this and you can make
up your own to the students I'mspeaking to.
You can make up your own mindwhether you put this in your
advanced placement exam becauseit may not fit with their
template or their grading schemeand know how these things are
done.
But anyway, here's what'sreally going on in both of those
(17:45):
arguments for expandedelectoral districts and for
extent of territory anddiversity of interest.
Both of them promote theimpartial arbitration of
factional disputes.
So what Madison wants and hetalks about this early in Ted
Farrell's paper is there to beimpartiality in the resolution
(18:11):
of factional disputes.
So you need a third party kindof decision about when these two
, when these different groups,go against each other.
But you can't have a thirdparty that's completely
independent of the parties in aRepublican form of government
because they elect the peoplewho are the representatives.
(18:33):
They can't be totallyindependent.
So what you do is you electthem in a large republic from
large districts.
They turn out to be the kind ofpeople who are better able to
make impartial judgments infactional disputes.
And you have them, you create agreater independence as a
(18:56):
result of extended territory forthem to be able to make those
kinds of decisions.
Extended territory for them tobe able to make those kinds of
decisions.
Madison also believes that,especially within the
legislative body, that thediversity of interest will
themselves moderate each otherand that that will create, will
move the resolution that comesout of legislative deliberations
(19:19):
more in line with an impartialresolution of that dispute.
So this solves the greatdesideratum.
You have majority rule, but inan extended republic it is
moderate and impartial majorityrule and it prevents majority
(19:43):
tyranny without precludingmajority rule if that makes
sense.
And so that's kind of the coreof what he's doing there, with
that little addendum of.
It's not exclusively myinterpretation, but the
interpretation I share of thisdocument with several other
(20:04):
people.
Core points here to think aboutwhen you're studying for an
advanced placement thing in thisis that.
Remember that Madison thinksthat economic factions are the
most constant and durable sourceof faction.
They're the most constant anddurable source of faction.
You should definitely rememberthat the solution for the
(20:28):
problem of the mischiefs offaction is found in controlling
their effects, not trying tosuppress them in any way to
either abolish liberty or togive to everyone the same
opinions, passion.
You're not going to remove thecauses.
You have to deal with theeffects, because we're a liberty
, we're a country that grantsliberty.
First, and you know those arethe most important core points.
(20:53):
And then the thesis of thewhole paper is basically that
it's a multiplicity of interestthat will have a kind of elixir
for the problem of majorityfactionalism.
Madison, incidentally, haddealt with the problem of
majority factionalism indisputes regarding religious
freedom in the state of Virginiaduring this time period and he
(21:16):
had seen that the multiplicityof interest or, I'm sorry, the
multiplicity of religious sectsin Virginia had sort of gone.
You know, had been in conflictwith each other to some degree,
but their interactions hadmoderated the conflict between
them.
So once the established churchwas overthrown and all of these
(21:38):
different religious sects weregoing to be treated on the same
ground, then you could have aneutral or impartial
relationship of the state tothese different religious groups
and one majority would not beable to oppress the other
religious sects in the state ofVirginia.
So that's my version ofFederalist no 10.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Perfect, dr Gibsonson , that was amazing.
And for our ap gov friends,brutus one and federalist 10 are
required documents and if youare a teacher or a student
studying for the test, a lot ofwhat dr gibson hit was under
topic 1.3, government powers andindividual rights.
So thank you for that deep diveon Federalist 10.
(22:25):
And for students listening toas we were doing this.
I actually had a copy ofFederalist 10 up and was going
through it with Dr Gibson andunderstanding.
I mean, I've read Federalist 10as a teacher hundreds of times,
but every time I read itthere's something different.
So thank you so much for that.
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