Federalist 10 in a Positive

Federalist 10 in a Positive Light plan was carried to the convention floor by Mr. James Madison. It was the exact mirrored opposite of Hamilton's plan. In fact, the theory he advocated at Philadelphia and in his Federalist essays was developed as a republican substitute for the New Yorker's, often high toned, scheme of state.

Madison was convinced the class struggle would be alleviated in America by establishing a limited federal government that would make use of the vast size of the country and the existence of the states as active political organizations.

He expressed in his "Notes on Confederacy," in his speeches and in Federalist 10 that if in an extended republic was set up including a multiplicity of economic, geographic, social, religious and sectional interests, these interests, by checking each other, would prevent American society from being divided into segments of the rich and segments of the poor.1 Thus, if no interstate proletariat could become organized purely due to economic lines, the property of the rich would be safe even though the mass of the people held political power.

Madison's solution for the class struggle was not to set up an absolute and irresponsible state to regiment society from above; he was never willing to sacrifice liberty to gain security in any way. His goal was to multiply the deposits of political power in the state itself sufficiently in order to break down the sole dualism of rich and poor, allowing for a guarantee of liberty and security.

This, as he stated in Federalist 10, would provide a "republican remedy for the diseases most incident to republican government." 2 it is also interesting to note that James Madison was the most creative and philosophical disciple of the Scottish school of science and politics in the Philadelphia Convention. He was effective as an advocate for a new constitution, and of the particular constitution that was drawn up in Philadelphia n 1787.

This effectiveness was certainly based in a large part on his vast personal experience in public life and his personal knowledge of the conditions of American in 1787. Madison was a great statesman who had the ability to set his personal experience into the context of the experience of men in other ages and times. By doing this he gave extra insight to his political formulations.

Madison's most amazing political prophecy, contained within the pages of Federalist 10, was that the size of the United States and its variety of interests could be made a guarantee of stability and justice under the new constitution. When Madison made this prophecy, the accepted opinion among many politicians was the opposite. It was David Hume's speculations in the "Idea of a Perfect Common Wealth," first published in 1752, that most stimulated James Madison's thought on factions.

3 in this essay, Hume disclaimed any attempt to substitute a political utopia for the inaccurate governments that seemed to serve imperfect men so well. At the end of Hume's essay was a discussion that could not help being of interest to Madison. Hume expressed that in a large government there is enough room to refine the democracy, from the lower people, who may be admitted into the first elections of the commonwealth, to the higher magistrate, who direct all of the movements.

Madison had developed his own theory of the extended republic. It is interesting to see how he took these scattered and incomplete fragments and built on them to make them into an intellectual and theoretical structure of his own. Madison's first full statement of this hypothesis appeared in his "Notes on the Confederacy" written in April 1787, eight months before the final version of it was published as the tenth federalist.

Starting with the proposition that "in republican government, the majority, ultimately give the law." Madison then asks, what is to restrain an interesting majority from unjust violations of the minority's rights? Three motives could be claimed to meliorate the selfishness of the majority: first, "prudent regard for their own good, as involved in the general...good" and second, "respect for character" and finally, religiousness. After examining each in its turn Madison concludes that they are but a frail bulwark against a ruthless party.

Hume's work was admirably adapted to the purpose, as he used the earlier work in preparing a survey on factions through the ages to introduce his own discussion on faction in America. The tenth Federalist reads, "A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government,.