Federalist No. 18

“I wonder further if what we need right now is not a little anarchy in the members of the federal body”

Madison, in his ongoing effort to convince the public of the merits and virtue of the new federal constitution, makes the connection between the ancient Greek republics and the system of government set up under the Articles of Confederation. In short, those republics were in need of a “closer union.” According to Madison they lacked the uniform connections that are needed to keep disparate and often tumultuous elements together. The danger in having too loose a confederacy of states is that it is ever in want of a great crisis to keep it together. Such was the case when Sparta and Athens united to fight off the invasion of Xerxes in 480 BC. Once the Greek city states were victorious, they “became rivals and then enemies.” 

Madison points out that not all Greek republics were utter failures. He approvingly turns towards the Achaean League in the Upper Peloponnese for an illustration of a republic with real merit. What makes this confederation better than its predecessors and in turn more effective than the Articles of Confederation? For starters it was “far more intimate,” meaning it had a more active central authority than other republics before it. Another important distinction was that the cities within the league “retained their municipal jurisdiction, appointed their own officers, and enjoyed a perfect equality.” Furthermore the cities were represented in the senate, which had the power to make war and treaties, to conduct foreign affairs, make alliances and appoint the praetor. So while the cities, according to Madison, shared uniform laws and a national culture, they each retained an important degree of home rule and were represented as cities in the senate.  This important distinction was built into the American federal system with the states having representation in the senate (this feature of the US Consitution has been lost through the 17th Amendment).

Finally, what made the Achaean League so appealing to Madison was the high degree of law, order and liberty that prevailed in the Achaean system of shared power. For Madison, there was no finer example of a workable federal system in all the ancient world. But this ancient example of republican liberty met its demise in the collusion of faction and tyranny. Made weak by internal struggles for preeminence and power by special interests, outside nations overcame the separate city states and eventually the Romans placed chains on the once free republic and brought its federal experiment to an end.

So why does Madison relate the brief history of the antiquated ancient Grecian republics and more particularly the Achaean League? To show the

tendency of federal bodies rather to anarchy among the members than to tyranny in the head.   

The lesson of the dangers of special interests to republican liberty is so apparently analogous to our current situation as to warrant no comment but I wonder further if what we need right now is not a little anarchy in the members of the federal body; to wrest the power from concentrated special interests in Washington and spread it out over the capitals of the sovereign states.

Federalist No. 17

“We must REPEAL the 17th! We must RESTORE state authority! We must RENEW the sovereignty of the people! If not, the tyrannous shadow of the national government will choke out the light of liberty in the name of security.”

Hamilton in Federalist No. 17 underestimates the power and scope of men’s natural ambitions. This is strange for of all the founders Hamilton seems to be the best study in the ambitions of men; he understood what drove others and later in his career he demonstrated that he knew exactly how to manipulate and play the game of politics. So why he was so blind to the scope of a natural ambitious federal authority in this essay is beyond me. Perhaps he knew that the anti-federalists had a great point here and this was his attempt to down play it.

He states plainly that the argument that the federal authority under the proposed constitution would “absorb” state authority and carry out those functions is ridiculous. No ambitious man would ever undertake to undermine the sovereign duties of the states. Obviously he never met an FDR, LBJ or a Bush Republican or any of the currently Democratic controlled congress and executive. These are the very things our politicians are doing, they are using the federal government to carry out more and more functions that were clearly reserved to the states.

For Hamilton the ambitions of designing politicians are simple and few: “commerce, finance, negotiation, and war seem to comprehend all the objects which have charms for minds governed by that passion.” But if he could image a world and society in which there are no limits to intrusion he could easily have foreseen a world and society where ambitious men, through the coercive power of the national government have taken control of nearly everything from abortion, healthcare, state lands and DUI limits. They rob millions of hard working, law-abiding citizens to pay for programs that promote federal intrusion into the states.

To reassure anti-federalists, Hamilton argues that “it is a known fact in human nature that its affections are commonly weak in proportion to the distance or diffusiveness of the object.” In other words, don’t worry, the real power will still rest with the states because the power is close to the people. Unfortunately with the abolition of state representation in the national government through the 17th Amendment that statement of Hamilton is no longer relevent. Power is concentrated farther from the people creating a situation that Thomas Jefferson bemoaned in the list of grievances against the King in the Declaration of Independence:

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

The seat of power, from the vantage point of most Americans is distant, unusual and uncomfortable and it is time we restored home rule and patched up the gaping hole in the Constitution ripped out by ambitious men who have done the unthinkable even for Hamilton: usurped the prerogative and power of state and local governments in the name of progress and security.

Throughout this essay Hamilton claims that it is far easier for states to encroach upon federal jurisdiction under the Constitution, which for the first 100+ years was true. But he never dreamed that the states would voluntarily give up their right of representation in the national government. But since they have the federal government has grown in power and authority and I now pay, like a slave, 45% of my earned income to my master, the government.

As Hamilton points out in this essay the answer to balancing out federal and state authority, thus regaining essential freedoms socially and economically rests with the people. For the states ”will generally possess the confidence of and good will of the people, and with so important a support will be able effectually to oppose all encroachments of the national government.” We must REPEAL the 17th! We must RESTORE state authority! We must RENEW the sovereignty of the people! If not, the tyrannous shadow of the national government will choke out the light of liberty in the name of security.

Federalist No. 16

“Here is the danger we have arrived at. Many people still support ‘Hope and Change’ a ‘New Deal’, etc., ect. that do or have done nothing but increase federal authority to the point most Americans are so dependent on government that it borders on tyrannical. How do we stop this? We begin with restoration amendments.”

 This essay has one line that in light of our recent government policies and actions sent a chill down my spine when I read it. Hamilton starts out as he has started out in many of his essays, relating the troubles America will face if it does not unite and give the central authority more energetic powers. If America were to remain a confederacy, the national government would  need a large standing army to enforce any of its decisions because the states in the 1780s had only agreed to confederate loosely, while retaining their complete and total sovereignty. They believed they owed nothing to a central government. It is clear that such a situation could not long remain without serious problems and would lead to the ultimate death of the confederacy “if the federal system be not speedily renovated in a more substantial form.” That was the case then but what about now? We now suffer not from a want of federal authority but from too much. On the spectrum of federalism we have lost the middle way of shared power. While it has never been fully defined where the federal authority begins and state authority ends, it was always understood, until FDR, that the states took care of most all the needs of their citizens. Now we are moving toward a more unitary system in which the federal government simply dictates to the states what they can and cannot do. 

 Hamilton makes the argument that it would be difficult under the Constitution for a state to overturn the federal authority but at the end of his discussion he admits that “Attempts of this kind [states violently overthrowing the government] would not often be made with levity or rashness, because they could seldom be made without danger to the authors, unless in cases of a tyrannical exercise of federal authority. Here is the danger we have arrived at. Many people still support “Hope and Change” a “New Deal”, etc., ect. that do or have done nothing but increase federal authority to the point most Americans are so dependent on government that it borders on tyrannical. How do we stop this? We begin with restoration amendments.

Term Limits Now!

I had to interrupt my Federalist Papers reflections to get this off my chest:

http://men.style.com/gq/features/full?id=content_5585&pageNum=1

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203706604574376720192072820.html

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/06/18/sen-boxer-chides-brigadier-general-calling-maam/

http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/08/william_jefferson_verdict_guil.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/27/stevens-convicted-on-all_n_138287.html

Just think, a Congressional Term Limit Amendment would have put an end to all of this a long time ago!

Federalist No. 15

  ”the answer to our problems leading to impending anarchy is to realize the Constitution was meant to check the power of government not unleash it just because some politicians or bureaucrats have a vision. It was meant to restrain power not expand it indefinitely.”

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             The first line that struck me in Hamilton’s essay was his belief that in his world of the 18th century ”there are material imperfections in our national system and that something is necessary to be done to rescue us from impending anarchy.” Sounds pretty gloomy. I don’t think that is where we are today, after all, Hamilton was lamenting the fact that the states had all the power and the national government had little to none. But maybe in the near future we might be in such a position, not from the states having too much power but from having too little. If the spending continues, if the states have the last drop of sovereignty squeezed from them by the federal government and the people feel powerless to stop the government takeover or influence over almost everything, we are headed for “impending anarchy.” Hamilton said something must be done to keep that from happening. His answer was the Constitution as it was written; this is the same answer for our modern troubles. Not the Constitution as envisioned by social activists or big government conservatives. Not the living, breathing, elastic, stretchy constitution that fits whatever it is you want done document–that I do not care for. No, the answer to our problems leading to impending anarchy is to realize the Constitution was meant to check the power of government not unleash it just because some politicians or bureaucrats have a vision. It was meant to restrain power not expand it indefinitely.

This is what we are seeing today in the opposition to President Obama’s plans from cap and trade to government health insurance. Those who oppose are made to be stupid, ignorant dupes who need to be forced into compliance with the vision of the leaders. But do not be silent in your opposition. Do not be discouraged by the howling cries of the collectivist jackals. It is your time to check the ambitions and daring of those now in power. Those who have slept, awake! Even though, as Algernon Sidney said before his execution, “we live in an age that makes truth pass for treason,” we must not diminish our voices. We will be heard because we are the sovereigns of this nation.

As I read No. 15 I saw all sorts of parallels to our condition. 1787-88 was one of the most important times for America and 2009 is no different. Hamilton believed the United States was in the “last stage of national humiliation.” He asked, “Is commerce of importance to national wealth? Ours is at the lowest point of declension…Is a violent and unnatural decrease in the value of land a symptom of national distress?” He relates the perils of their financial crisis where “borrowing and lending is reduced within the narrowest limits, and this still more from an opinion of insecurity than from a security of money.” At the end of his list of problems with the system of American government in 1788, a list that is strikingly familiar to our modern list of problems, Hamilton urges Americans:

Let us at last break the fatal charm which has too long seduced us from the paths of felicity and prosperity.   

While Americans’ problems then and now are similar, the causes of them remain quite different but the answer to both lies in the same document–the Constitution. While Hamilton’s America suffered from too little central government and unity in the decade after the war, we today suffer from way too much central authority. While in Hamilton’s time a vision of national unity was in doubt, in our period we suffer from too much utopia. We forget laws have consequences.

Hamilton claims that the only “proper objects of government” are citizens. Since government “implies the the power of making laws,” those who would use the government as a paternally wise parent should take warning. Because laws need to be enforced with coercion either of the magistrate or of arms, it is best that those laws be limited in scope and number. So in the end we may ask as Hamilton did, “Why has government been instituted at all?” The answer, “Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.” One might read this today and think of ignorant rednecks who need to be compelled to believe in evolution or support the the idea of global warming or be made to have socialized medicine but it was really meant to keep men from abusing power given to them to execute grand schemes and wild change in government. Hamilton is not as concerned with the “common man” needing to be constrained as much as the bright politician and elected official:

there is in the nature of sovereign power an impatience of control that disposes those who are invested with the exercise of it to look with an evil eye upon all external attempts to restrain or direct its operations.

This is the struggle we are in right now. The federal government has, over the years, taken more power than was ever intended for it under the Constitution. Now to dismantle and repair such usurpation causes the national government and those charged with executing its operations to “look with an evil eye” upon those who would restrain their power. This is to be expected for as Hamilton points out the nature of the Constitution is to expand the national power under strict restrains not to expand its power unfettered. It is under the latter false assumption that modern politicians and bureaucrats operate and they become frustrated when their “worthy and noble” vision is harder to put into action than they realized before they came into power.

For those who seek to exercise their popular sovereignty for the cause of devolution and restoration of republican principles, be strong but beware for as Hamilton warned:

 Power controlled or abridged is almost always the rival and enemy of that power by which it is controlled or abridged.

In other words, any legitimate movement among the people, where ultimate authority is reserved in a republic, that is against the will of those in power will cause those in power to become jealous and hateful of the power that is attempting to check them. Those in power will use all types of slander to retard the movement that is checking their plans, they will even go as far as to say that the legitimate voice of protest is astroturf, it is racism, mob and delusion perpetrated by “those” people.

Federalist No. 14

“We have done the very things Madison warned us not to do: abolish or severely circumscribe state power and expand democracy at a national level; and we did all of that with one single amendment–No. 17. Let us bring back republican government through restoration amendments and start teaching our children that democracy is not a panacea for all the evils in the world.”

Madison does us modern Americans a great service in Federalist 14 when he defines exactly what kind of government was set up under the Constitution. Progressives and conservatives would do well in reading and digesting the information because we have made a grave mistake in abolishing the constitutional checks on democracy set up by the framers. Both parties have historically looked upon expanding democracy at the national level as a good thing, hence the celebration of the 17th Amendment. But Madison takes the antifederalists to task for heaping on the republican constitution the problems and objections of democracy, that is to say that the system set up by the Constitution cannot be extended over a large extent of country like the United States because it would result in chaos. Madison gives us a clear definition of each system and then demolishes the geographic argument for a republic not a direct democracy:

in a democracy, the people meet and exercise the government in person; in a republic, they assemble and administer it by their representatives and agents. A democracy, consequently, will be confined to a small spot. A republic may be extended over a large area.

What were we thinking when we dismantled republican elements in the Constitution? Were we so drunk with democracy tonic that we truly thought it could be extended and exercised on a national level and it would end corruption at the state level? Why do we continue to think this today? Look at the large states that have tried to govern solely on democratic principles. California, as Fareed Zakaria has pointed out in his book Future of Freedom, “is the fullest manifestation of direct democracy in the world today. And if California truly is the wave of tomorrow, then we have seen the future, and it does not work.” He mentions all the referendums, initiatives and recalls that California routinely uses and how they conflict with one another. One segment of California wants huge spending on social welfare programs, others will try to veto it. The state needs to raise taxes to pay the high salaries of its teachers but the people say no and the state issues IOUs.  Again as Zakaria writes, “California has produced a political system that is as close to anarchy as any civilized society has seen.” Direct democracy as Madison points out can be effective but only “among a small number of people, living within a small compass of territory.” And this confirms what Jefferson said on the subject, “A democracy [is] the only pure republic, but impracticable beyond the limits of a town.” 

Democracy should and must work on mainstreet, as if in a Rockwell painting, but it leads to division, strife and chaos “beyond the limits of a town.” In keeping with this vital understanding of democracy’s strengths and limits, Madison writes approvingly of giving power to do most functions to the states and the states to the municipalities, where democracy should flourish.

 ”[I]t is to be remembered that the general [federal] government is not to be charged with the whole power of making and administering laws. Its jurisdiction is limited to certain enumerated objects, which concern all the members of the republic…[the states], which can extend their care to all those other objects which can be separately provided for, will retain their authority and activity.

Madison is reiterating that great principle of federalism, which is one of the key hallmarks of the US Constitution, a federalism that has become more unitary with each passing year. In essence he is saying that under the Constitution there will be a great balance of representation at the national level, which deals with problems of the whole people such as war, interstate commerce, or in other words the enumerated powers laid out in Article 1, Section 8 but that most other problems and needs would be addressed at the state and local levels where representation is closer to the people and democracy is more practical and effective. He also reassures his readers that “Were it proposed by the plan of the convention to abolish the governments of the States, its adversaries would have some ground for their objection”. That was true then but today the states do have grounds for redress. The states in many, many areas have had their authority abolished or made null and void through federal mandates; everything from wolves in Idaho to national DUI laws and No Child Left Behind.

We have done the very things Madison warned us not to do: abolish or severely circumscribe state power and expand democracy at a national level; and we did all of that with one single amendment–No. 17. Let us bring back republican government through restoration amendments and start teaching our children that democracy is not a panacea for all the evils in the world.

(*proposed restoration amendments include: repeal of the 16th & 17th Amendments and a congressional term limit amendment)

Federalist No. 13

“But I am convinced that in the 20th and 21st centuries the United States union has entangled itself in more mischief than two or three smaller republics ever had the capacity for.”

Hamilton starts off No. 13 with an assertion that is hard to believe today: “there will be so much less to be drawn from the pockets of the people…If the States are united under one government”. We have united and have been united for over 200 years and until fairly recently in our history Hamilton’s claim was for the most part correct. But since WWII and before that with the advent of the income tax in 1916, the federal government has increased spending on everything from the military to social entitlement programs. It is as if politicians and buearucrats who work in the government mistakenly believed they discovered some sort of money fountain from which a never-ending stream of money pours forth to fund over-the-top campaign promises and pet projects like keeping wild horses and making sure that rare breed of lesbian chickens are protected in California. What many politicians fail to realize is that one federal program after another is funded in part with my money and that makes me angry. It would shock even Hamilton to see how today we have voided his argument for union.

Hamilton continues his argument, “If the States are united under one government, there will be but one national civil list to support,” which is true but it is just that the list has been enumerated a million fold. The whole basis of Hamilton’s argument in this essay, that it would cost less to have one national government than two or three confederacies, is based on all the extra costs of running those confederacies. Things that Jay wrote about such as the extra cost in maintaining an army at the borders of hostile foreign nations and jealous states, protecting commerce and regulating trade. In other words, one union could avoid all of the local entanglements brought on by a number of smaller republics. But I am convinced that in the 20th and 21st centuries the United States union has entangled itself in more mischief than two or three smaller republics ever had the capacity for.

So until we come to our national senses, a large union of strong federal power does not make as much sense as it used to. May the day come soon when Hamilton’s essay makes logical and practical sense. Who would have predicted the day when Hamilton would become a voice for a weaker federal government? Oh wait the founders did.

Federalist No. 12

“In freedom we’re born and in freedom we’ll live–

Our purses are ready, steady, friend steady–

Not as slaves, but as freemen our money we’ll give.”

In this essay Hamilton points out that a “nation cannot long exist without revenue.” Too true, but how a government goes about collecting revenue and the purposes for it remain questions of the utmost importance.  The people who read Federalist No. 12, and that is probably not many, tend to take a modernist approach to the essay. We have to have taxes to run the government. Taxes have to be high because it is the government’s job to take care of the people “from the cradle to the grave.” Some read Hamilton’s words to justify the outrageous taxes imposed on American citizens who are engaged in lawful and industrious commercial activity and to point a scornful finger at those who desire tax reform. Hamilton’s argument in this essay was never intended to justify the collection and generation of revenue needed to support the dependence of modern America on its government.

But in this essay Hamilton is probably closer to Jefferson’s counsel on the subject than modern progressives. In relation to revenue collecting Jefferson famously stated:

A wise and frugal government which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.

This then is the key to good government: don’t directly tax the people. Period.  And those things the government needs taxes for should be limited. Hamilton suggests that a wise government not tax the people directly but instead sees to it that the “greatest part of the national revenue is derived from taxes of the indirect kind, from imposts and excises,” and also “by the imperceptible agency of taxes on consumption.” Notice the word, “imperceptible,” Hamilton, yes Hamilton who we have made out as the arch-statist, the only founder the progressives have their side, understood you cannot simply tax the brains out of the people; they might revolt. Revenue must be collected very carefully. Hamilton explains:

It is evident from the state of the country, from the habits of the people, from the experience we have had on the point itself that it is impracticable to raise any very considerable sums by direct taxation.

The modern federal government has taken to collect revenue directly from the people in the same manner as a bull in a china closet; and we the people have let them. We have made it a priority to reform healthcare, go to war in foreign countries and save the environment, but we have not put meaningful tax reform on the top of the national agenda for some time.  We need to return to the refrain our political forefathers during the American Revolution used to sing:

In freedom we’re born and in freedom we’ll live–

Our purses are ready, steady, friend steady–

Not as slaves, but as freemen our money we’ll give.

To do ourselves justice and to honor the ideals and principles of the founding generation, let us begin now to undo the strong cords that the progressives have fettered us with. Repeal the 16th Amendment, return to a consumption tax and delicately gather imposts and excises from foreign and domestic trade. Cut back on the size and scope of government. Practice independence and demand economic liberty!

To answer the modern progressives: Taxes are necessary but only for necessary things. The sooner we understand that the list of necessities that a good government provides is short and simple, the sooner Americans can regain their economic independence bequeathed to us by a freer generation.

Hamilton began this essay with what seems obvious to us now, in a post-Adam Smith world. But it still amazes me how certain parties and leaders continually ignore the profit motive. “By promoting the introduction and circulation of the precious metals, those darling objects of human avarice and enterprise,” Hamilton reasons, “it serves to vivify and invigorate all the channels of industry and to make them flow with greater activity and copiousness.” People seek their own self-interest. Companies make things, bigger, better and more cost-efficient things, because they get something valuable for doing so.

The assiduous merchant, the laborious husbandmen, the active mechanic, and the industrious manufacturer–all orders of men look forward with eager expectation and growing alacrity to this pleasing reward of their toils.

Hamilton, and many other framers who read their Adam Smith understood that all men do what they do, not because of charity but because of self-interest and the profit motive. The butcher provides meat for you not because he knows you need it to sustain yourself but because you have something he wants in exchange for it. Insurance companies provide health insurance not because they care about your health but because you offer them something they need. But modern progressives don’t want to operate according to that time tested formula. Instead they make the argument along the lines of Kathleen Sebelius regarding healthcare reform, “you don’t turn over the whole new marketplace to private insurance companies and trust them to do the right thing.” You’re right Kathleen, because “doing the right thing” isn’t the motive for action in the private marketplace; profit is. So what keeps self-interest benefiting both the consumer and producer? Competition. And is that really what government would do if it enter the private sphere and began offering health coverage? Of course it wouldn’t. Placing an entity that is by its very nature monopolistic into a system of competition would eliminate such competition completely. The government’s role in all of this should be to loosen up regulations that give a few companies an unfair advantage in certain states. The government doesn’t create competition by jumping into the race, it does so by maintaining conditions of a fair one.  Otherwise it ends up like the German prince Hamilton makes reference to in the essay who had some of the richest land in all of Europe but “from the want of fostering influence of commerce that monarch can boast but slender revenues.”

May we return to the sound economic principles laid out in the Constitution and defended in the Federalist Papers.

Federalist No. 11

“If we continue this pattern of dependence we will go the way of that great 18th century Britannic Empire; maybe not out but certainly down.”

Foreshadowing his future role as Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton focuses on economic issues in this essay. He claims that a “vigorous national government” would provide many advantages in the area of trade and commercial enterprise. The restrictive tariffs and taxes imposed by states on each other would vanish, opening up new possibilities for local producers and merchants. Like the Chicago School after him, Hamilton cites the freedom of movement as the foundation for prosperity. But unlike the Chicago School he sees the value in imposing tariffs and embargoes from time-to-time. He does not promote any long term ban on shipping but claims that if the United States were unified it could gain a seat at the table of world trade. Not only could it have a seat, it could play with those countries and even force them, through tariffs, embargoes, etc. to open up trade in other parts where those powerful nations held monopolies. He refers specifically to the British and the West Indian trade which was severely limited to American shipping.

Having an “active commerce” and a navy to protect it would threaten the hegemony the Europeans held in the Americas of the 18th century. It would foster and promote the “adventurous spirit, which distinguishes the commercial character of America,” thus securing our economic independence to accompany our political freedom. America has ever been the center for adventurous and free trade but at certain periods of our history, do to the folly of legislatures, presidents and portions of the people our trade has been less than open and free. Currently, I fear that policies of stimulus and pump-priming can only promote dependence and security rather than adventure and freedom. Carbon taxes and environmental policies, designed for technology we currently either do not have or are way too cost inefficient, threaten to cripple the small businessmen and women who form the core of America’s adventurous spirit. Forcing environmental policies that are anti-business will force more companies to go off shore to foreign countries to produce, continue to pollute and cost Americans jobs. Developing green technology that is affordable and then setting the economy on a more environmentally sound course is the only way to keep American economically strong.

A final word on some of the things that stuck out to me in this essay. Hamilton refers to an active commerce giving America wings to “soar to a dangerous greatness.” He also talks of England’s status in the 18th century world as the height of power and glory. As I read, those statements seemed to go together. America has indeed soared to a dangerous greatness and it seems we have taken England’s place as that nation who because of her “superiority” has “plumed herself as the mistress of the world,” and considers the “rest of mankind as created for her benefit.” I pray that America can avoid the “arrogant pretensions of the European” of the 18th century.

If our power and influence has diminished in the eyes of the world that is fine, as long as we are holding true to the values and principles that made this country great and exceptional. But how do we do that? We begin by repudiating the welfare structure, created by FDR and fostered by succeeding presidents, that weakens America’s adventurous spirit and foster dependence. Not only on our government, but on the foreign nations Washington must ever increasingly rely on to fund its welfare mandates. This dependence was on display as George Soros and Federal officials handed our money in New York City on 11 August 2009. As the the New York Daily News reported: “It’s free money!” said Alecia Rumph, 26, who waited in a Morris Park, Bronx, line 300 people deep for the cash to buy uniforms and book bags for her two kids. Thank God for Obama. He’s looking out for us.”

If we continue this pattern of dependence we will go the way of that great 18th century Britannic Empire; maybe not out but certainly down.

Federalist No. 10

“…modern progressives have dismantled key elements of the republican structure of the federal union and have replaced them with more democracy, which is the form of government most susceptible to faction.”

Here is another one of those gems of the Federalist Papers. This is the first essay written by James Madison and includes his remedy for the ancient problem of faction. According to Madison, factions are as natural to mankind as eating and sleeping, or should I say murder, cheating and lying? For Madison, factions are an evil because they tamper with the public good but this is what made the framers like Madison so important: they did not believe men were angels. So instead of government led reform toward that perfect “just” society, dare I say “Hope and Change,” the writers of the Federalist Papers developed a government that built vices into the system and Federalist No. 10 is a perfect example of this.

If faction is a vice, which Madison claims it is, how would one build it into the system that was supposed to be “a more perfect union?” According to Madison there are two ways of dealing with faction: “removing its causes” and “controlling its effects.” The first way is the modern progressive way. If you want to rid society of “bad” things, ban them. Pass a law that banned the actions of all the groups considered a faction. They might start with banning smoking, private education, Christian charities, energy drinks, fast, gas guzzling cars and trucks, private healthcare, fastfood, guns or a myriad of other things people are pushing. After all, Madison claims that a faction is:

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.

The above examples of factions could be considered harmful in some way or another to the people. Smoking is bad for your health so ban it. French fries clog arteries so ban that. Guns kill people so ban them. This is one way to be rid of harmful factions; this is the modern approach but it was not the remedy that Madison lays out in this essay.

The biggest problem of the progressive approach to dealing with factions is loss of liberty. Madison is typical of the founders in that he crafted political systems and policies with a view to liberty first. Will this idea or proposal circumscribe freedom? This was the framers number one concern for the new Constitution. And it is a concept that many today find utterly intolerable. But for Madison the modern approach to societal ills, that of banning factions is a “remedy is worse than the disease,” for “Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires.” So no liberty (ban those filthy groups!), no faction. This is our thinking today. But Madison states:

it could not be a less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive property. 

Notice the emphasis on liberty. Madison compares it with the necessity of air for living creatures that is how important it was to the framers. No, you can’t arbitrarily ban factions, there must be some other way to handle them. It turns out there is and that is why this essay is so important and relevant today. The other approach to factions is the framers way–control them. You can only control them by factoring them into your system. This is how Madison proposes to do that:

Extend the sphere and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens.

Like the governmental system of checks and balances, factions, being numerous in a large republic serve to check the power and ambition of each other, thus one faction in effect cancels out the other. For example, cigarette producers promote their interest through advertisments while anti-tobacco groups produce their own. Each faction fights the other for the “hearts and minds” of the whole of the people. That is how it is supposed to work. But if one looks at Capitol Hill today it is a hive of differing interests buzzing non stop with countless comings-and-goings of self-serving bees all seeking their own self-interest and in many cases being rewarded with the sweet green honey. Too many factions are being rewarded by the government today. The genius of Madison’s remedy for factions is that it is predicated on the idea that resources are scarce. All factions cannot be rewarded, the government must choose what interest groups, if any, it will promote because it cannot fund every one of them. It would go bankrupt, right? 

If Madison were to return today and see the that the federal and many state governments are not controlling factions but rather funding them he would no doubt wonder what went wrong. But he would not look very long in the annals of American constitutional history before he would find the answer: modern progressives have dismantled key elements of the republican structure of the federal union and have replaced them with more democracy, which is the form of government most susceptible to faction. By turning the Congress into a purely democratic institution (by the 17thAmendment) we have provided the necessary conditions for faction to flourish and it has done so with a vengeance. Madison warns that a “small number of  citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction.” In our current system legislators represent their constituents who elected them and these democratically elected representatives are a relatively small numberof citizens who are beholden to the people. These representatives, being beholden to the people, if they want to keep their jobs will have a vested interest in promoting certain factions from among the people. There is no other body to check the People’s House, the Senate being composed of members who are elected in a similar democratic fashion. Terms limits might do much to curb this trend but that is a whole other issue.  Also, if senators and representatives can in Madison’s terms “practise with success the vicious arts (eloquentoratory)” and gain the support of the people they have a better chance of putting some faction into action because the constituents of the other legislators, if convinced of the faction, will demand that their representatives join  it. If you think this is too far fetched I point you to the Obama campaign, hope and change oratory, popular progressive majorities and the rapidity with which they have sought to put their faction into action; a faction which is hostile to property rights (stimulus spending and wealth redistribution). This is why turning a republic into a democracy is an unwise decision because as Madison wrote of democracies:

[they] have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.   

Why would we want this? The Constitution established a republic, with representatives that transact our business, we are not a democracy but have, since the founding, moved in that general direction by dismantling sections of the Constitution. Madison taught that factions are more likely to thrive and survive in democracy rather than a republic. As America becomes more-and-more democratic, the lobbyists and special interests will be the real beneficiaries. 

But for all of my pessimism, my heart is gladdened when I see how hard of a time Democrats are having getting certain pieces of fool hardy legislation passed (healthcare, climate change) because of the checking power of some factions within the Senate. Maybe the system still works to a certain degree after all. A comment left at a Washington Post article summed it up nicely: “The lefties out there who are crying bloody murder right now would be fit to be tied if there wasn’t the senate (with all it’s left-wing factions) in 2002 when Bush came in with a majority in both houses.”

In the end, Madison warned us and gave us the remedy, all we need to do is muster up the courage to swallow the pill and do as the doctor has ordered.