Cass Sunstein:

In a well-functioning deliberative democracy, a wide range of perspectives is a virtue rather than a vice, at least if the constitution has the proper structure.

Richard Hofstadter:

The Fathers hoped to create not a system of party government under a constitution but rather a constitutional government that would check and control parties.

... Although Federalists and Anti-Federalists differed over many things, they do not seem to have differed over the proposition that an effective constitution is one that successfully counteracts the work of parties.

Michael Lopp:

You should pick a fight, because bright people often yell at each other.

Sunstein again:

The antifederalists rooted the problem of faction in that of corruption.

Madison argued that conscious attempts to eliminate the factional spirit would not promote liberty but instead destroy it.

Marcia Angell:

There seems to be a desire to eliminate the smell of corruption, while keeping the money.

James Madison:

To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.

Niall Ferguson:

Chimerica is really the key to how the global financial system works, and has been now for about a decade. Both sides stand to lose from a breakdown of Chimerica, which is why both sides are affirming a commitment to it. The Chinese believe in Chimerica maybe even more than Americans do. They have nowhere else to go.

There was a time when if you said the United States was going to suffer a lost decade like Japan did in the 1990s, everybody would have said you were a mad pessimist. That begins to look like quite a good scenario.

Alexander Hamilton:

When occasions present themselves in which the interests of the people are at variance with their inclinations, it is the duty of the persons whom they have appointed to be the guardians of those interests to withstand the temporary delusion in order to give them time and opportunity for more cool and sedate reflection.

Some time ago:

To be sure, time marches on.

Yet for many Californians, the looming demise of the "time lady," as she's come to be known, marks the end of a more genteel era, when we all had time to share.

The Enlarged Republic -- Then and Now