Federalist Number 10 Pros And Cons

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Garrett Tresch Mr. Flint AP US History August 17, 2009 Federalist Number 10 is a very well written explanation of a convincing personal opinion. James Madison expertly uses the relations of several connecting feelings and problems of the average citizen and orders it so it flawlessly flows directly into his final opinion of having a large republic. However, he does make several fine points, all of which fully explain why such a connection can and should be made. But how do these ideas connect and why are these ideas even connected in the first place? To understand this idea fully, one must first understand why Madison has such a negative view on factions in a society. He views factions as groups of citizens with similar ideas that contradict…show more content…
He defends the idea of a large republic rather than a small republic for several reasons on which he stated in the document itself. First of all, because the amount of corrupt aspects in a society depends on the leader of the republic, a larger republic would have a much less chance of electing a corrupt one who would assist the productions of factions. This is because a larger republic would have more people which in turn would allow for a less of a chance for evil, dark-minded politicians to come into power because a lot more of the citizens would have to be tricked that he was a good choice. Also because of the bigger population it would be a lot harder for a faction to grow into a majority, develop into a major political party, and run for an elected position when there is so much opposition from so many other groups, parties, and political candidates. Madison also defends the idea of a republic instead of a democracy and backs this up rather extensively. First of all he says how a democracy will always allow for factions because of a man’s biased opinion for his own good and not the good of the people. Madison also makes a wonderful connection to ordinary citizens by referring to how a factory would be biased one way to benefit his situation while a farmer would do the same in the opposite…show more content…
If the government was a republic it would have fewer factions because there would be no biased middle-class working citizens making the decisions. Instead there would be elected officials whose duty it was to be unbiased and work for the good of the people. If the government was a large republic it would have fewer factions because of the many more groups and questioners-of-trustworthiness that would form out of the huge population. In turn this bigger republic would be both better and safer because of the fewer factions and more people to contradict with rising groups. Finally, Madison feels that factions are bad in the first place because they tear apart large territories in conflicts caused by slight differences in
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