May 19, 2019 Sunday
Bedtime Story
Federalist No. 10 on The Danger of Divisions in an Union
The Federalist Papers were authored by
three of the Founding Fathers namely Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John
Jay under the pseudonym “Publius”.
In the very first essay or the “Federalist
No. 1” the authors did not begin with any assertion but by posing the following
problem:
“It has been frequently remarked, that it
seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and
example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really
capable or not, of establishing good governance from reflection and choice, or
whether they are forever destined to depend, for their political constitutions,
on accident and force.”
How I wish this problem could be framed in
the language of mathematics so that a Gödel or a Turing could come along in
future and find a solution to this ill-posed problem in natural language.
Of the 85 articles of The Federalist the
“Federalist No. 10” is regarded as the most sublime and most highly respected in
all of the American political writings.
This article or essay (written by James
Madison who happened to be a lawyer and later the fourth President of the
United States after Thomas Jefferson from 1809 to 1817 and under whose
presidency the War of 1812 took place) yet again poses a problem rather than
offering solution as how to reconcile citizens with interests that are in
direct conflict with rights of others or detrimental to the interests of the
community as a whole.
In the very nature of man he saw the
dangers of their division.
Such divisions among men can arise out of
their economical, political or religious beliefs, their social or economic
backgrounds or simply by the amount of wealth they were either born with or managed
to amass in their lifetimes.
Men with similar views, beliefs and
ideologies tend to form alliances among themselves who would later might want
to enforce polices that might be detrimental to the society or infringe upon
the rights of others.
The Federalist No. 10 is titled “The Unity
of the Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection”.
Madison defined faction as “a number of
citizens, whether amounting to a minority or a majority of the whole, who are
united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse
to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of
the community.”
Madison pin pointed out that the most
likely reason of development of factions would be the ownership of properties.
In his words, “the most common and durable
source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property.”
“Those who hold and those who are without property
have ever formed distinct interests in society” he had noted in this Federalist
Paper.
He very well understood that the wealthy
property and land owners who also owned slaves were a tiny minority and the majority masses would crave
for a revolution.
Stay tuned to the voice of an
average story storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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