What Is Federalist No. 10 About?

Madison defined a faction as a group of citizens — whether a majority or a minority — united by a common passion or interest that runs against the rights of others or the lasting good of the community. Think organized self-interest powerful enough to trample everyone else.

His famous claim is that faction is unavoidable: "the latent causes of faction are sown in the nature of man." People differ in opinions, wealth, and interests, and those differences inevitably produce competing groups. The most common and durable source, he noted, is the unequal distribution of property.

Madison said there are only two ways to cure the mischiefs of faction — and the first is worse than the disease:

• Remove its causes — either by destroying the liberty that lets factions form, or by giving everyone the same opinions and interests. The first kills freedom; the second is impossible. Both are rejected.
• Control its effects — accept that factions will exist and build a system that keeps any one of them from imposing its will. This is the path he argues for.

Here Madison draws his key distinction between a pure democracy (where citizens govern directly) and a republic (where they elect representatives). A republic, he argues, refines and enlarges the public's views by passing them through elected representatives — and, crucially, it can cover a large territory with many people.

That size is the safeguard. The bigger and more diverse the republic, the more interests it contains, and the harder it is for any single faction to grow into a tyrannical majority. Where a small democracy is easily captured by one group, a large republic dilutes that danger. It was a direct answer to critics who insisted a republic could only work in a small territory.