In drafting the U. S. Constitution, the Founding Fathers engaged in debates regarding the possibility of the country’s breakup due to tensions among various political factions. Their solution was an innovative and hitherto unprecedented one: create an extended republic and mitigate the problem of faction by allowing factions to multiply beyond all precedent. This insight, paradoxical at first glance, helped form one of the sustaining principles of the American constitutional order.

            The Framers sought to extend the sphere of the American republic so as to “break and control the violence of faction” (Federalist 10). Publius defines a faction as a “number of individuals—whether a majority or minority of the whole—who are united and actuated by some passion or interest adverse to the rights of other citizens and the permanent interests of the community” (Federalist 10).

            The causes of faction are liberty—which is to faction what air is to fire—and diversity of individual opinions, tastes, and interests. Eliminating neither cause is practicable or desirable: liberty is also as essential to political life as air is to animal life, while it is from diverse human faculties that all property rights stem—and from them society’s division into various interests. Publius writes that “the causes of faction are sown into the nature of man,” and thus we must control its effects.

            In an extended republic, there will be more people composing the society—spread out over a larger territory. There will thus be a greater number of distinct factions and less of a chance that this multitude will coalesce into a majority faction—the greatest threat to individual liberty.

            Furthermore, an extended republic presents a larger pool of virtuous and able persons to choose representatives and other civic officials from; meanwhile, the factions, even if they take over one state or locality can be repulsed in their oppressive designs by the other states and localities.  Thus, “in the extended republic of the United States, and among the great variety of interests, parties, and sects, which it embraces, a coalition of a majority of the whole society could seldom take place upon any principles than those of justice and the general good” (Federalist 51).

            With the threat of majority faction mitigated, the competition among thousands of small factions ceases to be a problem. No one faction can take power and oppress the populace, which allows freedom to flourish. Indeed, this is what happened during the first decades of American history.

G. Stolyarov II is a science fiction novelist, independent philosophical essayist, poet, amateur mathematician, composer, contributor to Enter Stage Right, Le Quebecois Libre,  Rebirth of Reason, and the Ludwig von Mises Institute, Senior Writer for The Liberal Institute, weekly columnist for GrasstopsUSA.com, and Editor-in-Chief of The Rational Argumentator, a magazine championing the principles of reason, rights, and progress. Mr. Stolyarov also publishes his articles on Helium.com and Associated Content to assist the spread of rational ideas. His newest science fiction novel is Eden against the Colossus. His latest non-fiction treatise is A Rational Cosmology. His most recent play is Implied Consent. Mr. Stolyarov can be contacted at gennadystolyarovii@yahoo.com.

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Read Mr. Stolyarov's new comprehensive treatise, A Rational Cosmology, explicating such terms as the universe, matter, space, time, sound, light, life, consciousness, and volition, here.

Read Mr. Stolyarov's new four-act play, Implied Consent, a futuristic intellectual drama on the sanctity of human life, here.