Divided We Stand

When was the era when people at the time believed that things were amazing? When was the era when everyone believed that things were as good as could be, that there were no issues of great national disagreement, when peace and happiness prevailed throughout the land?

One of the many advantages of reading Old Books is realizing how contemporary they often feel. Here, for example, are some passages describing the Great Divisions in Modern Society. For each of the four passages below, guess the date in which they were written:

1. A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good.
2. Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty, that our governments are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority. However anxiously we may wish that these complaints had no foundation, the evidence, of known facts will not permit us to deny that they are in some degree true.
3. So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts.
4. But 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.

The above was a trick question. All four passages come from the same source. James Madison wrote all of them in 1787 in issue 10 of The Federalist Papers.

Look again at those four passages and ask which one is not something that people have said about contemporary society in the last year. Take the first one, for example, and see how trivially easy it is to apply each of its parts to modern society:

1. A zeal for different opinions concerning religion,
2. concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice;
3. an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions,
4. have, in turn, divided mankind into parties,
5. inflamed them with mutual animosity,
6. and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good.

Rather depressing isn’t it?

The solution? Madison again: “There are two methods of curing the mischiefs of faction: the one, by removing its causes; the other, by controlling its effects.”

Look at modern political discourse and there is no doubt which route is the more popular: somehow, some way, everyone seems to want to rid the nation of the causes of faction. We could all get along if only that other side no longer existed or at least if they were just better educated so they would have the right thoughts. Even if we can’t get rid of that other side completely, can’t we just get rid of the most extreme versions?

Madison, once again: “There are again two methods of removing the causes of faction: the one, by destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence; the other, by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests.” The first of those options is undesirable; the second is impossible.

Madison’s solution was the US Constitution, which we can easily verify has done absolutely nothing to reduce the divisions of society. What the Constitution has done, remarkably well, is keep the nation intact. How? From Federalist 51 (also written by Madison): “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.”

That idea is absolute genius. If you want to control the effects of the division in the society, make sure that ambitious people will always have the means and opportunity to counteract the ambitions of their opponents.

Division and Strife is a feature, not a bug, of the American political order.

The problem, as one last quotation from Madison makes clear, is human nature: “If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.”

So, yes, the divisions in the current world of politics are the worst they have ever been. They are always the worst they have ever been. They always will be the worst they have ever been. Nostalgia is a powerful force making the past seem so much better than it was, but when you read the political documents of those earlier times, it is always quite stunning to realize how contemporary the complaints seem. And, if reading Madison hasn’t convinced you of that, try reading political discussion from 1861.

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