Federalist No. 10

[3][4] Madison saw the federal Constitution as providing for a "happy combination" of a republic and a purer democracy, with "the great and aggregate interests being referred to the national, the local and particular to the State legislatures" resulting in a decentralized governmental structure.

Madison, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and others feared a break-up of the union and national bankruptcy.

[6] Like Washington, Madison felt the revolution had not resolved the social problems that had triggered it, and the excesses ascribed to the King were now being repeated by the state legislatures.

In this view, Shays' Rebellion, an armed uprising in Massachusetts in 1786, was simply one, albeit extreme, example of "democratic excess" in the aftermath of the War.

The principal questions before the convention became whether the states should remain sovereign, whether sovereignty should be transferred to the national government, or whether a settlement should rest somewhere in between.

[8] In a debate on June 26, he said that government ought to "protect the minority of the opulent against the majority" and that unchecked, democratic communities were subject to "the turbulency and weakness of unruly passions".

In 1818, James Gideon published a third edition containing corrections by Madison, who by that time had completed his two terms as President of the United States.

"[17] He identifies the most serious source of faction to be the diversity of opinion in political life which leads to dispute over fundamental issues such as what regime or religion should be preferred.

He also relied heavily on the philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment, especially David Hume, whose influence is most clear in Madison's discussion of the types of faction and in his argument for an extended republic.

Madison states, "The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man",[23] so the cure is to control their effects.

In a large republic, where the number of voters and candidates is greater, the probability to elect competent representatives is broader.

The number of participants of that majority will be lower, and, since they live in a more limited territory, it would be easier for them to agree and work together for the accomplishment of their ideas.

A republic, Madison writes, is different from a democracy because its government is placed in the hands of delegates, and, as a result of this, it can be extended over a larger area.

Also, the fact that each representative is chosen from a larger constituency should make the "vicious arts" of electioneering[24] (a reference to rhetoric) less effective.

Also, in a republic, the delegates both filter and refine the many demands of the people so as to prevent the type of frivolous claims that impede purely democratic governments.

Though Madison argued for a large and diverse republic, the writers of the Federalist Papers recognized the need for a balance.

2, John Jay counted as a blessing that America possessed "one united people—a people descended from the same ancestors, the same language, professing the same religion".

3: 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.

[28] Madison himself, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, noted that differing economic interests had created dispute, even when the Constitution was being written.

[29] At the convention, he particularly identified the distinction between the northern and southern states as a "line of discrimination" that formed "the real difference of interests".

In a letter to Richard Price, Benjamin Rush noted that "Some of our enlightened men who begin to despair of a more complete union of the States in Congress have secretly proposed an Eastern, Middle, and Southern Confederacy, to be united by an alliance offensive and defensive".

In a large republic, the public good is sacrificed to a thousand views; it is subordinate to exceptions, and depends on accidents.

In a small one, the interest of the public is easier perceived, better understood, and more within the reach of every citizen; abuses are of less extent, and of course are less protected.

"The most philosophical examination of the foundations of political science is made by Madison in the tenth number," Beard writes.

Adair also contends that Beard's selective focus on the issue of class struggle, and his political progressivism, has colored modern scholarship on the essay.

In his book Explaining America, he adopts the position of Robert Dahl in arguing that Madison's framework does not necessarily enhance the protections of minorities or ensure the common good.

Instead, Wills claims: "Minorities can make use of dispersed and staggered governmental machinery to clog, delay, slow down, hamper, and obstruct the majority.

For instance, U.S. Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens cites the paper for the statement that "Parties ranked high on the list of evils that the Constitution was designed to check".

[40] Justice Byron White cited the essay while discussing a California provision that forbids candidates from running as independents within one year of holding a partisan affiliation, saying, "California apparently believes with the Founding Fathers that splintered parties and unrestrained factionalism may do significant damage to the fabric of government.

Rather than adopting the repressive 'cure' for faction that the majority today endorses, the Framers armed individual citizens with a remedy.