The Founders worried about self-interested factions as they went about creating the overarching set of rules for the federal government. James Madison in Federalist 10 called factionalism a dangerous vice of the human condition. He observed that people even when united under a common cause tended to surrender to unhelpful animosities over the most trivial of differences. Those differences, whether in opinion, property, or status, can become a galvanizing force for exclusionary allegiances and bitter in-fighting. Madison was probably not thinking about the small-ball unpleasantness of cliques bad-mouthing each other. Afterall, they still settled such personal disputes with dueling pistols at twenty paces back then. His concern was a far larger issue. Namely, the direct danger to individual rights posed by the combination of factionalism and the coercive powers of government.
A Party Damaged by Factionalism
A Party Damaged by Factionalism
A Party Damaged by Factionalism
The Founders worried about self-interested factions as they went about creating the overarching set of rules for the federal government. James Madison in Federalist 10 called factionalism a dangerous vice of the human condition. He observed that people even when united under a common cause tended to surrender to unhelpful animosities over the most trivial of differences. Those differences, whether in opinion, property, or status, can become a galvanizing force for exclusionary allegiances and bitter in-fighting. Madison was probably not thinking about the small-ball unpleasantness of cliques bad-mouthing each other. Afterall, they still settled such personal disputes with dueling pistols at twenty paces back then. His concern was a far larger issue. Namely, the direct danger to individual rights posed by the combination of factionalism and the coercive powers of government.