Main currents in American thought An interpretation of American literature from the beginnings to 1920
were tied by the voting minority, it is a bit absurd to attribute the
resulting guarantees to an altruistic sense of justice, deliberately
expressed by the former. Very possibly in a world so aristocratic as
was America in 1787, no other course would have succeeded; but there is
not a single historical fact to justify so naïve an interpretation, and
the bitter partisan warfare which followed is sufficient to disprove it.
We are too prone to forget the wide popular disfavor with which the
new Constitution was received. No sooner did the second debate open
than it became evident that the majority opinion held quite a different
conception of the sovereignty of the people than was expressed by the
convention. It had no desire to tie its own hands; it did not take
kindly to the proposal to transfer power from the several states to the
Federal government. The villagers and small men were afraid of the new
instrument; they asserted that it had been prepared by aristocrats and
moneyed men, and they repudiated the stake-in-society principle. “The
Constitution,” said General Thompson in the Massachusetts Convention,
“and the reasons which induced gentlemen to frame it, ought to have
been sent to the several towns to be considered by them. My town
considered it seven hours, and after this there was not one in favor of
it.” In Rhode Island, where it was thus submitted, it was rejected “by
a very great majority.” The state of mind of the agrarian majority was
thus expressed by Amos Singletary, of Sutton, Massachusetts:
These lawyers, and men of learning, and moneyed men, that talk
so finely, and gloss over matters so smoothly, to make us, poor
illiterate people, swallow down the pill, expect to get into
Congress themselves; they expect to be the managers of this
Constitution, and get all the power and all the money into their
own hands, and then they will swallow up all us little folks, like
the great leviathan.[303]
Among the host of pamphlets and newspaper articles that quickly
appeared, _The Federalist_ written by Hamilton and Madison with some
help from Jay, and _Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republican_,
by Richard Henry Lee, fairly adequately present the opposing arguments.
By common consent _The Federalist_ was at once accepted by its party
as an unanswerable defense of the Constitution; and its fame has grown
greater with the passing years. No other work on political theory in
the American library has been rated so high, or been more frequently
cited. From the mass of contemporary pamphlets it emerges like a
colossus. It “has been seriously and reverently called the Bible of
Republicanism.” says a legal historian, which “for comprehensiveness
of design, strength, clearness, and simplicity ... has no parallel
among the writings of men, not even excepting or overlooking those of
Montesquieu and Aristotle,”[304]; and a literary historian pronounces
authoritatively, “it is so wisely thoughtful that one may almost
declare it the permanent basis of sound thinking concerning American
constitutional law.”[305]
_The Federalist_ was the work of able lawyers, with whom was joined a
notable political thinker. In very large part it is of interest only to
students of early constitutional theory and practice. It was designed
as a frankly partisan argument to appeal to an influential group in
New York, many members of which had followed George Clinton and Robert
Yates in opposition to the Constitution. On the political side it
develops four main theses: the necessity for taking effective action in
view of the self-confessed failure of the Articles of Confederation;
the urgent need of a sovereign, unitary state, to avoid the horrors
which must follow from “the political monster of an _imperium in
imperio_”; the necessity of providing that justice shall prevail over
the majority will; and the adaptability of the republican form to a
great extent of territory and divergent interests. Of these the second
and third lay bare the heart of Federalist political theory; and in the
treatment of them there is no shrinking from the conclusions of the
earlier debate, although the tone is conciliatory.
The argument for a unitary, sovereign state, developed by Hamilton,
and the argument for justice, developed by Madison, rest upon the same
basis and are regarded as the twin problems of government. The true
sanction of government is found, not in good will, as Bentham and later
democratic thinkers have urged, but in coercion;[306] and coercion
is accepted as necessary because of universal selfishness. “Why has
government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not
conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without restraint.”[307]
Granted coercive sovereignty, government must guarantee justice to
all; and justice demands that the majority shall suffer needful
restraint equally with the minority. The great and insidious danger
to good government has always been faction, the argument runs, and a
chief merit of the Constitution lay in its provisions to lessen the
disasters of factional ambition. “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 conflict 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.”[308]
No theory is more representative of the time than the theory of
faction. It was a first line of defense thrown up against the
advancing democratic movement. The term had long served conveniently
to stigmatize any popular unrest, the “factious multitude” having
been held synonymous in earlier usage with mob; but in the eighteenth
century the word was applied generally to political parties. In a
world moving inevitably towards manhood suffrage, a sharp alignment of
parties with definite platforms was greatly feared by the minority,
for the organization of the rank and file of voters must end in
majority control. An honest appeal to the people was the last thing
desired by the Federalists, and the democratic machinery of recalls
and referendums and rotation in office, which had developed during
the war, was stigmatized as factional devices which in the end must
destroy good government. “As every appeal to the people would carry an
implication of some defect in the government,” argued Madison,[309]
“frequent appeals would in a great measure deprive the government of
that veneration which time bestows on everything, and without which
the wisest and freest governments would not possess the requisite
stability.” “The danger of disturbing the public tranquillity by
interesting too strongly the public passions is a still more serious
objection against a frequent reference of constitutional questions to
the decisions of the whole society.”
In the remarkable tenth number, which compresses within a few pages
pretty much the whole Federalist theory of political science, Madison
has explained the Federalist objections to political parties and party
government.
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 impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to
the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate
interests of the community.... If a faction consists of less than
a majority, relief is supplied by the republican principle, which
enables the majority to defeat its sinister views, by regular
vote.... When a majority is included in a faction, the form of
popular government, on the other hand, enables it to sacrifice to
its ruling passion or interest, both the public good and the rights
of other citizens. To secure the public good and private rights,
against the danger of such a faction, is then the great object
to which our inquiries are directed.... By what means is this
great object attainable? Evidently by one of two only. Either the
existence of the same passion or interest in a majority at the same
time must be prevented; or the majority, having such coexistent
passion or interest, must be rendered by their number and local
situations, unable to concert and carry into effect schemes of
oppression. If the impulse and the opportunity be suffered to
coincide, we well know, that neither moral nor religious motives
can be relied on as an adequate control.
In full agreement with the greater political thinkers of the past,
Madison then traces political parties to economic sources. Since in
every society the diversity of economic groups creates diversity of
political programs, party divisions and party alignments are inevitable
in the ordinary course of events. The unequal distribution of property
is the realistic basis of all politics, and the “_sentiments_ and
_views_ which arise from the possession of different degrees and kinds
of property form the stuff of so-called ‘political psychology.’”[310]
The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of
property originate, is ... an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity
of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first
object of government. From the protection of different and unequal
faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different
degrees and kinds of property immediately results; and from the
influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective
proprietors, ensues a division of the society into different
interests and parties.
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. A zeal for different opinions ... [has] divided mankind
into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered
them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to
co-operate for their common good.... But the most common and
durable source of factions has been the various and unequal
distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without
property have ever formed distinct interests of society. Those
who are creditors, and those who 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 of necessity in civilized nations, and divide
them into different classes actuated by different sentiments and
views. The regulation of these various and interfering interests,
forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves
the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary
operations of the government.
As a means of securing a necessary balance between rival interests,
Madison approved a republican rather than a democratic form of
government:
The two great points of difference, between a democracy and
a republic, are, first, the delegation of the government, in
the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest;
secondly, the greater number of citizens, and greater sphere of
country, over which the latter may be extended. The effect of the
first difference is, on the one hand, to refine or enlarge the
public views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body
of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interests
of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice,
will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial
considerations. Under such a regulation, it may well happen, that