Federalist 10: Governments Are Formed to Protect Property Rights; a Republic Is Far Superior to a Democracy ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT ADVANTAGES promised by a well-constructed Constitution is its tendency to break and control the violence of faction. By “faction,” I mean a minority or majority of citizens who are united and motivated by…
A FIRM UNION IS THE ULTIMATE BARRIER against the forces that would overwhelm the peace and liberty of the States. Those forces – domestic faction, party rage, sedition and insurrection – led to a rapid succession of revolutions in the small republics of Greece and Italy. Those same forces – aided by the vices of…
A DISUNITED UNITED STATES would be subject to all those vicissitudes of peace and war – and of friendship and enmity with each other – that are the lot of all neighboring nations who are not united under one government. War between the States would be more devastating than in those European countries where regular…
WHAT INDUCEMENTS WOULD THE STATES of a disunited America have to make war upon each other? Precisely the same inducements which have deluged in blood all the nations of the world at various times. Disputes Over Territory Can Cause War Territorial disputes have at all times been one of the most fertile sources of hostility…
ONE MUST BE FAR GONE IN UTOPIAN SPECULATIONS to question whether the States of a disunited America would have frequent and violent contests with each other. We should not presume a lack of motives for such hostilities. Are not humans ambitious, rapacious, and vindictive? To anticipate harmony between a number of independent, unconnected sovereignties in…