Essay • 1787

Federalist No. 10

James Madison (Publius)

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Madison's most influential essay (1787) argues that the danger of faction — majorities trampling minorities — is best controlled not by suppressing liberty but by extending the sphere of the Republic so that no single interest can dominate. It is the philosophical defense of a large, federal, representative democracy.

Among the numerous advantages promised by a well-constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction. Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. The latent causes of faction are sown in the nature of man.

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