nequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those
who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society.
Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like
discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a
mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests,
grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into
different classes actuated by different sentiments and views....

"If a faction consists of less than a majority, relief is supplied by
the republican principle, which enables the majority to defeat its
sinister views by a regular vote. It may clog the administration, it may
convulse the society; but it will be unable to execute and mask its
violence under the forms of the Constitution. When a majority is
included in a faction, the form of popular government, on the other
hand, enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the
public good and the rights of other citizens. To secure the public good
and private rights against the danger of such a faction, and at the same
time to preserve the spirit and the form of popular government, is then
the great object to which our inquiries are directed."[156]

The very existence of political parties would endanger the system which
they set up, since in their efforts to strengthen and perpetuate their
rule they would inevitably advocate extensions of the suffrage, and thus
in the end competition between parties for popular support would be
destructive of all those property qualifications for voting and holding
office which had up to that time excluded the propertyless classes from
any participation in public affairs. Hence Washington though a staunch
Federalist himself saw nothing inconsistent in trying to blend the
extremes of political opinion by giving both Hamilton and Jefferson a
place in his Cabinet.

In England the party by the Reform bill of 1832 accomplished its
purpose, broke through the barriers erected against it, divested the
Crown of all real authority, subordinated the House of Lords, and
established the undisputed rule of the majority in the House of Commons.
This accomplished, it was inevitable that the rivalry between political
parties should result in extensions of the suffrage until the House
should come to represent, as it does in practice to-day, the sentiment
of the English people.

The framers of the American Constitution, however, succeeded in erec