Faction politics are what the Federalist papers portray as the #1 danger…even riskier than crocodiles or living down the street from your favorite taco truck.
Democracy, if unchecked, turns the country into one big game of catch-the-votes, and vote-catching can be done a lot of different ways besides just having a good platform. A savvy politician can just pick a popular issue, and then ride it straight into power-land.
Not only that, but if one group is able to catch a majority of those votes, then there is nothing that can be done to protect the rights any of the groups whose vote-nets came up a bit emptier.
Questions About Majority vs. Minority
- Why is a government that can't protect the rights of minority groups no better than an anarchy?
- How is a Republic able to check the threat of majority power?
- How can a government's suppression of the will of the majority be problematic?
- What majority groups could Madison have been worried about?
Chew on This
Madison's proposition for the structure of the legislative branch fits nicely in with the goal of keeping majority power in line. The House of Representatives gets proportional representation to state population, while the Senate gets equal representation.
Conversely, critics of the Federalist cause accuse them of setting up a system in which the minority in power gets to control the majority of citizens. At the heart of the debate is the question of the nature of the majority in a democracy—one group says the majority is the will of the people, while the other says that the majority is just a mob that shouldn't be given the keys to the kingdom—er, democracy.