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Factions are easy to spot and vary in size, scope, and reach. Not unlike your first day of high school, in the cafeteria, one might notice the different groups of students; athletes, mathletes, band members, thespians, etc. sitting in their own distinct groups. These groups within the student body, operate separately from one another within the same system – they are a small unit example of people or groups who came together because of common interests under what is provided in the curriculum at school; different outlets to encourage involvement from all walks of life. It was Madison’s view that in order to advance a constitutional republic, he must use rhetoric that encourages a republic to govern the growth of factions. Effectively controlling the effects, rather than trying to quell factions, was the key to ensuring the success in the infancy of the United States and the transition from the Articles of Confederation.
Why interest groups would have a positive effect on the young American form of government:
In Federalist No. 10 Madison’s stance is that extensive republics are better than small, inadequate republics because they poise a diversity of “factions” against each other and prevent any one group from disproportionately manipulating the government. In a small republic, small factions can easily take control of the state’s resources or the state itself. Included amid these factions is any large group of voters with similar interests. The majority and its alleged desire for the domination of the minority can be controlled by dividing the local majorities amongst their national level majorities from other states, leading to a well-adjusted people in which no faction rules the others.
Madison’s determination was to establish that if the American states could go on self-regulating as if they were a pure democracy, they would corrupt into tyranny. Should the states favor consolidastion into one federal system the different factions within the numerous states would be stable.
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In No. 51 – “If men were angels, no government would be necessary…” (Kernell, S., & Smith, S. S., 2019, p. 24) Madison suggest, not only do we need government, we need a stronger federal government to protect the United States transitioning from the Articles of Confederation. It is argued in No. 51 that the power of the legislative branch comes from the will of the people, however we do not want that power then to be turned against other people, so we have the House and the Senate with checks and balances between those. Madison was fixated with the possibility that the lower-class faction is going to tend to want to take from the minority, the landed upper class. Therefore, there needs to be mechanisms built in to safeguard against the “tyranny of the majority.” (Dür, A., 2018)
Madison argues for a large republic because the larger the republic, the larger amount of people participating in more factions, drawn to each other as the population of factions is thinned out over the larger number of participants. Because of the design of the Constitution we have multiple avenues to reach effective government. Every faction, if it wants to act, has the checks & balances of the different branches to ensure no one faction dominates the arena of government. Separation of powers and checks & balances suggests not only are we going to have Federalism, but it is necessary to separate said federal government into a judiciary, legislative, and executive branch. Going so far as to splitting the most powerful legislative branch into two parts, to encourage a more secure population to participate in a government of the people, and by the people. Madison and the Federalists suggests such a governed republic is safe from the outgrowth of factions.
Two interests groups whose interests “offset” each other’s views:
Planned Parenthood Action Fund; Founded to support Planned Parenthood and that organization’s interests, their website states, “The Planned Parenthood Action Fund is a nonprofit, non-partisan group. We are backed by more than 10 million activists, donors, and other supporters”[footnoteRef:1]. The PPAF continues their mission statement by endorsing their ability to, “Educate and organize the public, register, inform, and mobilize voters promote policies that help people access health care” and, “stand in solidarity with social justice partners to fight back against hate and discrimination.” [1: Retrieved from https://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/about-us]
Campaign for Working Families; The Campaign for Working Families states on its page that they are “unapologetically pro-life, pro-family, and pro-growth.” While the CWF is officially a political action committee, its interests and contributions are an example of a group who runs counter to the interests of the PPAF. “CWF raised over $7 million to become the 5th largest PAC in the country for the 1998 election cycle and the leading pro-family, pro-life political action committee in America.”[footnoteRef:2] [2: Retrieved from https://www.cwfpac.com/about-us]
These two groups receive about the same amount of funding with differing numbers in membership. Their views offset one another so dramatically that in order for each side to express their opinions in the manner they see fit, they must band together in groups behind their beliefs and endorse the representatives and organizations that will further their respective causes.
My view of Madison’s perspective is that he understood factions created problems between the majorities and the minorities because the minorities do not have their opinions expressed. The main difference between the majority and the minority factions is the property each faction owns. Madison logically decides factions should be dealt with by fixing the root of the problem, or to control the effects. The Two options included first, to take away freedoms from factions the way you might take away air from a fire. (Kernell, S., & Smith, S. S., 2019, p. 20) Such freedoms include basic rights like the freedom of assembly and freedom of speech. The second option was to ensure everyone had the same opinion about everything, which is impossible, it is against human nature to try and make people “think” the same thing. Madison deduces that factions are natural and cannot be destroyed. It is suggested the effects of factions should be controlled by a republic. Through representatives the incorrect opinion of the majority can be filtered out. The reason for using a republic and its representative rather than having one vote is that the corrupt desires of the majority can be avoided. In direct democracies, like Athens, Greece, the corrupt desires of the majority are unavoidable since people make decisions without representatives.
Not just any size of republican democracy will work either. Many representatives are better in a republic because more qualified people will be prepared to operate for the good of America. It also helps in reducing corrupt representatives, since there are so many to serve as representatives. With the addition of more participants, more splits within a majority faction are created because there is a greater variety of interest in the majority group. Since Madison believed that a large republican representation was required to govern America, he also pushed for a Separation of Powers. (Kernell, S., & Smith, S. S., 2019, p. 24) Before the Constitution became official America had one branch of government, the Legislative Branch. Adding a Judicial branch ensured that the laws passed by the legislature was not done so by itself, in favor of itself. With the power divided between the two branches (legislative and judicial) faction power would be reduced and corruption would be limited.
Was Madison right?
Not necessarily. What developed in less than a century was a combination of Master-Slave factions and State’s Rights vs Northern Abolitionist factions, that eventually split the country apart. The main idea is that there is always going to be factions, but in order to protect the minority (the wealthy landed class) from the Tyranny of the Majority, the United States must have a large republic. At the time the anti-Federalists lost, and Madison won, so from a 2019 perspective we can now witness the true extent to which a large republic has failed to prevent the rise of exploitive and powerful factions in the United States. The U.S. government now controls more than 2.5 trillion dollars that flow to the treasury every year, inviting every faction, large and small, that hopes to capture even a tiny fraction of this enormous pile of wealth for itself. Never in the history of the world has any single state spent so much and owed so much, while maintaining military bases in every corner of the world while spying, cataloging, taxing, regulating, and imprisoning so many. (Cordato, R., 2017)
Did Madison underestimate the power of interest groups?
It’s likely Madison’s confidence and insistence on the federal system of republican government was to bolster the need to sell the idea to the rest of the country and especially the Anti-Federalists. Even if he could predict today’s situation, he probably did not underestimate the power of interest groups as much as he needed the essay at the time to represent staunch support for a Federal government. (Kernell, S., & Smith, S. S., 2019, p. 27)
It was Madison’s view that in order to advance a constitutional republic, he must use rhetoric that encourages a republic to govern the growth of factions. Effectively controlling the effects, rather than trying to quell factions, was the key to ensuring the success in the infancy of the United States and the transition from the Articles of Confederation. Madison shows that factions, which are groups of people with the same ideas and beliefs, are a part of America, and that the government should control them to reduce instability. The only way to control factions is through a republic, or a representative democracy. Such a democracy should have a system of checks & balances to ensure no one branch of government becomes too powerful. All in all, Madison wanted to assure the Anti-Federalists that the minorities’ interests would be saved with the ratification of the Constitution that still endures to this day.
Works cited
- Carey, G. (1995). In defense of the constitution. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund.
- Cordato, R. (2017, July 05). The Special Interest Effect. Retrieved January 26, 2019, from https://www.johnlocke.org/research/the-special-interest-effect/
- Dür, A. (2018). How interest groups influence public opinion: Arguments matter more than the sources. European Journal of Political Research. doi:10.1111/1475-6765.12298
- Kazin, M., & Edwards, R. (2011). The concise Princeton encyclopedia of American political history. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press.
- Kernell, S., & Smith, S. S. (2019). Principles and practice of American politics: Classic and contemporary readings. Thousand Oaks, CA: CQ Press.
