Federalist No. 10

The Federalist Papers were a series of essays initiated by Alexander Hamilton arguing for the ratification of the United States Constitution. The essays were the most significant contribution to the debate over the structure of the new American government. Thomas Jefferson called them "the best commentary on the principles of government which ever was written." 

Federalist No. 10, written by Madison, is the most famous of the Federalist essays. It deals with the danger of "faction" (divisions) in a democratic government and argues that the federal system that the Constitution created was the best solution to this problem. Federalist No. 10 shows an explicit rejection by the Founding Fathers of the principles of direct democracy and factionalism, arguing that a representative republic is more effective against partisanship and factionalism. The ideas of individual liberty and republican democracy are essential in the shape the new American government took under the U.S. Constitution. However, despite the system put in place by Federalist No. 10, factions still retain a large and some would say pernicious impact on the American government and political system. 

“By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.”