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.

A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to differ…

Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the right…

By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse…