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diversity and conflict, the French worshipped homogeneity and unanimi–
ty. Their leaders believed that the salvation of the Revolution depended
above all on the absolute unity and solidarity of the people. According to
their revolutionary agenda, three orders-nobility, clergy, and third estate
-would become one, twenty-five million ci tizens would form one uni–
tary people. All would sacrifice their self-interest for the common good of
all; diverse opinions would yield to consensus. Could revolutionary gov–
ernment in France succeed in blocking the impulse toward entropy and
move instead toward order and oneness? Can laws of physics be reversed?
Madison's brilliant and novel plan for the federal republic stemmed
from his fundamental belief that citizens are individuals and that as indi–
viduals, they are all different. He explicitly rejected the idea of regarding
Americans "as one homogeneous mass." He knew well that people would
never agree unanimously on anything. A vast variety of "unavoidable"
factors-wealth and property, social class, religion, geography, political
ideas, etc.-would always divide people into different interest groups and
factions. Indeed, the principle of diversity seemed embedded in human
nature, that is, in human rationality. Madison argued that rational people
view issues in different ways because reason is essentially imperfect. "As
long as the reason of man continues
fallible,"
he maintained, "and he is at
liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed ."
Could differences and factions be removed from society? Madison
asked. Could conflict be eliminated and unity achieved? Well, unity and
unanimity could certainly be achieved by summarily outlawing factions,
but such an option was completely unsatisfactory and unacceptable, since
its cost would be freedom itself. "Liberty is to faction," Madison said in a
superb simile, "what air is to fire....But it could not be less folly to abol–
ish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction,
than it would be to wish the annihilation of air."
Was there any other way to achieve unity? No. The dream of unity, he
noted with disdain, was a fantasy that only "theoretic politicians" could
find fruitful. Only cloistered philosophers could imagine imposing the
same opinions, passions, and interests on every citizen. In the "civilized
communities" of real life, no such "perfect homogeneousness of interests,
opinions
&
feelings" would ever be found. Division and conflict were
inevitable because "the latent causes of faction are. ..sown in the nature of
man." Not "reason" but passion and self-interest would always dominate
human affairs.
Madison's acceptance of the reality of human nature was itself a cru–
cial feature of the American Revolution. He was never tempted to remold
or "regenerate"-as the French would say-human beings to suit utopian
