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James Madison's Truth

Federalist 10 by James Madison is a noble founding document which is being seriously misrepresented in many of today’s classrooms.

Stephen M. Astrachan | May 15, 2026

Federalist 10 by James Madison is a noble founding document which is being seriously misrepresented in many of today’s classrooms.

In Federalist 10 Madison dealt with the threat of factions which he defined as, “a number of citizens... a majority or a minority... 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.” Given the imbalances of power that can arise from factions, “measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority.” Factions can involve any number of issues such as religion, governing philosophies, or the support for competing leaders. However, the leading cause of faction has always been the “unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society.” Different types of property arise through “the diversity in the faculties of men” the protection of which was a critical responsibility of government.

Madison then went on to argue that the best protection against the potential abusiveness of factions lies in the larger size of the polity:

Extend the sphere, and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more difficult for all who feel it to discover their own strength, and to act in unison with each other.

Extend the sphere, and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more........

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