Why did James Madison believe interest groups were good?

Abstract

An exclusive focus on Federalist 10 has encouraged the standard view that James Madison believed interest groups are inherently factious. His political career, which included considerable involvement with interest groups, indicates that he believed interest groups could have a beneficial effect on policy when they were nonfactious-when they supported policies that would promote the general good. Yet because he believed that factious groups-groups promoting selfish interests-would remain strong, he proposed protecting the republic through the structural remedy of pitting faction against faction in a large polity rather than relying on the strength of nonfactious groups.