SOURCE: Morgan, Robert J. “Madison's Theory of Representation in the Tenth Federalist.” The Journal of Politics 36, no. 4 (November 1974): 852-85.

In the following essay, Morgan claims that Madison's views on the merits of representative government have been misinterpreted by scholars.

For decades scholars have overlooked the full significance of James Madison's direct statement in the “Tenth” Federalist: “a scheme of representation … promises the cure for [faction] which we are seeking.”¹ It is surprising that they have ignored, also, his related prescription of a constitutional equilibrium to be achieved by allocating representation between the major sections as the primary means of controlling this source of faction. The first step to be taken in founding the new American republic, he asserted, was “a change in the principle of representation.”² Even when the Convention rejected his recommendation of equilibrium, the other change in representation was sufficiently novel and significant, Madison believed, to...