Originally Posted by
Bold!Madison
The valuable improvements made by the American constitutions on the popular models, both ancient and modern, cannot certainly be too much admired; but it would be an unwarrantable partiality, to contend that they have as effectually obviated the danger on this side, as was wished and expected. Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty, that our governments are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority.
NOTE: The early history of the American colonies was filled with numerous practice runs on self-governance. The Mayflower Compact was one of the earliest examples, but many, if not all of the states also had their own constitutions. Consequently, the colonists had many opportunities to see what worked and what did not. They had some success in constructing democratic systems. However, according to Madison, they were far from having perfected the art of government. Everywhere good solid citizens were of the opinion that the rule of law was not sovereign. Instead, conditions were unstable and rules were being made by “interested and overbearing majorities”.
An “interested’ majority in this context is someone who seeks personal benefit from employment in government or champions some act of government for the same reason.
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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.
Factions might comprise either a minority or a majority of the whole and what they advocate may not be in the best or long term interests of the community as a whole.
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There are only two ways to prevent the abuse of power by the majority. The first is to simply hope that the majority faction won’t behave badly when it is in the majority. The second is to provide a mechanism that prevents abuse through the distribution of power. It’s well known that, if impulse and opportunity coincide, “neither moral nor religious motives can be relied upon as an adequate control.” The larger the group, the more these attributes are needed, and conversely the shorter they are in supply.
From this view of the subject it may be concluded that a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; 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 deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions.
Consequently, one must conclude that a pure democracy, one in which laws are directly passed through the will of the people, can’t deal with the evils of factions. It is inevitable that some issue or passion will sway the majority and induce it to “sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual.” And in such a system, there is no remedy, nothing to stop this from occurring. Democracies have always been found to be incompatible with personal security and the rights of property. Democracies are consequently short-lived and “violent in their deaths”. Those who theorize on the efficacy of this form of government erroneously suppose that if you make everyone equal in their political voice, everyone would also be equal “in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions.”