Were the Founding Fathers Party Animals?

Political parties were well on their way to becoming institutionalized in the U.S. at the time George Washington announced his retirement from the presidency in 1796. Therefore, it’s interesting that one of the central figures among the Founding Fathers had written, in "Federalist 10", just nine years previously, that parties are 1) bad things, and 2) less likely to arise under the Constitution than under other forms of government.

"Federalist 10" was published under the pseudonym “Publius”, as were the other essays in the series, although we know it to have been authored by James Madison. He wrote that a major advantage “promised by a well constructed Union“ is “its tendency to break and control the violence of faction“. Lest we underestimate his passion on this question, Madison goes on to describe faction as “this dangerous vice”. He defines faction as “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“. This amounts to a political party, and the words “party” and “faction” are used interchangeably throughout the document.

Madison distinguishes between removing the causes of faction and controlling its effects. One way to remove the causes is “by destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence“. In his time, Madison was probably thinking of absolute monarchy. Later on, the one-party dictatorships, such as the Soviet Union, fit that description. In either case, multiple parties do not exist but, as Madison says, the “remedy … is worse than the disease”. The second way to remove the causes is to give “to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions and the same interests”. Madison calls that “impracticable”.

Madison goes on to argue that the government established by the Constitution would control the effects of the tendency toward faction. The Constitution established a stronger central government than had existed up to that point, although it would not seem all that strong to us today. Madison compares that plan of government to both direct democracy, and independent republics in the individual states. The latter describes more or less what existed under the previous constitution, the Articles of Confederation of 1781.

What Madison calls “pure democracy” sounds like what we tend to think of as the New England town meeting style of government, where the citizens meet and vote on issues directly, rather than having their representatives do so. The “initiative and referendum” system that developed in some states (most notably California) in the 20th century is another example. He thinks that a majority faction will always arise under such circumstances, to the detriment of the minority.

He then discusses “a republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place”. Here he makes an elitist argument that to the extent decision-making is delegated to a small group, who presumably constitute the highest level of society, the base passions of the common people will be filtered out. Therefore, those decisions will be made for the general good of society, rather than special interests. And that will be even more likely to take place if the republic constitutes the entire U.S., rather than being on a smaller scale. I admit that I’m paraphrasing quite liberally here, but that attitude does seem to pervade the constitutional views of the founding fathers (see discussion in a later post of the original form of the electoral college). While there have been many abuses in favor of special interests in the system as it developed, I don’t know that many people today would make such an elitist argument.

Did it all work the way Madison envisioned? Of course not. The Constitution did not prevent the party system from coming into being in the U.S. Instead, what postponed it for a short time was something less long-lasting: the person of George Washington. As long as he was president, he was able, to some degree at least, to keep the political leaders united. For example, future party antagonists such as Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton coexisted for a while in Washington’s cabinet. But by the time Washington had decided to retire at the end of his second term, the first American two-party system had come into existence.

So, back to the original question: were the founding fathers party animals? Yes (at least those who remained in office after Washington). There is some humor (that cannot have been intended) in the last paragraph of Madison’s essay, where he mentions the two words that would go on to become the names of the first two American major parties: the Federalists and the Republicans.

Image: Library of Congress