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. …
… the most
common and most durable source of
factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without
property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those who are
debtors, fall under a like discrimination.
A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a
moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized
nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different
sentiments and views. The regulation of
these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern
legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and
ordinary operations of government. …
The apportionment of taxes on the various
descriptions of property is an act which seems to require the most exact
impartiality; yet there is, perhaps, no legislative act in which greater
opportunity and temptation are given to the a predominant party to trample on
the rules of justice. Every shilling
with which they overburden the inferior number, is a shilling saved to their
own pockets.
It is in vain to say that enlightened
statesmen will be able to adjust these clashing interests, and render them all
subservient to the public good.
Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm. Not, in many cases, can such an adjustment be
made at all without taking into view indirect and remote considerations, which
will rarely prevail over the immediate interest which oe party may find in
disregarding the rights of another or the goo of the whole.
The inference to which we are brought is,
that the CAUSES of factions cannot be removed, and relief is only to be sought
in the means of controlling its EFFECTS.
If a faction consists of less than a
majority, relief is supplied by the republican principle, which enables the
majority to defeat its sinister views by regular vote. It may clog the administration, it may
convulse the society; but it will be unable to execute and mask its violence
under the forms of the Constitution.
When a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular
government, on the other hand, enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or
interest both the public good and the right of other citizens. To secure the public good and private rights
against the danger of such a faction, and at the same time to preserve the
spirit and form of popular government, is then the great object to which our
enquiries are directed. Let me add that
this is the great desideratum by which this form of government can be rescued
from the opprobrium under which it has so long labored, and be recommended to
the esteem and adoption of mankind.[1]
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