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"Democracy" is probably the most common word in our current political vocabulary. Following the extraordinary events of 1989, democracy is universally acclaimed. A few people defend monarchy; no one speaks of, much less defends, aristocracy; virtually everyone wants democracy. But the content of democracy, as the term is now used, is rather thin. Democracy seems to mean three things: 1) pluralism, that is, tolerance of nonviolent competition between parties and groups; 2) popular elections to determine the representation of parties and groups in governing; 3) human rights, that is, protection for a broad range of individual and group rights whose foundations, corresponding responsibilities, and mutual compatibility are rarely made clear. The long history of democracy is seldom studied. Thus we have forgotten the doubts once attendant to democracy, doubts deriving from the simple fact that, whatever else it may involve, democracy always means majority rule. But wise judgment is often lacking in majority opinion, or the good judgment of the majority is easily distorted (accidentally or deliberately), hence the historic concern that wisdom and consent will fall too far apart for democracy to succeed. The problem was crystalized in the execution of Socrates by the Athenian democracy. Hitler came to power through free elections. Churchill was democratically defeated on the eve of crucial negotiations with Stalin over the fate of Eastern Europe. Indeed it was Churchill who said that "democracy is the worst form of government, except [for] all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." 13 This means that democracy shines only in comparison to worse alternatives, like communism. When such regimes cease to threaten democracy, democracy's intrinsic and serious defects again become apparent. And this in turn means that those most disappointed with democracy will again be tempted to try a new alternative. Failure to take this seriously—a failure resulting from our own decent prejudice in favor of democracy—obfuscates our vision of the problems of democracy, and renders us less able to resist the diseases to which democracy is most vulnerable.

"Republic" is no longer a term of much importance in political discourse. It is usually reserved for the names of countries or regimes, real or imaginary, such as Plato's Republic (a utopia), or the former German Democratic Republic (a communist tyranny), or bannana republic (a Central American military dictatorship, and more recently a chain of trendy clothing stores). According to I. L. Caragiale, the famous Romanian comic playwrite, a republic is where you don't have to pay taxes. 14 Through abuse and irony, the only serious sense of "republic" remaining today is negative: a republic is not a monarchy. The positive meaning of republic, and the account of its strengths and weaknesses—republicanism—has been forgotten. What, for example, is the relation between republic and democracy? What does republicanism offer concerning the problem of wisdom and consent? These issues emerge naturally in the argument of The Federalist Papers. This book is the basic commentary on the American Constitution.

The American Constitution was written in Philadelphia during the summer of 1787. If accepted, the Constitution would transform the thirteen sovereign states, then weakly united under the Articles of Confederation of 1781, into a federal union under a powerful central government. Those in favor of the Constitution were called "federalists," those opposed, "anti-federalists." In the view of the anti-federalists, the American states were small, independent republics, well suited to the protection of political liberty. They argued that a strong central government would threaten liberty. The federalist position in favor of the Constitution was presented in a series of 85 essays written by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay for the citizens of the state of New York. The essays first appeared in the newspapers of New York City, and were thereafter collected and published as a book titled The Federalist Papers.

The authors of The Federalist used the pseudonym "Publius," who, according to Plutarch, saved the Roman Republic. Publius (here Madison), indeed, aims high:

The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust. 15

This is the high idealism of The Federalist. It is the necessary complement to the realism of the essays discussed below.

The following is a commentary on Federalist 10 and 47-51. These six essays treat the issues most urgent for representative democracy: factional conflict and separation of powers. It behooves us to acknowledge that by focusing only on part of the book, we risk distorting the fuller argument by neglect of other factors of great importance, such as the relation between character and governing, a major theme of Federalist 52-83, which examine the human qualities required for the different branches of government (legislative, executive, judiciary). To remedy this defect, at least partially, relevant material from other essays are used in the following analysis.

Federalist 10 was written by Madison and treats the problem of faction. According to Madison, violent conflict between factions is the fundamental problem of republican government. In this essay, Madison presents the theory of the extended commercial republic as the antidote to faction.

It is important to remark that the term "party," used frequently by Madison in Federalist 10, means any group with an actual or potential effect on the common good or the rights of individuals. Thus the great "variety of parties and interests" characteristic of the extended commercial republic does not mean that there exist many political parties in the contemporary Western sense. On the contrary, the United States has only two major political parties, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, although America is the best example of the regime promoted in Federalist 10. The relation between Madison's "parties and interests" and political parties in the contemporary Western sense is briefly discussed below, in connection with checks and balances. 16

The five essays, Federalist 47-51, also by Madison, treat separation of powers and checks and balances. According to Montesquieu, fear is the principle of tyranny, and political liberty is defined in terms of "government [in which] one citizen cannot fear another citizen." 17 The necessary condition of such liberty is separation of legislative, executive, and judiciary powers. John Locke states that the legislative and executive powers ought to be separated so that the government does not come to have a "distinct interest from the rest of the community," 18 that is, so that those who hold power do not become an alien body in the middle of society. The problem, as Locke puts it, is "human frailty, apt to grasp at power." 19 Hamilton places "the regular distribution of power into distinct departments; the introduction of legislative balances and checks; the institution of courts composed of judges holding their offices during good behavior" among the powerful means discovered or perfected by modern political science. 20 By these means, "the excellencies of republican government may be retained and its imperfections lessened or avoided." 21 The Federalist clearly maintains that the republican form of government has internal defects and that separation of powers is part of the solution. In contrast, the French Revolution insisted that the Republic in itself has no defects, only enemies. 22 Accordingly, Turgot and Condorcet argued that the American practice of separation of powers was appropriate in a monarchy, but not in a republic. 23 The question, "What is a good republic?" is thus intimately involved with the interpretation of separation of powers.