On its surface, Factional Will is not a bad thing. People have interests, and allowing them to work together to accomplish them is an expression of liberty, while eliminating them would be tyranny. Since a larger, productive society must deal with Factional Will, we need to explore why Factional Will causes governments to perish.
Madison also recognized that ”the latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man”, but was specifically concerned about factions that achieve a majority:
If a faction consists of less than a majority… it will be unable to execute and mask its violence under the forms of the Constitution. When a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular government, on the other hand, enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the public good and the rights of other citizens.
In other words, when factions can implement their Factional Will, they not only subvert the General Will but also the rights of the other citizens. He noted how easy it is for even moral members of an impassioned faction to adopt this behavior:
It is in vain to say that enlightened statesmen will be able to adjust these clashing interests, and render them all subservient to the public good. Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm. Nor, in many cases, can such an adjustment be made at all without taking into view indirect and remote considerations, which will rarely prevail over the immediate interest which one party may find in disregarding the rights of another or the good of the whole.
In other words, in large societies people are unaware of the situation faced by people in other blocks of their country. Thus, even well-intentioned people are unable to consider the potential harm of their Factional Will and assume they sincerely are working towards the General Will. This is why the Democrats and Republicans can have contrasting platforms, yet claim their approaches are the best for the country. Each operates in a different subset of the country that they believe is representative.
Ironically, this means the only people capable of determining if a faction’s execution of their will does align with the General Will are the people outside the faction.