...necessary to liberty as "air is to fire." Madison again uses the language of fire when he argues that "the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have...unfriendly passions, and excite their most violent conflict." Madison makes use of these J20 metaphors to reinforce his principal thesis that faction...

...succumb to their self-interests and narrow passions. "So strong is this propensity of mankind," he wrote, "that where no substantial occasion presents itself,...fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts." 1 Common public enterprises could not...

...the lust for victory. So powerful is the tendency toward zealous factionalism, Madison maintained, "that where no substantial occasion presents itself...and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to... excite [the] most violent conflicts." In other words, if politics involves the desire for victory,...

...which contributed to and were shaped by inequalities. As early as Federalist No. 10 Madison noted that "the most common and durable source of factions has...the various and unequal distribution of property." In this fact he saw continuing need that law intervene: "The regulation of these various and interfering...

...large number of interests and the great expanses of distance and time. Because Madison believed that "the most common and durable source of factions, has been the various and unequal distribution of property,"172 his answer to the 169Daniel A. Farber & Philip P. Frickey, Law and Public Choice: A Critical...

...common good."35 This propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosity is so powerful, they argued, that "where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions . . . [will be] sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts."36...

...the sentence that follows the one listing some of the first group of causes that lead to factions. "So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into...passions and excite their most violent conflicts." Lacking important or "substantial" reasons for disagreement and the formation of factions, trivial...

...motivator, but it is not necessarily an objective or rational motivation. As he states in Federalist 10, "so strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into...passions and excite their most violent conflicts" (1961 [1787], 79). For Madison, reason is influenced and sometimes subsumed by passion, making self-interest...

...sea change in the fortunes of classical republicanism. For example, note these assertions by Madison: So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into...passions and excite their most violent conflicts. The inference to which we are brought is that the causes of faction cannot be removed and that relief...

...are occasionally fanciful and frivolous causes of internal disturbances but he is quick to add that 'the most common and durable source of factions has...the various and unequal distribution of property." Indeed, Madison's use of the phrase "most common and durable" is so "clear and concise" Beard (1945,...