Washington and Madison Warned Against Parties

Founding Fathers Warned Us About Political Parties

GEORGE WASHINGTON

George Washington in his final Farewell Address warned . . . 

“The Spirit of Party in popular governments is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.”

“The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension is itself a frightful despotism.”

“The common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of Party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of wise People to discourage and restrain it.”

“It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another.”

Washington warned Parties . . .

“misrepresent the opinions and aims of other parties.”

“cause jealousies and heart burnings which spring from these misrepresentations.”

“tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection.”

JAMES MADISON

James Madison, “Father of the Constitution” and fourth president, diagnosed the problem of parties as a republic’s most dire threat in his famous Federalist #10:  

Among the numerous advantages promised by a well-constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of parties. 

The friend of popular governments never finds himself so much alarmed for their character and fate, as when he contemplates their propensity to this dangerous vice (parties).

The instability, injustice, and confusion introduced into the public councils (by parties), have, in truth, been the mortal diseases under which popular governments have everywhere perished.