perfidy

Of course one of the reasons that we no longer worry about things like faction, and other concerns of the writers of the Federalist papers (and the anti-federalists, and other founding fathers) is that their solutions to these problems rendered them moot. The Federalist Papers (arguably the most insightful discussion of politics, ever) explains why certain things were included in the new constitution, and why others were not - and reveals the depth of thought that went into the creation of our system of government. These short term solutions are the things that operate in the background, things that are so obvious that to mention them seems almost banal. But at the time, they were revolutionary, in every sense of that word. So, in a very real way, they are very long term - they are so embedded in our conception of how governments should work, that we cannot imagine a legitimate government not having them. 

The Constitution, the condensed political wisdom of the founding fathers, banished (for us) an entire array of political problems that had vexed humanity for all of history. We no longer have to worry over these things. Instead, we began to worry over the details that hovered at the fringes. Naturally, some of these were still very important. For example, once you decide that all people, in principle, are created equal, and deserve all the protection of Constitution and Bill of Rights, you are bound to have the arguments that led to the Civil War. But the essential declaration had already been made, and the Civil War, and then the Civil Rights movement merely (heh) brought the reality in line with the principle. If anything, the original Federalists rendered us silly; as we move toward (slowly, staggering drunkenly) that more perfect union, many of the things we argue about seem increasingly, well, trivial. And this is good, because it means that many of the harder issues have already been solved.