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16 Harv. J. L. & Pub. Pol'y 43 (1993)
Remarks on the Federalist Number 10

handle is hein.journals/hjlpp16 and id is 59 raw text is: REMARKS ON THE FEDERALIST NUMBER 10 DAVID F. EPSTEIN* Commentators well-disposed toward The Federalist are some- times too forgiving, willing to overlook the inconsistencies, hastiness, and looseness of expression they find in the book. While this spirit of mercy is very admirable in a teacher and perhaps in a judge, it makes us less exacting readers. I believe that The Federalist is in fact a model of coherent thought and precise writing, and I will try to illustrate that by analyzing two distinctions Madison makes in The Federalist Number 10. I will conclude by contrasting The Federalist's view of these issues with views common today in American society and perhaps even in The Federalist Society. The Federalist Number 10's definition of faction contains both of the distinctions I wish to speak about: By a faction I understand 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.' Notice Madison's distinction between passion and interest. No- tice also his distinction between the rights of other citizens and the permanent and aggregate interests of the community. This is not careless repetition or elegant variation; these are two fundamental distinctions. In the rest of The Federalist Number 10 they appear repeatedly, in the same or similar words. Madison says that the causes of faction are liberty, which al- lows men to divide themselves into groups, and diversity, which provokes them to do so.' One source of diversity is the fact that reason and passion influence each other, and opinion becomes the object of our passions. That is what makes one kind of faction: people getting passionate about their opinions. Now this behavior is so commonly observed that it evokes no wonder. But why do people become passionate about their * Deputy Director of Net Assessment, Office of the Secretary of Defense; author, THE POLITICAL THEORY OF THE FEDERALIST (1984). 1. THE FEDERALIST No. 10, at 78 (James Madison)(Clinton Rossiter ed., 1961). 2. See id.

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