📄 l53.2b
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#printThere is a big file "federal" in this directory.It contains the following mistyped words: Typed as Should becotnend contendaalarm alarmexedient expedientdrabel durableugdes judgestrame trampleviws viewsFix things up, rewrite the file, and then type "ready".#create RefAmong the numerous advantages promised by a well-constructedUnion, none deserves to be more accuratelydeveloped than its tendency to break and control the violenceof faction.The friend of popular governments never finds himselfso much alarmed for their character and fate as when hecontemplates their propensity to this dangerous vice.He will not fail, therefore, to set a due value onany plan which, without violating the principles to whichhe is attached, provides a proper cure for it.The instability, injustice, and confusion introduced into the publiccouncils have, in truth, been the mortal diseases underwhich popular governments have everywhere perished, asthey continue to be the favorite and fruitful topics fromwhich the adversaries to liberty derive their most speciousdeclamations.The valuable improvements made by the American constitutionson the popular models, both ancientand modern, cannot certainly be too much admired;but it would be an unwarrantable partiality to contendthat they have as effectually obviated the danger on thisside, as was wished and expected.Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuouscitizens, equally the friends of public and private faithand of public and personal liberty, that out governmentsare too unstable, that the public good is disregarded inthe conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are toooften decided, not according to the rules of justice andthe rights of the minor party, but by the superior forceof an interested and overbearing majority.However anxiously we may wish that these complaints had nofoundation, the evidence of known facts will not permitus to deny that they are in some degree true.It will be found, indeed, on a candid review of our situation, thatsome of the distresses under which we labor have beenerroneously charged on the operation of our governments;but it will be found, at the same time, that othercauses will not alone account for many of our heaviestmisfortunes; and, particularly, for that prevailing and increasingdistrust of public engagements and alarm forprivate rights which are echoed from one end of thecontinent to the other.These must be chiefly, if not wholly,effects of the unsteadiness and injustice withwhich a factious spirit has tainted out public administration. By a faction I understand a number of citizens,whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole,who are united and actuated by some common impulseof passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of othercitizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests ofthe community. There are two methods of curing the mischiefs offaction: The one,by removing its causes; the other, by controllingits effects. There are again 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 everycitizen the same opinions, the same passions, and thesame interests. It could never be more truly said than of the firstremedy that it was worse than the disease.Liberty is tofaction what air is to fire, an ailment without which itinstantly expires.But it could not be less folly toabolish liberty, which is essential to political life,because it nourishes faction than it would be to wish theannihilation of air, which is essential to animal life,because it imparts to dire its destructive agency. The second expedient is as impracticable as the firstwould be unwise.As long as the reason of man continuesfallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed.As long as the connection subsistsbetween his reason and his self-love, his opinions and hispassions will have a reciprocal influence on each other;and the former will be objects to which the latter willattach themselves.The diversity in the faculties of men,from which the rights of property originate, is not less aninsuperable obstacle to the uniformity of interests.The protection of these faculties is the first object ofgovernment.From the protection of different and unequalfaculties of acquiring property, the possession ofdifferent degrees and kinds of property immediately results;and from the influence of these on the sentiments and viewsof the respective proprietors ensues a division of thesociety into different interests and parties. The latent causes of faction are thus sown in thenature of man; and we see them everywhere broughtinto different degrees of activity, according to thedifferent circumstances of civil society.A zeal for different opinionsconcerning religion, concerning government, andmany other points, as well of speculation as of practice;an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contendingfor pre-eminence and power; or to persons of otherdescriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to thehuman passions, have, in turn, divided mankind intoparties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, andrendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress eachother than to co-operate for their common goal.So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutualanimosities that where no substantial occasion presentsitself the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions havebeen sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions andexcite their most violent conflicts.But the most common and durablesource of factions has been the veriousand unequal distribution of property.Those who hold and those who are withoutproperty have ever formed distinctinterests in society.Those who are creditors, and thosewho are debtors, fall under a like discrimination.A landed interest, a manufacturing interest,a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest,with many lesser interests, grow up ofnecessity in civilized nations, and divided them intodifferent classes, actuated by different sentiments and views.The regulation of these various and interfering interestsinvolves the spirit of party and faction in the necessaryand ordinary operations of government. No man is allowed to be a judge in has own cause,because his interest would certainly bias his judgement,and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity.With equal, nay with greater reason, a bodyof men are unfit to be both judges and parties at the same time;yet what are many of the most important acts oflegislation but so many judicial determinations,not indeed concerning therights of single person, but concerning the rights of largebodies of citizens?And what are the different classes of legislators butadvocates and parties to the causes whichthey determine?Is a law proposed concerning privatedebts?It is a question to which the creditors are partiesone one side and the debtors on the other.Justice ought to hold the balancebetween them.Yet the parties are, and must be,themselves the judges; and the most numerousparty, or in other words, the most powerful faction mustbe expected to prevail.Shall domestic manufacturers beencouraged, and in what degree, by restrictions on foreignmanufacturers?are questions which would be differentlydecided by the landed and the manufacturing classes, andprobably by neither with a sole regard to justice and thepublic good.The apportionment of taxes on the variousdescriptions of property is an act which seems to requirethe most exact impartiality; yet there is, perhaps, nolegislative act in which greater opportunity andtemptation are given to a predominant party to trample on therules of justice.Every shilling with which they overburden the inferiornumber is a shilling saved to their own pockets. It is in vain to say that enlightened statesmen will beable to adjust these clashing interests and render themall subservient to the public good.Enlightened statesmen will notalways be at the helm.Nor, in many cases, cansuch an adjustment be made at all without taking intoview indirect and remote considerations, which will rarelyprevail over the immediate interest which one party mayfind in disregarding the rights of another or the good ofthe whole. The inference to which we are brought is that the causesof faction cannot be removed and that relief is only to besought in the means of controlling its effects. If a faction consists of less than a majority, relief issupplied by the republican principle, which enables themajority to defeat its sinister views by regular vote.It may clog the administration, it may convulse the society;But it will be unable to execute and mask its violenceunder the forms of the Constitution.When a majority is included in a faction,The form of popular government, onthe other hand, enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passionor interest both the public good and the rights of othercitizens.To secure the public good and private rightsagainst the danger of such a faction, and at the sametime to preserve the spirit and form of populargovernment, is than the great object to which our inquiriesare directed.Let me add that it is the great desideratum by which
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