Many of the papers in The Federalist showed considerable originality and went on to become minor classics in the history of political thought – an improbable fate for mere newspaper columns. In Federalist 10, for example, James Madison put forward an incisive discussion of the problem of factions in political life – whence they come, how they can be controlled – and showed how a large and diverse republic like the United States could solve the factionalism that besets small republics by “extending the sphere,” that is, by enlarging the republic to encompass so many different varieties of
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