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Against The Factions

In Bolingbroke’s history, according to Herbert Butterfield the first important “Whig” history, the dynamics were provided by the interplay of two “spirits,” one of liberty and one of faction.  The former embodied the national interest while the latter embodied individual and partisan interest.  Bolingbroke saw the development of English history as a Manichaean struggle between […]

In Bolingbroke’s history, according to Herbert Butterfield the first important “Whig” history, the dynamics were provided by the interplay of two “spirits,” one of liberty and one of faction.  The former embodied the national interest while the latter embodied individual and partisan interest.  Bolingbroke saw the development of English history as a Manichaean struggle between these good and evil forces.  The spirit of liberty was represented in the mixed constitution whose parts were so balanced that no one part depended on the other, while the spirit of faction was embodied in any threat against this ideal constitutional structure. ~Isaac Kramnick, Bolingbroke & His Circle

I believe it likely that it is from this tradition that Washington drew upon when he warned against the “spirit of party” and also this tradition Madison was drawing on in his denunciations of faction in the Federalist Papers.  Note the importance of the mixed and balanced constitution for Bolingbroke, as for Harrington before him and for the Country tradition and the Founders after him.  Note, too, that those who claim to speak on behalf of “the Founding” seem to have no idea what a “mixed constitution” is, nor are they apparently very familiar with the English political tradition whence it derives.

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