James Madison studied all forms of government. He was sent hundreds of books by Thomas Jefferson from Paris. Some included books on political theory and the law of nations, histories, the thirty-seven volume Encyclopedie Methodique, works by Burlamaqui, Voltaire, Diderot, Mably, Necker, d’Albon. There were biographies and memoirs, and histories in sets of eleven volumes. (1)
One of Madison’s observations was that all true democracies fail. He pointed out a fundamental dilemma-people acquiring liberty-creates factions-factions destroy liberty. Vladimir Putin understands this “weakness” well.
Madison defines faction as: “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.” (#10)
The problem starts with the very nature of man. Hamilton: “… men are ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious.” [marked by inordinate desire for wealth or possessions or for another's possessions]. (#6)
Madison: “The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society.” (#10)
Hamilton: “A spirit of faction, which is apt to mingle its poison in the deliberations of all bodies of men, will often hurry the persons of whom they are composed into improprieties and excesses, for which they would blush in a private capacity.” (#15) “A successful faction may erect a tyranny on the ruins of order and law.” (#21)
The Constitutional convention struggled long and hard about how to solve the issue of factions in a democracy. The Founders thought that the proposed Constitution had in it important features that would help control factions that destroy democracy.
What percentage of the citizens of this country know the important features put into the Constitution to control factions but not destroy the people’s liberty in the process? (I am guessing less than 5%.)
How can public education help increase the percentage of people who understand the fundamentals of how our republic is structured? And how that structure protects their liberty? In the end, the only safe guard to our democracy is the educated citizen.
- Catherine Drinker Bowen, Miracle at Philadelphia (Back Bay Books, 1966), 14.
- The Federalist Papers (#xx refers to the Papers number)
