Madison on Factions

While continuing to read Madison at my slow pace, I took a moment to browse the net for some references to him. That effort showed me this gem of a site. It shows a considerable amount of the material I've found in the book I'm reading, published by the Library of America. The site layout is clear and easy to follow.

The particular passage I was hoping to find was there. You can see the entire dialogue here. The excerpts I found most interesting follow.

Speaking of the logic supporting a national government, Madison said:

he combined with [that logic] the necessity of providing more effectually for the security of private rights, and the steady dispensation of Justice. Interferences with these were evils which had more perhaps than any thing else, produced [the Constitutional] convention. Was it to be supposed that republican liberty could long exist under the abuses of it practised in some of the States.

Madison agreed with a contention that in a very small state "faction & oppression would prevail". He noted how civilized societies are

divided into different Sects, Factions, & interests, as they happened to consist of rich & poor, debtors & creditors, the landed, the manufacturing, the commercial interests, the inhabitants of this district or that district, the followers of this political leader or that political leader, the disciples of this religious Sect or that religious Sect.

This led him to an important question:

In all cases where a majority are united by a common interest or passion, the rights of the minority are in danger. What motives are to restrain them?

What indeed?

A prudent regard to the maxim that honesty is the best policy is found by experience to be as little regarded by bodies of men as by individuals. Respect for character is always diminished in proportion to the number among whom the blame or praise is to be divided. Conscience, the only remaining tie, is known to be inadequate in individuals: In large numbers, little is to be expected from it. Besides, Religion itself may become a motive to persecution & oppression.

In the following excerpt, I admire how history is brought to bear on the significance of the decisions to be made in the present of his day.

These observations are verified by the Histories of every Country antient & modern. In Greece & Rome the rich & poor, the creditors & debtors, as well as the patricians & plebians alternately oppressed each other with equal unmercifulness. What a source of oppression was the relation between the parent cities of Rome, Athens & Carthage, & their respective provinces: the former possessing the power, & the latter being sufficiently distinguished to be separate objects of it? Why was America so justly apprehensive of Parliamentary injustice? Because G. Britain had a separate interest real or supposed, & if her authority had been admitted, could have pursued that interest at our expence. We have seen the mere distinction of colour made in the most enlightened period of time, a ground of the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man.

This passage gave me pause to reflect on a future era's Madison looking at the sweep of history, picking up where Madison left off, armed to the teeth with the intellectual ammunition afforded him by Ayn Rand's powerful ideas. Madison continues:

What has been the source of those unjust laws complained of among ourselves? Has it not been the real or supposed interest of the major number? Debtors have defrauded their creditors. The landed interest has borne hard on the mercantile interest. The Holders of one species of property have thrown a disproportion of taxes on the holders of another species. The lesson we are to draw from the whole is that where a majority are united by a common sentiment, and have an opportunity, the rights of the minor party become insecure. In a Republican Govt. the Majority if united have always an opportunity.

Madison's conclusion:

The only remedy is to enlarge the sphere, & thereby divide the community into so great a number of interests & parties, that in the 1st. place a majority will not be likely at the same moment to have a common interest separate from that of the whole or of the minority; and in the 2d. place, that in case they shd. have such an interest, they may not be apt to unite in the pursuit of it. It was incumbent on us then to try this remedy, and with that view to frame a republican system on such a scale & in such a form as will controul all the evils wch. have been experienced.

I marvel at not only the calibre of Madison's effort but the nature of the audience he had to be addressing to share this passionate focus on protecting everyone's rights. What an era!