A common theme among many primary source documents from the 1600s to the early 1800s and current documents that reflect this era is the concept of how and why different parties and classes form.  This theme can be found in James Madison’s Controlling Factions in the Republic.   This tenth installment of the Federalist Papers is an article about the effects of different motives on the formation and function of a government.  Arthur M. Schlesinger’s article called Colonial Class Status also conveys this theme.  It addresses the reasons different classes were formed and why those classes stayed in existence.  The Plymouth Compact, written in 1620 by William Bradford, was drafted to ensure a system of classes in the New World.  It exhibited a juxtaposition of both the breaking away from a predestined class system and the formation of a new system.  Among the myriad of different reasons that parties and classes form, the existence of factions is the most influential.               

 In James Madison’s Controlling Factions in the Republic, the ideals of personal motives in both the minority and majority parties present is elucidated.  He asserts that common but conflicting ideas regarding religion, government, and various other human passions drive the formation of factions.  A minority is viewed as a good entity by the government due to the ease at which it can be controlled.  However, it is the ignoring and suppressing of this minority faction that can lead to rebellion, like in the case of Bacon’s Rebellion.  A majority faction can help and protect the common people on occasion, but there is also risk of unease within that democratic government.  Madison warns that a republic is the only way to successfully control factions by having a designated number of members elected to the government to represent the wants and factions of the common people.  He accounts a republic’s superiority over a democracy to its ability to control a greater population by elected representatives.  This system of members elected by the general population provided some assurance that the common good would be upheld and that no individual faction would be dominant over another faction.  Similar to Madison’s concepts of why and how factions are formed are Schlesinger’s ideas regarding the development of different classes and parties within a society.

 The aspect of why factions are formed and why they remain in existence is primarily addressed within Schlesinger’s Colonial Class Status.  Schlesinger believed that when the colonists moved to America they accepted a stratified society and received the roles they had held in their native countries.  This acceptance, formed from habit, led to the formation of a very graded society along with the upholding of slavery.  The ideals that formed social classes were not the only thing transferred to the new American colonies.  The aspects that shaped a society politically were also upheld.  The direct link between large land ownership and political power was reinforced.  Similarly, Madison stated that unequal distribution of property was the most popular cause of a faction’s formation and therefore the largest aspect of majority versus minority disputes.  The unhesitant submission of the colonists to those who owned large quantities of land aided the growth in distance because the ideology of the lower and upper classes.  The rich truly believed that they were ensuring the common good to the entire population because they were educated and believed they possessed wisdom.  Although a middle class slowly formed in colonial America, this class also believed not only in “the concept of a layered society, but believed in its rightness.”  This slowed the growth of a republican system because although the lower and middle classes composed the majority of the population, there was no questioning or willingness to reinforce the factions they represented.  Schlesinger reasoned that the blind submission of the colonists led to a very stratified system of social and political classes; however, Bradford believed that it was these same very different classes that could work together in a utopian fashion to form a pure democracy.       

            In 1620, William Bradford drafted the Plymouth Compact in hopes of forming a new and better government for him and those aboard the Mayflower.  The document’s primary goal was to dismiss the previous charter granted to them and to declare the immigrants’ ability and intention to govern themselves.  It was careful to include valid reasons as to why the old charter would not hold in their location for settlement and therefore justified any hints of rebellion or treason.  The document simply and bluntly stated that in order to form a successful governing body that would preserve and protect everyone’s rights, a democracy would need to be formed.  A democracy in which every settler would vote and have jurisdiction, not just the select few of a republic or the pre-destined elite of colonies that would form soon after.  It was an optimistic ideal in which all of the settlers could be called together occasionally to vote on important matters and choose just and equal actions.  This concept of an entire population working together actively for the good of the community despite personal motives conflicts with the idea of an overruling faction and raises the question as to whether or not a democracy can support the common good.  This question is reinforced by Madison because of his belief that democracies have the capability of suppressing the common people’s needs.  With a large number of people confined to no structured political system or classes other than pure democracy, there is possibility for instances in which a majority is not even reached and simply a few separate minorities form.  With several separate factions, a pure democracy would prove fruitless.  Madison also believed that the common people did not have enough knowledge to govern themselves and therefore would disagree with Bradford’s ideology.  Bradford’s vision was utopian and contrasted both with the stratified society Schlesinger has envisioned as well as the realistic if not cynical views of democracy that Madison held. 

            The documents of early American colonization and development all elucidate the theme of how and why different parties and classes form within a society.  Madison stressed the importance of governing the people with an elected body of officials in a republican system so that no faction would override another faction.  Schlesinger reflected on the factions of the governing elite in colonial America and the impact of the colonists’ blind submission to the stratified society on these factions.  Bradford’s decision to form a different form of government than the one designated for him and the settlers was a brave step towards a true democracy but conflicted with the existence of factions.  From these three documents it can be learned that there has always been an overriding aspect, such as property in the colonial era, which deems a select few superior to the general population. It is also shown that measures must be taken to ensure the content and function of the most polar opposite of classes so that no individual faction controls the general population.  The theories and examples within these three documents are timeless and must be applied to current society to ensure the happiness of the population and the maintenance of the common good.