The Federalist No. 10
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which it has so long labored and be recommended to the esteem and
adoption of mankind.
By what means is this object attainable? Evidently by one of two only.
Either the existence of the same passion or interest in a majority at the
same time must be prevented, or the majority, having such co-existent
passion or interest, must be rendered, by their number and local situation, unable to concert and carry into effect schemes of oppression. If the
impulse and the opportunity be suffered to coincide, we well know that
neither moral nor religious motives can be relied on as an adequate control. They are not found to be such on the injustice and violence of individuals, and lose their efficacy in proportion to the number combined together, that is, in proportion as their efficacy becomes needful.
From this view of the subject, it may be concluded that a pure democracy, by which I mean, a society, consisting of a small number of citizens
who assemble and administer the Government in person, can admit of
no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in
almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication
and concert results from the form of Government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party, or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is, that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible
with personal security, or the rights of property; and have in general been
as short in their lives, as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic
politicians, who have patronized this species of Government, have erroneously supposed, that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in
their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized
and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions.
A Republic, by which I mean a Government in which the scheme of
representation takes place, opens a different prospect, and promises the
cure for which we are seeking. Let us examine the points in which it varies from pure democracy, and we shall comprehend both the nature of
the cure, and the efficacy which it must derive from the Union.
The two great points of difference between a Democracy and a Republic are: first, the delegation of the Government, in the latter, to a small
number of citizens elected by the rest: secondly, the greater number of