FEDERALIST
No. 11
The Utility of the Union in Respect to Commercial
Relations and a Navy
For the Independent Journal. Saturday, November 24,
1787
HAMILTON
To the People of the State of New York:
THE importance of the Union, in a commercial light,
is one of those points about which there is least room
to entertain a difference of opinion, and which has,
in fact, commanded the most general assent of men who
have any acquaintance with the subject. This applies
as well to our intercourse with foreign countries as
with each other.
There are appearances to authorize a supposition
that the adventurous spirit, which distinguishes the
commercial character of America, has already excited
uneasy sensations in several of the maritime powers of
Europe. They seem to be apprehensive of our too great
interference in that carrying trade, which is the
support of their navigation and the foundation of
their naval strength. Those of them which have
colonies in America look forward to what this country
is capable of becoming, with painful solicitude. They
foresee the dangers that may threaten their American
dominions from the neighborhood of States, which have
all the dispositions, and would possess all the means,
requisite to the creation of a powerful marine.
Impressions of this kind will naturally indicate the
policy of fostering divisions among us, and of
depriving us, as far as possible, of an ACTIVE
COMMERCE in our own bottoms. This would answer the
threefold purpose of preventing our interference in
their navigation, of monopolizing the profits of our
trade, and of clipping the wings by which we might
soar to a dangerous greatness. Did not prudence forbid
the detail, it would not be difficult to trace, by
facts, the workings of this policy to the cabinets of
ministers.
If we continue united, we may counteract a policy
so unfriendly to our prosperity in a variety of ways.
By prohibitory regulations, extending, at the same
time, throughout the States, we may oblige foreign
countries to bid against each other, for the
privileges of our markets. This assertion will not
appear chimerical to those who are able to appreciate
the importance of the markets of three millions of
people -- increasing in rapid progression, for the
most part exclusively addicted to agriculture, and
likely from local circumstances to remain so -- to any
manufacturing nation; and the immense difference there
would be to the trade and navigation of such a nation,
between a direct communication in its own ships, and
an indirect conveyance of its products and returns, to
and from America, in the ships of another country.
Suppose, for instance, we had a government in America,
capable of excluding Great Britain (with whom we have
at present no treaty of commerce) from all our ports;
what would be the probable operation of this step upon
her politics? Would it not enable us to negotiate,
with the fairest prospect of success, for commercial
privileges of the most valuable and extensive kind, in
the dominions of that kingdom? When these questions
have been asked, upon other occasions, they have
received a plausible, but not a solid or satisfactory
answer. It has been said that prohibitions on our part
would produce no change in the system of Britain,
because she could prosecute her trade with us through
the medium of the Dutch, who would be her immediate
customers and paymasters for those articles which were
wanted for the supply of our markets. But would not
her navigation be materially injured by the loss of
the important advantage of being her own carrier in
that trade? Would not the principal part of its
profits be intercepted by the Dutch, as a compensation
for their agency and risk? Would not the mere
circumstance of freight occasion a considerable
deduction? Would not so circuitous an intercourse
facilitate the competitions of other nations, by
enhancing the price of British commodities in our
markets, and by transferring to other hands the
management of this interesting branch of the British
commerce?
A mature consideration of the objects suggested by
these questions will justify a belief that the real
disadvantages to Britain from such a state of things,
conspiring with the pre-possessions of a great part of
the nation in favor of the American trade, and with
the importunities of the West India islands, would
produce a relaxation in her present system, and would
let us into the enjoyment of privileges in the markets
of those islands elsewhere, from which our trade would
derive the most substantial benefits. Such a point
gained from the British government, and which could
not be expected without an equivalent in exemptions
and immunities in our markets, would be likely to have
a correspondent effect on the conduct of other
nations, who would not be inclined to see themselves
altogether supplanted in our trade.
A further resource for influencing the conduct of
European nations toward us, in this respect, would
arise from the establishment of a federal navy. There
can be no doubt that the continuance of the Union
under an efficient government would put it in our
power, at a period not very distant, to create a navy
which, if it could not vie with those of the great
maritime powers, would at least be of respectable
weight if thrown into the scale of either of two
contending parties. This would be more peculiarly the
case in relation to operations in the West Indies. A
few ships of the line, sent opportunely to the
reinforcement of either side, would often be
sufficient to decide the fate of a campaign, on the
event of which interests of the greatest magnitude
were suspended. Our position is, in this respect, a
most commanding one. And if to this consideration we
add that of the usefulness of supplies from this
country, in the prosecution of military operations in
the West Indies, it will readily be perceived that a
situation so favorable would enable us to bargain with
great advantage for commercial privileges. A price
would be set not only upon our friendship, but upon
our neutrality. By a steady adherence to the Union we
may hope, erelong, to become the arbiter of Europe in
America, and to be able to incline the balance of
European competitions in this part of the world as our
interest may dictate.
But in the reverse of this eligible situation, we
shall discover that the rivalships of the parts would
make them checks upon each other, and would frustrate
all the tempting advantages which nature has kindly
placed within our reach. In a state so insignificant
our commerce would be a prey to the wanton
intermeddlings of all nations at war with each other;
who, having nothing to fear from us, would with little
scruple or remorse, supply their wants by depredations
on our property as often as it fell in their way. The
rights of neutrality will only be respected when they
are defended by an adequate power. A nation,
despicable by its weakness, forfeits even the
privilege of being neutral.
Under a vigorous national government, the natural
strength and resources of the country, directed to a
common interest, would baffle all the combinations of
European jealousy to restrain our growth. This
situation would even take away the motive to such
combinations, by inducing an impracticability of
success. An active commerce, an extensive navigation,
and a flourishing marine would then be the offspring
of moral and physical necessity. We might defy the
little arts of the little politicians to control or
vary the irresistible and unchangeable course of
nature.
But in a state of disunion, these combinations
might exist and might operate with success. It would
be in the power of the maritime nations, availing
themselves of our universal impotence, to prescribe
the conditions of our political existence; and as they
have a common interest in being our carriers, and
still more in preventing our becoming theirs, they
would in all probability combine to embarrass our
navigation in such a manner as would in effect destroy
it, and confine us to a PASSIVE COMMERCE. We should
then be compelled to content ourselves with the first
price of our commodities, and to see the profits of
our trade snatched from us to enrich our enemies and p
rsecutors. That unequaled spirit of enterprise, which
signalizes the genius of the American merchants and
navigators, and which is in itself an inexhaustible
mine of national wealth, would be stifled and lost,
and poverty and disgrace would overspread a country
which, with wisdom, might make herself the admiration
and envy of the world.
There are rights of great moment to the trade of
America which are rights of the Union -- I allude to
the fisheries, to the navigation of the Western lakes,
and to that of the Mississippi. The dissolution of the
Confederacy would give room for delicate questions
concerning the future existence of these rights; which
the interest of more powerful partners would hardly
fail to solve to our disadvantage. The disposition of
Spain with regard to the Mississippi needs no comment.
France and Britain are concerned with us in the
fisheries, and view them as of the utmost moment to
their navigation. They, of course, would hardly remain
long indifferent to that decided mastery, of which
experience has shown us to be possessed in this
valuable branch of traffic, and by which we are able
to undersell those nations in their own markets. What
more natural than that they should be disposed to
exclude from the lists such dangerous competitors?
This branch of trade ought not to be considered as
a partial benefit. All the navigating States may, in
different degrees, advantageously participate in it,
and under circumstances of a greater extension of
mercantile capital, would not be unlikely to do it. As
a nursery of seamen, it now is, or when time shall
have more nearly assimilated the principles of
navigation in the several States, will become, a
universal resource. To the establishment of a navy, it
must be indispensable.
To this great national object, a NAVY, union will
contribute in various ways. Every institution will
grow and flourish in proportion to the quantity and
extent of the means concentred towards its formation
and support. A navy of the United States, as it would
embrace the resources of all, is an object far less
remote than a navy of any single State or partial
confederacy, which would only embrace the resources of
a single part. It happens, indeed, that different
portions of confederated America possess each some
peculiar advantage for this essential establishment.
The more southern States furnish in greater abundance
certain kinds of naval stores -- tar, pitch, and
turpentine. Their wood for the construction of ships
is also of a more solid and lasting texture. The
difference in the duration of the ships of which the
navy might be composed, if chiefly constructed of
Southern wood, would be of signal importance, either
in the view of naval strength or of national economy.
Some of the Southern and of the Middle States yield a
greater plenty of iron, and of better quality. Seamen
must chiefly be drawn from the Northern hive. The
necessity of naval protection to external or maritime
commerce does not require a particular elucidation, no
more than the conduciveness of that species of
commerce to the prosperity of a navy.
An unrestrained intercourse between the States
themselves will advance the trade of each by an
interchange of their respective productions, not only
for the supply of reciprocal wants at home, but for
exportation to foreign markets. The veins of commerce
in every part will be replenished, and will acquire
additional motion and vigor from a free circulation of
the commodities of every part. Commercial enterprise
will have much greater scope, from the diversity in
the productions of different States. When the staple
of one fails from a bad harvest or unproductive crop,
it can call to its aid the staple of another. The
variety, not less than the value, of products for
exportation contributes to the activity of foreign
commerce. It can be conducted upon much better terms
with a large number of materials of a given value than
with a small number of materials of the same value;
arising from the competitions of trade and from the
fluctations of markets. Particular articles may be in
great demand at certain periods, and unsalable at
others; but if there be a variety of articles, it can
scarcely happen that they should all be at one time in
the latter predicament, and on this account the
operations of the merchant would be less liable to any
considerable obstruction or stagnation. The
speculative trader will at once perceive the force of
these observations, and will acknowledge that the
aggregate balance of the commerce of the United States
would bid fair to be much more favorable than that of
the thirteen States without union or with partial
unions.
It may perhaps be replied to this, that whether the
States are united or disunited, there would still be
an intimate intercourse between them which would
answer the same ends; this intercourse would be
fettered, interrupted, and narrowed by a multiplicity
of causes, which in the course of these papers have
been amply detailed. A unity of commercial, as well as
political, interests, can only result from a unity of
government.
There are other points of view in which this
subject might be placed, of a striking and animating
kind. But they would lead us too far into the regions
of futurity, and would involve topics not proper for a
newspaper discussion. I shall briefly observe, that
our situation invites and our interests prompt us to
aim at an ascendant in the system of American affairs.
The world may politically, as well as geographically,
be divided into four parts, each having a distinct set
of interests. Unhappily for the other three, Europe,
by her arms and by her negotiations, by force and by
fraud, has, in different degrees, extended her
dominion over them all. Africa, Asia, and America,
have successively felt her domination. The superiority
she has long maintained has tempted her to plume
herself as the Mistress of the World, and to consider
the rest of mankind as created for her benefit. Men
admired as profound philosophers have, in direct
terms, attributed to her inhabitants a physical
superiority, and have gravely asserted that all
animals, and with them the human species, degenerate
in America -- that even dogs cease to bark after
having breathed awhile in our atmosphere.[1]
Facts have too long supported these arrogant
pretensions of the Europeans. It belongs to us to
vindicate the honor of the human race, and to teach
that assuming brother, moderation. Union will enable
us to do it. Disunion will will add another victim to
his triumphs. Let Americans disdain to be the
instruments of European greatness! Let the thirteen
States, bound together in a strict and indissoluble
Union, concur in erecting one great American system,
superior to the control of all transatlantic force or
influence, and able to dictate the terms of the
connection between the old and the new world!
PUBLIUS "Recherches philosophiques sur les
Americains."
____
FEDERALIST No.
12
The Utility of the Union In Respect to Revenue
From the New York Packet. Tuesday, November 27,
1787.
HAMILTON
To the People of the State of New York:
THE effects of Union upon the commercial prosperity
of the States have been sufficiently delineated. Its
tendency to promote the interests of revenue will be
the subject of our present inquiry.
The prosperity of commerce is now perceived and
acknowledged by all enlightened statesmen to be the
most useful as well as the most productive source of
national wealth, and has accordingly become a primary
object of their political cares. By multipying the
means of gratification, by promoting the introduction
and circulation of the precious metals, those darling
objects of human avarice and enterprise, it serves to
vivify and invigorate the channels of industry, and to
make them flow with greater activity and copiousness.
The assiduous merchant, the laborious husbandman, the
active mechanic, and the industrious manufacturer, --
all orders of men, look forward with eager expectation
and growing alacrity to this pleasing reward of their
toils. The often-agitated question between agriculture
and commerce has, from indubitable experience,
received a decision which has silenced the rivalship
that once subsisted between them, and has proved, to
the satisfaction of their friends, that their
interests are intimately blended and interwoven. It
has been found in various countries that, in
proportion as commerce has flourished, land has risen
in value. And how could it have happened otherwise?
Could that which procures a freer vent for the
products of the earth, which furnishes new incitements
to the cultivation of land, which is the most powerful
instrument in increasing the quantity of money in a
state -- could that, in fine, which is the faithful
handmaid of labor and industry, in every shape, fail
to augment that article, which is the prolific parent
of far the greatest part of the objects upon which
they are exerted? It is astonishing that so simple a
truth should ever have had an adversary; and it is
one, among a multitude of proofs, how apt a spirit of
ill-informed jealousy, or of too great abstraction and
refinement, is to lead men astray from the plainest
truths of reason and conviction.
The ability of a country to pay taxes must always
be proportioned, in a great degree, to the quantity of
money in circulation, and to the celerity with which
it circulates. Commerce, contributing to both these
objects, must of necessity render the payment of taxes
easier, and facilitate the requisite supplies to the
treasury. The hereditary dominions of the Emperor of
Germany contain a great extent of fertile, cultivated,
and populous territory, a large proportion of which is
situated in mild and luxuriant climates. In some parts
of this territory are to be found the best gold and
silver mines in Europe. And yet, from the want of the
fostering influence of commerce, that monarch can
boast but slender revenues. He has several times been
compelled to owe obligations to the pecuniary succors
of other nations for the preservation of his essential
interests, and is unable, upon the strength of his own
resources, to sustain a long or continued war.
But it is not in this aspect of the subject alone
that Union will be seen to conduce to the purpose of
revenue. There are other points of view, in which its
influence will appear more immediate and decisive. It
is evident from the state of the country, from the
habits of the people, from the experience we have had
on the point itself, that it is impracticable to raise
any very considerable sums by direct taxation. Tax
laws have in vain been multiplied; new methods to
enforce the collection have in vain been tried; the
public expectation has been uniformly disappointed,
and the treasuries of the States have remained empty.
The popular system of administration inherent in the
nature of popular government, coinciding with the real
scarcity of money incident to a languid and mutilated
state of trade, has hitherto defeated every experiment
for extensive collections, and has at length taught
the different legislatures the folly of attempting
them.
No person acquainted with what happens in other
countries will be surprised at this circumstance. In
so opulent a nation as that of Britain, where direct
taxes from superior wealth must be much more
tolerable, and, from the vigor of the government, much
more practicable, than in America, far the greatest
part of the national revenue is derived from taxes of
the indirect kind, from imposts, and from excises.
Duties on imported articles form a large branch of
this latter description.
In America, it is evident that we must a long time
depend for the means of revenue chiefly on such
duties. In most parts of it, excises must be confined
within a narrow compass. The genius of the people will
ill brook the inquisitive and peremptory spirit of
excise laws. The pockets of the farmers, on the other
hand, will reluctantly yield but scanty supplies, in
the unwelcome shape of impositions on their houses and
lands; and personal property is too precarious and
invisible a fund to be laid hold of in any other way
than by the inperceptible agency of taxes on
consumption.
If these remarks have any foundation, that state of
things which will best enable us to improve and extend
so valuable a resource must be best adapted to our
political welfare. And it cannot admit of a serious
doubt, that this state of things must rest on the
basis of a general Union. As far as this would be
conducive to the interests of commerce, so far it must
tend to the extension of the revenue to be drawn from
that source. As far as it would contribute to
rendering regulations for the collection of the duties
more simple and efficacious, so far it must serve to
answer the purposes of making the same rate of duties
more productive, and of putting it into the power of
the government to increase the rate without prejudice
to trade.
The relative situation of these States; the number
of rivers with which they are intersected, and of bays
that wash there shores; the facility of communication
in every direction; the affinity of language and
manners; the familiar habits of intercourse; -- all
these are circumstances that would conspire to render
an illicit trade between them a matter of little
difficulty, and would insure frequent evasions of the
commercial regulations of each other. The separate
States or confederacies would be necessitated by
mutual jealousy to avoid the temptations to that kind
of trade by the lowness of their duties. The temper of
our governments, for a long time to come, would not
permit those rigorous precautions by which the
European nations guard the avenues into their
respective countries, as well by land as by water; and
which, even there, are found insufficient obstacles to
the adventurous stratagems of avarice.
In France, there is an army of patrols (as they are
called) constantly employed to secure their fiscal
regulations against the inroads of the dealers in
contraband trade. Mr. Neckar computes the number of
these patrols at upwards of twenty thousand. This
shows the immense difficulty in preventing that
species of traffic, where there is an inland
communication, and places in a strong light the
disadvantages with which the collection of duties in
this country would be encumbered, if by disunion the
States should be placed in a situation, with respect
to each other, resembling that of France with respect
to her neighbors. The arbitrary and vexatious powers
with which the patrols are necessarily armed, would be
intolerable in a free country.
If, on the contrary, there be but one government
pervading all the States, there will be, as to the
principal part of our commerce, but ONE SIDE to guard
-- the ATLANTIC COAST. Vessels arriving directly from
foreign countries, laden with valuable cargoes, would
rarely choose to hazard themselves to the complicated
and critical perils which would attend attempts to
unlade prior to their coming into port. They would
have to dread both the dangers of the coast, and of
detection, as well after as before their arrival at
the places of their final destination. An ordinary
degree of vigilance would be competent to the
prevention of any material infractions upon the rights
of the revenue. A few armed vessels, judiciously
stationed at the entrances of our ports, might at a
small expense be made useful sentinels of the laws.
And the government having the same interest to provide
against violations everywhere, the co-operation of its
measures in each State would have a powerful tendency
to render them effectual. Here also we should preserve
by Union, an advantage which nature holds out to us,
and which would be relinquished by separation. The
United States lie at a great distance from Europe, and
at a considerable distance from all other places with
which they would have extensive connections of foreign
trade. The passage from them to us, in a few hours, or
in a single night, as between the coasts of France and
Britain, and of other neighboring nations, would be
impracticable. This is a prodigious security against a
direct contraband with foreign countries; but a
circuitous contraband to one State, through the medium
of another, would be both easy and safe. The
difference between a direct importation from abroad,
and an indirect importation through the channel of a
neighboring State, in small parcels, according to time
and opportunity, with the additional facilities of
inland communication, must be palpable to every man of
discernment.
It is therefore evident, that one national
government would be able, at much less expense, to
extend the duties on imports, beyond comparison,
further than would be practicable to the States
separately, or to any partial confederacies. Hitherto,
I believe, it may safely be asserted, that these
duties have not upon an average exceeded in any State
three per cent. In France they are estimated to be
about fifteen per cent., and in Britain they exceed
this proportion.[1] There seems to be nothing
to hinder their being increased in this country to at
least treble their present amount. The single article
of ardent spirits, under federal regulation, might be
made to furnish a considerable revenue. Upon a ratio
to the importation into this State, the whole quantity
imported into the United States may be estimated at
four millions of gallons; which, at a shilling per
gallon, would produce two hundred thousand pounds.
That article would well bear this rate of duty; and if
it should tend to diminish the consumption of it, such
an effect would be equally favorable to the
agriculture, to the economy, to the morals, and to the
health of the society. There is, perhaps, nothing so
much a subject of national extravagance as these
spirits.
What will be the consequence, if we are not able to
avail ourselves of the resource in question in its
full extent? A nation cannot long exist without
revenues. Destitute of this essential support, it must
resign its independence, and sink into the degraded
condition of a province. This is an extremity to which
no government will of choice accede. Revenue,
therefore, must be had at all events. In this country,
if the principal part be not drawn from commerce, it
must fall with oppressive weight upon land. It has
been already intimated that excises, in their true
signification, are too little in unison with the
feelings of the people, to admit of great use being
made of that mode of taxation; nor, indeed, in the
States where almost the sole employment is
agriculture, are the objects proper for excise
sufficiently numerous to permit very ample collections
in that way. Personal estate (as has been before
remarked), from the difficulty in tracing it, cannot
be subjected to large contributions, by any other
means than by taxes on consumption. In populous
cities, it may be enough the subject of conjecture, to
occasion the oppression of individuals, without much
aggregate benefit to the State; but beyond these
circles, it must, in a great measure, escape the eye
and the hand of the tax-gatherer. As the necessities
of the State, nevertheless, must be satisfied in some
mode or other, the defect of other resources must
throw the principal weight of public burdens on the
possessors of land. And as, on the other hand, the
wants of the government can never obtain an adequate
supply, unless all the sources of revenue are open to
its demands, the finances of the community, under such
embarrassments, cannot be put into a situation
consistent with its respectability or its security.
Thus we shall not even have the consolations of a full
treasury, to atone for the oppression of that valuable
class of the citizens who are employed in the
cultivation of the soil. But public and private
distress will keep pace with each other in gloomy
concert; and unite in deploring the infatuation of
those counsels which led to disunion.
PUBLIUS
1. If my memory be right they amount to twenty per
cent.
____
FEDERALIST No.
13
Advantage of the Union in Respect to Economy in
Government
For the Independent Journal. Wednesday, November
28, 1787
HAMILTON
To the People of the State of New York:
As CONNECTED with the subject of revenue, we may
with propriety consider that of economy. The money
saved from one object may be usefully applied to
another, and there will be so much the less to be
drawn from the pockets of the people. If the States
are united under one government, there will be but one
national civil list to support; if they are divided
into several confederacies, there will be as many
different national civil lists to be provided for --
and each of them, as to the principal departments,
coextensive with that which would be necessary for a
government of the whole. The entire separation of the
States into thirteen unconnected sovereignties is a
project too extravagant and too replete with danger to
have many advocates. The ideas of men who speculate
upon the dismemberment of the empire seem generally
turned toward three confederacies -- one consisting of
the four Northern, another of the four Middle, and a
third of the five Southern States. There is little
probability that there would be a greater number.
According to this distribution, each confederacy would
comprise an extent of territory larger than that of
the kingdom of Great Britain. No well-informed man
will suppose that the affairs of such a confederacy
can be properly regulated by a government less
comprehensive in its organs or institutions than that
which has been proposed by the convention. When the
dimensions of a State attain to a certain magnitude,
it requires the same energy of government and the same
forms of administration which are requisite in one of
much greater extent. This idea admits not of precise
demonstration, because there is no rule by which we
can measure the momentum of civil power necessary to
the government of any given number of individuals; but
when we consider that the island of Britain, nearly
commensurate with each of the supposed confederacies,
contains about eight millions of people, and when we
reflect upon the degree of authority required to
direct the passions of so large a society to the
public good, we shall see no reason to doubt that the
like portion of power would be sufficient to perform
the same task in a society far more numerous. Civil
power, properly organized and exerted, is capable of
diffusing its force to a very great extent; and can,
in a manner, reproduce itself in every part of a great
empire by a judicious arrangement of subordinate
institutions.
The supposition that each confederacy into which
the States would be likely to be divided would require
a government not less comprehensive than the one
proposed, will be strengthened by another supposition,
more probable than that which presents us with three
confederacies as the alternative to a general Union.
If we attend carefully to geographical and commercial
considerations, in conjunction with the habits and
prejudices of the different States, we shall be led to
conclude that in case of disunion they will most
naturally league themselves under two governments. The
four Eastern States, from all the causes that form the
links of national sympathy and connection, may with
certainty be expected to unite. New York, situated as
she is, would never be unwise enough to oppose a
feeble and unsupported flank to the weight of that
confederacy. There are other obvious reasons that
would facilitate her accession to it. New Jersey is
too small a State to think of being a frontier, in
opposition to this still more powerful combination;
nor do there appear to be any obstacles to her
admission into it. Even Pennsylvania would have strong
inducements to join the Northern league. An active
foreign commerce, on the basis of her own navigation,
is her true policy, and coincides with the opinions
and dispositions of her citizens. The more Southern
States, from various circumstances, may not think
themselves much interested in the encouragement of
navigation. They may prefer a system which would give
unlimited scope to all nations to be the carriers as
well as the purchasers of their commodities.
Pennsylvania may not choose to confound her interests
in a connection so adverse to her policy. As she must
at all events be a frontier, she may deem it most
consistent with her safety to have her exposed side
turned towards the weaker power of the Southern,
rather than towards the stronger power of the
Northern, Confederacy. This would give her the fairest
chance to avoid being the Flanders of America.
Whatever may be the determination of Pennsylvania, if
the Northern Confederacy includes New Jersey, there is
no likelihood of more than one confederacy to the
south of that State.
Nothing can be more evident than that the thirteen
States will be able to support a national government
better than one half, or one third, or any number less
than the whole. This reflection must have great weight
in obviating that objection to the proposed plan,
which is founded on the principle of expense; an
objection, however, which, when we come to take a
nearer view of it, will appear in every light to stand
on mistaken ground.
If, in addition to the consideration of a plurality
of civil lists, we take into view the number of
persons who must necessarily be employed to guard the
inland communication between the different
confederacies against illicit trade, and who in time
will infallibly spring up out of the necessities of
revenue; and if we also take into view the military
establishments which it has been shown would
unavoidably result from the jealousies and conflicts
of the several nations into which the States would be
divided, we shall clearly discover that a separation
would be not less injurious to the economy, than to
the tranquillity, commerce, revenue, and liberty of
every part.
PUBLIUS
____
FEDERALIST No.
14
Objections to the Proposed Constitution From Extent
of Territory
Answered From the New York Packet. Friday, November
30, 1787.
MADISON
To the People of the State of New York:
WE HAVE seen the necessity of the Union, as our
bulwark against foreign danger, as the conservator of
peace among ourselves, as the guardian of our commerce
and other common interests, as the only substitute for
those military establishments which have subverted the
liberties of the Old World, and as the proper antidote
for the diseases of faction, which have proved fatal
to other popular governments, and of which alarming
symptoms have been betrayed by our own. All that
remains, within this branch of our inquiries, is to
take notice of an objection that may be drawn from the
great extent of country which the Union embraces. A
few observations on this subject will be the more
proper, as it is perceived that the adversaries of the
new Constitution are availing themselves of the
prevailing prejudice with regard to the practicable
sphere of republican administration, in order to
supply, by imaginary difficulties, the want of those
solid objections which they endeavor in vain to
find.
The error which limits republican government to a
narrow district has been unfolded and refuted in
preceding papers. I remark here only that it seems to
owe its rise and prevalence chiefly to the confounding
of a republic with a democracy, applying to the former
reasonings drawn from the nature of the latter. The
true distinction between these forms was also adverted
to on a former occasion. It is, that in a democracy,
the people meet and exercise the government in person;
in a republic, they assemble and administer it by
their representatives and agents. A democracy,
consequently, will be confined to a small spot. A
republic may be extended over a large region.
To this accidental source of the error may be added
the artifice of some celebrated authors, whose
writings have had a great share in forming the modern
standard of political opinions. Being subjects either
of an absolute or limited monarchy, they have
endeavored to heighten the advantages, or palliate the
evils of those forms, by placing in comparison the
vices and defects of the republican, and by citing as
specimens of the latter the turbulent democracies of
ancient Greece and modern Italy. Under the confusion
of names, it has been an easy task to transfer to a
republic observations applicable to a democracy only;
and among others, the observation that it can never be
established but among a small number of people, living
within a small compass of territory.
Such a fallacy may have been the less perceived, as
most of the popular governments of antiquity were of
the democratic species; and even in modern Europe, to
which we owe the great principle of representation, no
example is seen of a government wholly popular, and
founded, at the same time, wholly on that principle.
If Europe has the merit of discovering this great
mechanical power in government, by the simple agency
of which the will of the largest political body may be
concentred, and its force directed to any object which
the public good requires, America can claim the merit
of making the discovery the basis of unmixed and
extensive republics. It is only to be lamented that
any of her citizens should wish to deprive her of the
additional merit of displaying its full efficacy in
the establishment of the comprehensive system now
under her consideration.
As the natural limit of a democracy is that
distance from the central point which will just permit
the most remote citizens to assemble as often as their
public functions demand, and will include no greater
number than can join in those functions; so the
natural limit of a republic is that distance from the
centre which will barely allow the representatives to
meet as often as may be necessary for the
administration of public affairs. Can it be said that
the limits of the United States exceed this distance?
It will not be said by those who recollect that the
Atlantic coast is the longest side of the Union, that
during the term of thirteen years, the representatives
of the States have been almost continually assembled,
and that the members from the most distant States are
not chargeable with greater intermissions of
attendance than those from the States in the
neighborhood of Congress.
That we may form a juster estimate with regard to
this interesting subject, let us resort to the actual
dimensions of the Union. The limits, as fixed by the
treaty of peace, are: on the east the Atlantic, on the
south the latitude of thirty-one degrees, on the west
the Mississippi, and on the north an irregular line
running in some instances beyond the forty-fifth
degree, in others falling as low as the forty-second.
The southern shore of Lake Erie lies below that
latitude. Computing the distance between the
thirty-first and forty-fifth degrees, it amounts to
nine hundred and seventy-three common miles; computing
it from thirty-one to forty-two degrees, to seven
hundred and sixty-four miles and a half. Taking the
mean for the distance, the amount will be eight
hundred and sixty-eight miles and three-fourths. The
mean distance from the Atlantic to the Mississippi
does not probably exceed seven hundred and fifty
miles. On a comparison of this extent with that of
several countries in Europe, the practicability of
rendering our system commensurate to it appears to be
demonstrable. It is not a great deal larger than
Germany, where a diet representing the whole empire is
continually assembled; or than Poland before the late
dismemberment, where another national diet was the
depositary of the supreme power. Passing by France and
Spain, we find that in Great Britain, inferior as it
may be in size, the representatives of the northern
extremity of the island have as far to travel to the
national council as will be required of those of the
most remote parts of the Union.
Favorable as this view of the subject may be, some
observations remain which will place it in a light
still more satisfactory.
In the first place it is to be remembered that the
general government is not to be charged with the whole
power of making and administering laws. Its
jurisdiction is limited to certain enumerated objects,
which concern all the members of the republic, but
which are not to be attained by the separate
provisions of any. The subordinate governments, which
can extend their care to all those other subjects
which can be separately provided for, will retain
their due authority and activity. Were it proposed by
the plan of the convention to abolish the governments
of the particular States, its adversaries would have
some ground for their objection; though it would not
be difficult to show that if they were abolished the
general government would be compelled, by the
principle of self-preservation, to reinstate them in
their proper jurisdiction.
A second observation to be made is that the
immediate object of the federal Constitution is to
secure the union of the thirteen primitive States,
which we know to be practicable; and to add to them
such other States as may arise in their own bosoms, or
in their neighborhoods, which we cannot doubt to be
equally practicable. The arrangements that may be
necessary for those angles and fractions of our
territory which lie on our northwestern frontier, must
be left to those whom further discoveries and
experience will render more equal to the task.
Let it be remarked, in the third place, that the
intercourse throughout the Union will be facilitated
by new improvements. Roads will everywhere be
shortened, and kept in better order; accommodations
for travelers will be multiplied and meliorated; an
interior navigation on our eastern side will be opened
throughout, or nearly throughout, the whole extent of
the thirteen States. The communication between the
Western and Atlantic districts, and between different
parts of each, will be rendered more and more easy by
those numerous canals with which the beneficence of
nature has intersected our country, and which art
finds it so little difficult to connect and
complete.
A fourth and still more important consideration is,
that as almost every State will, on one side or other,
be a frontier, and will thus find, in regard to its
safety, an inducement to make some sacrifices for the
sake of the general protection; so the States which
lie at the greatest distance from the heart of the
Union, and which, of course, may partake least of the
ordinary circulation of its benefits, will be at the
same time immediately contiguous to foreign nations,
and will consequently stand, on particular occasions,
in greatest need of its strength and resources. It may
be inconvenient for Georgia, or the States forming our
western or northeastern borders, to send their
representatives to the seat of government; but they
would find it more so to struggle alone against an
invading enemy, or even to support alone the whole
expense of those precautions which may be dictated by
the neighborhood of continual danger. If they should
derive less benefit, therefore, from the Union in some
respects than the less distant States, they will
derive greater benefit from it in other respects, and
thus the proper equilibrium will be maintained
throughout.
I submit to you, my fellow-citizens, these
considerations, in full confidence that the good sense
which has so often marked your decisions will allow
them their due weight and effect; and that you will
never suffer difficulties, however formidable in
appearance, or however fashionable the error on which
they may be founded, to drive you into the gloomy and
perilous scene into which the advocates for disunion
would conduct you. Hearken not to the unnatural voice
which tells you that the people of America, knit
together as they are by so many cords of affection,
can no longer live together as members of the same
family; can no longer continue the mutual guardians of
their mutual happiness; can no longer be fellow
citizens of one great, respectable, and flourishing
empire. Hearken not to the voice which petulantly
tells you that the form of government recommended for
your adoption is a novelty in the political world;
that it has never yet had a place in the theories of
the wildest projectors; that it rashly attempts what
it is impossible to accomplish. No, my countrymen,
shut your ears against this unhallowed language. Shut
your hearts against the poison which it conveys; the
kindred blood which flows in the veins of American
citizens, the mingled blood which they have shed in
defense of their sacred rights, consecrate their
Union, and excite horror at the idea of their becoming
aliens, rivals, enemies. And if novelties are to be
shunned, believe me, the most alarming of all
novelties, the most wild of all projects, the most
rash of all attempts, is that of rendering us in
pieces, in order to preserve our liberties and promote
our happiness. But why is the experiment of an
extended republic to be rejected, merely because it
may comprise what is new? Is it not the glory of the
people of America, that, whilst they have paid a
decent regard to the opinions of former times and
other nations, they have not suffered a blind
veneration for antiquity, for custom, or for names, to
overrule the suggestions of their own good sense, the
knowledge of their own situation, and the lessons of
their own experience? To this manly spirit, posterity
will be indebted for the possession, and the world for
the example, of the numerous innovations displayed on
the American theatre, in favor of private rights and
public happiness. Had no important step been taken by
the leaders of the Revolution for which a precedent
could not be discovered, no government established of
which an exact model did not present itself, the
people of the United States might, at this moment have
been numbered among the melancholy victims of
misguided councils, must at best have been laboring
under the weight of some of those forms which have
crushed the liberties of the rest of mankind. Happily
for America, happily, we trust, for the whole human
race, they pursued a new and more noble course. They
accomplished a revolution which has no parallel in the
annals of human society. They reared the fabrics of
governments which have no model on the face of the
globe. They formed the design of a great Confederacy,
which it is incumbent on their successors to improve
and perpetuate. If their works betray imperfections,
we wonder at the fewness of them. If they erred most
in the structure of the Union, this was the work most
difficult to be executed; this is the work which has
been new modelled by the act of your convention, and
it is that act on which you are now to deliberate and
to decide.
PUBLIUS
____
FEDERALIST No.
15
The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to
Preserve the Union
For the Independent Journal. Saturday, December 1,
1787
HAMILTON
To the People of the State of New York.
IN THE course of the preceding papers, I have
endeavored, my fellow citizens, to place before you,
in a clear and convincing light, the importance of
Union to your political safety and happiness. I have
unfolded to you a complication of dangers to which you
would be exposed, should you permit that sacred knot
which binds the people of America together be severed
or dissolved by ambition or by avarice, by jealousy or
by misrepresentation. In the sequel of the inquiry
through which I propose to accompany you, the truths
intended to be inculcated will receive further
confirmation from facts and arguments hitherto
unnoticed. If the road over which you will still have
to pass should in some places appear to you tedious or
irksome, you will recollect that you are in quest of
information on a subject the most momentous which can
engage the attention of a free people, that the field
through which you have to travel is in itself
spacious, and that the difficulties of the journey
have been unnecessarily increased by the mazes with
which sophistry has beset the way. It will be my aim
to remove the obstacles from your progress in as
compendious a manner as it can be done, without
sacrificing utility to despatch.
In pursuance of the plan which I have laid down for
the discussion of the subject, the point next in order
to be examined is the "insufficiency of the present
Confederation to the preservation of the Union." It
may perhaps be asked what need there is of reasoning
or proof to illustrate a position which is not either
controverted or doubted, to which the understandings
and feelings of all classes of men assent, and which
in substance is admitted by the opponents as well as
by the friends of the new Constitution. It must in
truth be acknowledged that, however these may differ
in other respects, they in general appear to harmonize
in this sentiment, at least, that there are material
imperfections in our national system, and that
something is necessary to be done to rescue us from
impending anarchy. The facts that support this opinion
are no longer objects of speculation. They have forced
themselves upon the sensibility of the people at
large, and have at length extorted from those, whose
mistaken policy has had the principal share in
precipitating the extremity at which we are arrived, a
reluctant confession of the reality of those defects
in the scheme of our federal government, which have
been long pointed out and regretted by the intelligent
friends of the Union.
We may indeed with propriety be said to have
reached almost the last stage of national humiliation.
There is scarcely anything that can wound the pride or
degrade the character of an independent nation which
we do not experience. Are there engagements to the
performance of which we are held by every tie
respectable among men? These are the subjects of
constant and unblushing violation. Do we owe debts to
foreigners and to our own citizens contracted in a
time of imminent peril for the preservation of our
political existence? These remain without any proper
or satisfactory provision for their discharge. Have we
valuable territories and important posts in the
possession of a foreign power which, by express
stipulations, ought long since to have been
surrendered? These are still retained, to the
prejudice of our interests, not less than of our
rights. Are we in a condition to resent or to repel
the aggression? We have neither troops, nor treasury,
nor government.[1] Are we even in a condition
to remonstrate with dignity? The just imputations on
our own faith, in respect to the same treaty, ought
first to be removed. Are we entitled by nature and
compact to a free participation in the navigation of
the Mississippi? Spain excludes us from it. Is public
credit an indispensable resource in time of public
danger? We seem to have abandoned its cause as
desperate and irretrievable. Is commerce of importance
to national wealth? Ours is at the lowest point of
declension. Is respectability in the eyes of foreign
powers a safeguard against foreign encroachments? The
imbecility of our government even forbids them to
treat with us. Our ambassadors abroad are the mere
pageants of mimic sovereignty. Is a violent and
unnatural decrease in the value of land a symptom of
national distress? The price of improved land in most
parts of the country is much lower than can be
accounted for by the quantity of waste land at market,
and can only be fully explained by that want of
private and public confidence, which are so alarmingly
prevalent among all ranks, and which have a direct
tendency to depreciate property of every kind. Is
private credit the friend and patron of industry? That
most useful kind which relates to borrowing and
lending is reduced within the narrowest limits, and
this still more from an opinion of insecurity than
from the scarcity of money. To shorten an enumeration
of particulars which can afford neither pleasure nor
instruction, it may in general be demanded, what
indication is there of national disorder, poverty, and
insignificance that could befall a community so
peculiarly blessed with natural advantages as we are,
which does not form a part of the dark catalogue of
our public misfortunes?
This is the melancholy situation to which we have
been brought by those very maxims and councils which
would now deter us from adopting the proposed
Constitution; and which, not content with having
conducted us to the brink of a precipice, seem
resolved to plunge us into the abyss that awaits us
below. Here, my countrymen, impelled by every motive
that ought to influence an enlightened people, let us
make a firm stand for our safety, our tranquillity,
our dignity, our reputation. Let us at last break the
fatal charm which has too long seduced us from the
paths of felicity and prosperity.
It is true, as has been before observed that facts,
too stubborn to be resisted, have produced a species
of general assent to the abstract proposition that
there exist material defects in our national system;
but the usefulness of the concession, on the part of
the old adversaries of federal measures, is destroyed
by a strenuous opposition to a remedy, upon the only
principles that can give it a chance of success. While
they admit that the government of the United States is
destitute of energy, they contend against conferring
upon it those powers which are requisite to supply
that energy. They seem still to aim at things
repugnant and irreconcilable; at an augmentation of
federal authority, without a diminution of State
authority; at sovereignty in the Union, and complete
independence in the members. They still, in fine, seem
to cherish with blind devotion the political monster
of an imperium in imperio. This renders a full display
of the principal defects of the Confederation
necessary, in order to show that the evils we
experience do not proceed from minute or partial
imperfections, but from fundamental errors in the
structure of the building, which cannot be amended
otherwise than by an alteration in the first
principles and main pillars of the fabric.
The great and radical vice in the construction of
the existing Confederation is in the principle of
LEGISLATION for STATES or GOVERNMENTS, in their
CORPORATE or COLLECTIVE CAPACITIES, and as
contradistinguished from the INDIVIDUALS of which they
consist. Though this principle does not run through
all the powers delegated to the Union, yet it pervades
and governs those on which the efficacy of the rest
depends. Except as to the rule of appointment, the
United States has an indefinite discretion to make
requisitions for men and money; but they have no
authority to raise either, by regulations extending to
the individual citizens of America. The consequence of
this is, that though in theory their resolutions
concerning those objects are laws, constitutionally
binding on the members of the Union, yet in practice
they are mere recommendations which the States observe
or disregard at their option.
It is a singular instance of the capriciousness of
the human mind, that after all the admonitions we have
had from experience on this head, there should still
be found men who object to the new Constitution, for
deviating from a principle which has been found the
bane of the old, and which is in itself evidently
incompatible with the idea of GOVERNMENT; a principle,
in short, which, if it is to be executed at all, must
substitute the violent and sanguinary agency of the
sword to the mild influence of the magistracy.
There is nothing absurd or impracticable in the
idea of a league or alliance between independent
nations for certain defined purposes precisely stated
in a treaty regulating all the details of time, place,
circumstance, and quantity; leaving nothing to future
discretion; and depending for its execution on the
good faith of the parties. Compacts of this kind exist
among all civilized nations, subject to the usual
vicissitudes of peace and war, of observance and
non-observance, as the interests or passions of the
contracting powers dictate. In the early part of the
present century there was an epidemical rage in Europe
for this species of compacts, from which the
politicians of the times fondly hoped for benefits
which were never realized. With a view to establishing
the equilibrium of power and the peace of that part of
the world, all the resources of negotiation were
exhausted, and triple and quadruple alliances were
formed; but they were scarcely formed before they were
broken, giving an instructive but afflicting lesson to
mankind, how little dependence is to be placed on
treaties which have no other sanction than the
obligations of good faith, and which oppose general
considerations of peace and justice to the impulse of
any immediate interest or passion.
If the particular States in this country are
disposed to stand in a similar relation to each other,
and to drop the project of a general DISCRETIONARY
SUPERINTENDENCE, the scheme would indeed be
pernicious, and would entail upon us all the mischiefs
which have been enumerated under the first head; but
it would have the merit of being, at least, consistent
and practicable Abandoning all views towards a
confederate government, this would bring us to a
simple alliance offensive and defensive; and would
place us in a situation to be alternate friends and
enemies of each other, as our mutual jealousies and
rivalships, nourished by the intrigues of foreign
nations, should prescribe to us.
But if we are unwilling to be placed in this
perilous situation; if we still will adhere to the
design of a national government, or, which is the same
thing, of a superintending power, under the direction
of a common council, we must resolve to incorporate
into our plan those ingredients which may be
considered as forming the characteristic difference
between a league and a government; we must extend the
authority of the Union to the persons of the citizens,
-- the only proper objects of government.
Government implies the power of making laws. It is
essential to the idea of a law, that it be attended
with a sanction; or, in other words, a penalty or
punishment for disobedience. If there be no penalty
annexed to disobedience, the resolutions or commands
which pretend to be laws will, in fact, amount to
nothing more than advice or recommendation. This
penalty, whatever it may be, can only be inflicted in
two ways: by the agency of the courts and ministers of
justice, or by military force; by the COERCION of the
magistracy, or by the COERCION of arms. The first kind
can evidently apply only to men; the last kind must of
necessity, be employed against bodies politic, or
communities, or States. It is evident that there is no
process of a court by which the observance of the laws
can, in the last resort, be enforced. Sentences may be
denounced against them for violations of their duty;
but these sentences can only be carried into execution
by the sword. In an association where the general
authority is confined to the collective bodies of the
communities, that compose it, every breach of the laws
must involve a state of war; and military execution
must become the only instrument of civil obedience.
Such a state of things can certainly not deserve the
name of government, nor would any prudent man choose
to commit his happiness to it.
There was a time when we were told that breaches,
by the States, of the regulations of the federal
authority were not to be expected; that a sense of
common interest would preside over the conduct of the
respective members, and would beget a full compliance
with all the constitutional requisitions of the Union.
This language, at the present day, would appear as
wild as a great part of what we now hear from the same
quarter will be thought, when we shall have received
further lessons from that best oracle of wisdom,
experience. It at all times betrayed an ignorance of
the true springs by which human conduct is actuated,
and belied the original inducements to the
establishment of civil power. Why has government been
instituted at all? Because the passions of men will
not conform to the dictates of reason and justice,
without constraint. Has it been found that bodies of
men act with more rectitude or greater
disinterestedness than individuals? The contrary of
this has been inferred by all accurate observers of
the conduct of mankind; and the inference is founded
upon obvious reasons. Regard to reputation has a less
active influence, when the infamy of a bad action is
to be divided among a number than when it is to fall
singly upon one. A spirit of faction, which is apt to
mingle its poison in the deliberations of all bodies
of men, will often hurry the persons of whom they are
composed into improprieties and excesses, for which
they would blush in a private capacity.
In addition to all this, there is, in the nature of
sovereign power, an impatience of control, that
disposes those who are invested with the exercise of
it, to look with an evil eye upon all external
attempts to restrain or direct its operations. From
this spirit it happens, that in every political
association which is formed upon the principle of
uniting in a common interest a number of lesser
sovereignties, there will be found a kind of eccentric
tendency in the subordinate or inferior orbs, by the
operation of which there will be a perpetual effort in
each to fly off from the common centre. This tendency
is not difficult to be accounted for. It has its
origin in the love of power. Power controlled or
abridged is almost always the rival and enemy of that
power by which it is controlled or abridged. This
simple proposition will teach us how little reason
there is to expect, that the persons intrusted with
the administration of the affairs of the particular
members of a confederacy will at all times be ready,
with perfect good-humor, and an unbiased regard to the
public weal, to execute the resolutions or decrees of
the general authority. The reverse of this results
from the constitution of human nature.
If, therefore, the measures of the Confederacy
cannot be executed without the intervention of the
particular administrations, there will be little
prospect of their being executed at all. The rulers of
the respective members, whether they have a
constitutional right to do it or not, will undertake
to judge of the propriety of the measures themselves.
They will consider the conformity of the thing
proposed or required to their immediate interests or
aims; the momentary conveniences or inconveniences
that would attend its adoption. All this will be done;
and in a spirit of interested and suspicious scrutiny,
without that knowledge of national circumstances and
reasons of state, which is essential to a right
judgment, and with that strong predilection in favor
of local objects, which can hardly fail to mislead the
decision. The same process must be repeated in every
member of which the body is constituted; and the
execution of the plans, framed by the councils of the
whole, will always fluctuate on the discretion of the
ill-informed and prejudiced opinion of every part.
Those who have been conversant in the proceedings of
popular assemblies; who have seen how difficult it
often is, where there is no exterior pressure of
circumstances, to bring them to harmonious resolutions
on important points, will readily conceive how
impossible it must be to induce a number of such
assemblies, deliberating at a distance from each
other, at different times, and under different
impressions, long to co-operate in the same views and
pursuits.
In our case, the concurrence of thirteen distinct
sovereign wills is requisite, under the Confederation,
to the complete execution of every important measure
that proceeds from the Union. It has happened as was
to have been foreseen. The measures of the Union have
not been executed; the delinquencies of the States
have, step by step, matured themselves to an extreme,
which has, at length, arrested all the wheels of the
national government, and brought them to an awful
stand. Congress at this time scarcely possess the
means of keeping up the forms of administration, till
the States can have time to agree upon a more
substantial substitute for the present shadow of a
federal government. Things did not come to this
desperate extremity at once. The causes which have
been specified produced at first only unequal and
disproportionate degrees of compliance with the
requisitions of the Union. The greater deficiencies of
some States furnished the pretext of example and the
temptation of interest to the complying, or to the
least delinquent States. Why should we do more in
proportion than those who are embarked with us in the
same political voyage? Why should we consent to bear
more than our proper share of the common burden? These
were suggestions which human selfishness could not
withstand, and which even speculative men, who looked
forward to remote consequences, could not, without
hesitation, combat. Each State, yielding to the
persuasive voice of immediate interest or convenience,
has successively withdrawn its support, till the frail
and tottering edifice seems ready to fall upon our
heads, and to crush us beneath its ruins.
PUBLIUS
1. "I mean for the Union."
____
FEDERALIST No.
16
The Same Subject Continued (The Insufficiency of
the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union)
From the New York Packet. Tuesday, December 4,
1787.
HAMILTON
To the People of the State of New York:
THE tendency of the principle of legislation for
States, or communities, in their political capacities,
as it has been exemplified by the experiment we have
made of it, is equally attested by the events which
have befallen all other governments of the confederate
kind, of which we have any account, in exact
proportion to its prevalence in those systems. The
confirmations of this fact will be worthy of a
distinct and particular examination. I shall content
myself with barely observing here, that of all the
confederacies of antiquity, which history has handed
down to us, the Lycian and Achaean leagues, as far as
there remain vestiges of them, appear to have been
most free from the fetters of that mistaken principle,
and were accordingly those which have best deserved,
and have most liberally received, the applauding
suffrages of political writers.
This exceptionable principle may, as truly as
emphatically, be styled the parent of anarchy: It has
been seen that delinquencies in the members of the
Union are its natural and necessary offspring; and
that whenever they happen, the only constitutional
remedy is force, and the immediate effect of the use
of it, civil war.
It remains to inquire how far so odious an engine
of government, in its application to us, would even be
capable of answering its end. If there should not be a
large army constantly at the disposal of the national
government it would either not be able to employ force
at all, or, when this could be done, it would amount
to a war between parts of the Confederacy concerning
the infractions of a league, in which the strongest
combination would be most likely to prevail, whether
it consisted of those who supported or of those who
resisted the general authority. It would rarely happen
that the delinquency to be redressed would be confined
to a single member, and if there were more than one
who had neglected their duty, similarity of situation
would induce them to unite for common defense.
Independent of this motive of sympathy, if a large and
influential State should happen to be the aggressing
member, it would commonly have weight enough with its
neighbors to win over some of them as associates to
its cause. Specious arguments of danger to the common
liberty could easily be contrived; plausible excuses
for the deficiencies of the party could, without
difficulty, be invented to alarm the apprehensions,
inflame the passions, and conciliate the good-will,
even of those States which were not chargeable with
any violation or omission of duty. This would be the
more likely to take place, as the delinquencies of the
larger members might be expected sometimes to proceed
from an ambitious premeditation in their rulers, with
a view to getting rid of all external control upon
their designs of personal aggrandizement; the better
to effect which it is presumable they would tamper
beforehand with leading individuals in the adjacent
States. If associates could not be found at home,
recourse would be had to the aid of foreign powers,
who would seldom be disinclined to encouraging the
dissensions of a Confederacy, from the firm union of
which they had so much to fear. When the sword is once
drawn, the passions of men observe no bounds of
moderation. The suggestions of wounded pride, the
instigations of irritated resentment, would be apt to
carry the States against which the arms of the Union
were exerted, to any extremes necessary to avenge the
affront or to avoid the disgrace of submission. The
first war of this kind would probably terminate in a
dissolution of the Union.
This may be considered as the violent death of the
Confederacy. Its more natural death is what we now
seem to be on the point of experiencing, if the
federal system be not speedily renovated in a more
substantial form. It is not probable, considering the
genius of this country, that the complying States
would often be inclined to support the authority of
the Union by engaging in a war against the
non-complying States. They would always be more ready
to pursue the milder course of putting themselves upon
an equal footing with the delinquent members by an
imitation of their example. And the guilt of all would
thus become the security of all. Our past experience
has exhibited the operation of this spirit in its full
light. There would, in fact, be an insuperable
difficulty in ascertaining when force could with
propriety be employed. In the article of pecuniary
contribution, which would be the most usual source of
delinquency, it would often be impossible to decide
whether it had proceeded from disinclination or
inability. The pretense of the latter would always be
at hand. And the case must be very flagrant in which
its fallacy could be detected with sufficient
certainty to justify the harsh expedient of
compulsion. It is easy to see that this problem alone,
as often as it should occur, would open a wide field
for the exercise of factious views, of partiality, and
of oppression, in the majority that happened to
prevail in the national council.
It seems to require no pains to prove that the
States ought not to prefer a national Constitution
which could only be kept in motion by the
instrumentality of a large army continually on foot to
execute the ordinary requisitions or decrees of the
government. And yet this is the plain alternative
involved by those who wish to deny it the power of
extending its operations to individuals. Such a
scheme, if practicable at all, would instantly
degenerate into a military despotism; but it will be
found in every light impracticable. The resources of
the Union would not be equal to the maintenance of an
army considerable enough to confine the larger States
within the limits of their duty; nor would the means
ever be furnished of forming such an army in the first
instance. Whoever considers the populousness and
strength of several of these States singly at the
present juncture, and looks forward to what they will
become, even at the distance of half a century, will
at once dismiss as idle and visionary any scheme which
aims at regulating their movements by laws to operate
upon them in their collective capacities, and to be
executed by a coercion applicable to them in the same
capacities. A project of this kind is little less
romantic than the monster-taming spirit which is
attributed to the fabulous heroes and demi-gods of
antiquity.
Even in those confederacies which have been
composed of members smaller than many of our counties,
the principle of legislation for sovereign States,
supported by military coercion, has never been found
effectual. It has rarely been attempted to be
employed, but against the weaker members; and in most
instances attempts to coerce the refractory and
disobedient have been the signals of bloody wars, in
which one half of the confederacy has displayed its
banners against the other half.
The result of these observations to an intelligent
mind must be clearly this, that if it be possible at
any rate to construct a federal government capable of
regulating the common concerns and preserving the
general tranquillity, it must be founded, as to the
objects committed to its care, upon the reverse of the
principle contended for by the opponents of the
proposed Constitution. It must carry its agency to the
persons of the citizens. It must stand in need of no
intermediate legislations; but must itself be
empowered to employ the arm of the ordinary magistrate
to execute its own resolutions. The majesty of the
national authority must be manifested through the
medium of the courts of justice. The government of the
Union, like that of each State, must be able to
address itself immediately to the hopes and fears of
individuals; and to attract to its support those
passions which have the strongest influence upon the
human heart. It must, in short, possess all the means,
and have aright to resort to all the methods, of
executing the powers with which it is intrusted, that
are possessed and exercised by the government of the
particular States.
To this reasoning it may perhaps be objected, that
if any State should be disaffected to the authority of
the Union, it could at any time obstruct the execution
of its laws, and bring the matter to the same issue of
force, with the necessity of which the opposite scheme
is reproached.
The pausibility of this objection will vanish the
moment we advert to the essential difference between a
mere NON-COMPLIANCE and a DIRECT and ACTIVE
RESISTANCE. If the interposition of the State
legislatures be necessary to give effect to a measure
of the Union, they have only NOT TO ACT, or TO ACT
EVASIVELY, and the measure is defeated. This neglect
of duty may be disguised under affected but
unsubstantial provisions, so as not to appear, and of
course not to excite any alarm in the people for the
safety of the Constitution. The State leaders may even
make a merit of their surreptitious invasions of it on
the ground of some temporary convenience, exemption,
or advantage.
But if the execution of the laws of the national
government should not require the intervention of the
State legislatures, if they were to pass into
immediate operation upon the citizens themselves, the
particular governments could not interrupt their
progress without an open and violent exertion of an
unconstitutional power. No omissions nor evasions
would answer the end. They would be obliged to act,
and in such a manner as would leave no doubt that they
had encroached on the national rights. An experiment
of this nature would always be hazardous in the face
of a constitution in any degree competent to its own
defense, and of a people enlightened enough to
distinguish between a legal exercise and an illegal
usurpation of authority. The success of it would
require not merely a factious majority in the
legislature, but the concurrence of the courts of
justice and of the body of the people. If the judges
were not embarked in a conspiracy with the
legislature, they would pronounce the resolutions of
such a majority to be contrary to the supreme law of
the land, unconstitutional, and void. If the people
were not tainted with the spirit of their State
representatives, they, as the natural guardians of the
Constitution, would throw their weight into the
national scale and give it a decided preponderancy in
the contest. Attempts of this kind would not often be
made with levity or rashness, because they could
seldom be made without danger to the authors, unless
in cases of a tyrannical exercise of the federal
authority.
If opposition to the national government should
arise from the disorderly conduct of refractory or
seditious individuals, it could be overcome by the
same means which are daily employed against the same
evil under the State governments. The magistracy,
being equally the ministers of the law of the land,
from whatever source it might emanate, would doubtless
be as ready to guard the national as the local
regulations from the inroads of private
licentiousness. As to those partial commotions and
insurrections, which sometimes disquiet society, from
the intrigues of an inconsiderable faction, or from
sudden or occasional illhumors that do not infect the
great body of the community the general government
could command more extensive resources for the
suppression of disturbances of that kind than would be
in the power of any single member. And as to those
mortal feuds which, in certain conjunctures, spread a
conflagration through a whole nation, or through a
very large proportion of it, proceeding either from
weighty causes of discontent given by the government
or from the contagion of some violent popular
paroxysm, they do not fall within any ordinary rules
of calculation. When they happen, they commonly amount
to revolutions and dismemberments of empire. No form
of government can always either avoid or control them.
It is in vain to hope to guard against events too
mighty for human foresight or precaution, and it would
be idle to object to a government because it could not
perform impossibilities.
PUBLIUS
____
FEDERALIST No.
17
The Same Subject Continued (The Insufficiency of
the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union)
For the Independent Journal. Wednesday, December 5,
1787
HAMILTON
To the People of the State of New York:
AN OBJECTION, of a nature different from that which
has been stated and answered, in my last address, may
perhaps be likewise urged against the principle of
legislation for the individual citizens of America. It
may be said that it would tend to render the
government of the Union too powerful, and to enable it
to absorb those residuary authorities, which it might
be judged proper to leave with the States for local
purposes. Allowing the utmost latitude to the love of
power which any reasonable man can require, I confess
I am at a loss to discover what temptation the persons
intrusted with the administration of the general
government could ever feel to divest the States of the
authorities of that description. The regulation of the
mere domestic police of a State appears to me to hold
out slender allurements to ambition. Commerce,
finance, negotiation, and war seem to comprehend all
the objects which have charms for minds governed by
that passion; and all the powers necessary to those
objects ought, in the first instance, to be lodged in
the national depository. The administration of private
justice between the citizens of the same State, the
supervision of agriculture and of other concerns of a
similar nature, all those things, in short, which are
proper to be provided for by local legislation, can
never be desirable cares of a general jurisdiction. It
is therefore improbable that there should exist a
disposition in the federal councils to usurp the
powers with which they are connected; because the
attempt to exercise those powers would be as
troublesome as it would be nugatory; and the
possession of them, for that reason, would contribute
nothing to the dignity, to the importance, or to the
splendor of the national government.
But let it be admitted, for argument's sake, that
mere wantonness and lust of domination would be
sufficient to beget that disposition; still it may be
safely affirmed, that the sense of the constituent
body of the national representatives, or, in other
words, the people of the several States, would control
the indulgence of so extravagant an appetite. It will
always be far more easy for the State governments to
encroach upon the national authorities than for the
national government to encroach upon the State
authorities. The proof of this proposition turns upon
the greater degree of influence which the State
governments if they administer their affairs with
uprightness and prudence, will generally possess over
the people; a circumstance which at the same time
teaches us that there is an inherent and intrinsic
weakness in all federal constitutions; and that too
much pains cannot be taken in their organization, to
give them all the force which is compatible with the
principles of liberty.
The superiority of influence in favor of the
particular governments would result partly from the
diffusive construction of the national government, but
chiefly from the nature of the objects to which the
attention of the State administrations would be
directed.
It is a known fact in human nature, that its
affections are commonly weak in proportion to the
distance or diffusiveness of the object. Upon the same
principle that a man is more attached to his family
than to his neighborhood, to his neighborhood than to
the community at large, the people of each State would
be apt to feel a stronger bias towards their local
governments than towards the government of the Union;
unless the force of that principle should be destroyed
by a much better administration of the latter.
This strong propensity of the human heart would
find powerful auxiliaries in the objects of State
regulation.
The variety of more minute interests, which will
necessarily fall under the superintendence of the
local administrations, and which will form so many
rivulets of influence, running through every part of
the society, cannot be particularized, without
involving a detail too tedious and uninteresting to
compensate for the instruction it might afford.
There is one transcendant advantage belonging to
the province of the State governments, which alone
suffices to place the matter in a clear and
satisfactory light, -- I mean the ordinary
administration of criminal and civil justice. This, of
all others, is the most powerful, most universal, and
most attractive source of popular obedience and
attachment. It is that which, being the immediate and
visible guardian of life and property, having its
benefits and its terrors in constant activity before
the public eye, regulating all those personal
interests and familiar concerns to which the
sensibility of individuals is more immediately awake,
contributes, more than any other circumstance, to
impressing upon the minds of the people, affection,
esteem, and reverence towards the government. This
great cement of society, which will diffuse itself
almost wholly through the channels of the particular
governments, independent of all other causes of
influence, would insure them so decided an empire over
their respective citizens as to render them at all
times a complete counterpoise, and, not unfrequently,
dangerous rivals to the power of the Union.
The operations of the national government, on the
other hand, falling less immediately under the
observation of the mass of the citizens, the benefits
derived from it will chiefly be perceived and attended
to by speculative men. Relating to more general
interests, they will be less apt to come home to the
feelings of the people; and, in proportion, less
likely to inspire an habitual sense of obligation, and
an active sentiment of attachment.
The reasoning on this head has been abundantly
exemplified by the experience of all federal
constitutions with which we are acquainted, and of all
others which have borne the least analogy to them.
Though the ancient feudal systems were not,
strictly speaking, confederacies, yet they partook of
the nature of that species of association. There was a
common head, chieftain, or sovereign, whose authority
extended over the whole nation; and a number of
subordinate vassals, or feudatories, who had large
portions of land allotted to them, and numerous trains
of INFERIOR vassals or retainers, who occupied and
cultivated that land upon the tenure of fealty or
obedience, to the persons of whom they held it. Each
principal vassal was a kind of sovereign, within his
particular demesnes. The consequences of this
situation were a continual opposition to authority of
the sovereign, and frequent wars between the great
barons or chief feudatories themselves. The power of
the head of the nation was commonly too weak, either
to preserve the public peace, or to protect the people
against the oppressions of their immediate lords. This
period of European affairs is emphatically styled by
historians, the times of feudal anarchy.
When the sovereign happened to be a man of vigorous
and warlike temper and of superior abilities, he would
acquire a personal weight and influence, which
answered, for the time, the purpose of a more regular
authority. But in general, the power of the barons
triumphed over that of the prince; and in many
instances his dominion was entirely thrown off, and
the great fiefs were erected into independent
principalities or States. In those instances in which
the monarch finally prevailed over his vassals, his
success was chiefly owing to the tyranny of those
vassals over their dependents. The barons, or nobles,
equally the enemies of the sovereign and the
oppressors of the common people, were dreaded and
detested by both; till mutual danger and mutual
interest effected a union between them fatal to the
power of the aristocracy. Had the nobles, by a conduct
of clemency and justice, preserved the fidelity and
devotion of their retainers and followers, the
contests between them and the prince must almost
always have ended in their favor, and in the
abridgment or subversion of the royal authority.
This is not an assertion founded merely in
speculation or conjecture. Among other illustrations
of its truth which might be cited, Scotland will
furnish a cogent example. The spirit of clanship which
was, at an early day, introduced into that kingdom,
uniting the nobles and their dependants by ties
equivalent to those of kindred, rendered the
aristocracy a constant overmatch for the power of the
monarch, till the incorporation with England subdued
its fierce and ungovernable spirit, and reduced it
within those rules of subordination which a more
rational and more energetic system of civil polity had
previously established in the latter kingdom.
The separate governments in a confederacy may aptly
be compared with the feudal baronies; with this
advantage in their favor, that from the reasons
already explained, they will generally possess the
confidence and good-will of the people, and with so
important a support, will be able effectually to
oppose all encroachments of the national government.
It will be well if they are not able to counteract its
legitimate and necessary authority. The points of
similitude consist in the rivalship of power,
applicable to both, and in the CONCENTRATION of large
portions of the strength of the community into
particular DEPOSITORIES, in one case at the disposal
of individuals, in the other case at the disposal of
political bodies.
A concise review of the events that have attended
confederate governments will further illustrate this
important doctrine; an inattention to which has been
the great source of our political mistakes, and has
given our jealousy a direction to the wrong side. This
review shall form the subject of some ensuing
papers.
PUBLIUS
____
FEDERALIST No.
18
The Same Subject Continued (The Insufficiency of
the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union)
For the New York Packet. Friday, December 7,
1787
MADISON, with HAMILTON
To the People of the State of New York:
AMONG the confederacies of antiquity, the most
considerable was that of the Grecian republics,
associated under the Amphictyonic council. From the
best accounts transmitted of this celebrated
institution, it bore a very instructive analogy to the
present Confederation of the American States.
The members retained the character of independent
and sovereign states, and had equal votes in the
federal council. This council had a general authority
to propose and resolve whatever it judged necessary
for the common welfare of Greece; to declare and carry
on war; to decide, in the last resort, all
controversies between the members; to fine the
aggressing party; to employ the whole force of the
confederacy against the disobedient; to admit new
members. The Amphictyons were the guardians of
religion, and of the immense riches belonging to the
temple of Delphos, where they had the right of
jurisdiction in controversies between the inhabitants
and those who came to consult the oracle. As a further
provision for the efficacy of the federal powers, they
took an oath mutually to defend and protect the united
cities, to punish the violators of this oath, and to
inflict vengeance on sacrilegious despoilers of the
temple.
In theory, and upon paper, this apparatus of powers
seems amply sufficient for all general purposes. In
several material instances, they exceed the powers
enumerated in the articles of confederation. The
Amphictyons had in their hands the superstition of the
times, one of the principal engines by which
government was then maintained; they had a declared
authority to use coercion against refractory cities,
and were bound by oath to exert this authority on the
necessary occasions.
Very different, nevertheless, was the experiment
from the theory. The powers, like those of the present
Congress, were administered by deputies appointed
wholly by the cities in their political capacities;
and exercised over them in the same capacities. Hence
the weakness, the disorders, and finally the
destruction of the confederacy. The more powerful
members, instead of being kept in awe and
subordination, tyrannized successively over all the
rest. Athens, as we learn from Demosthenes, was the
arbiter of Greece seventy-three years. The
Lacedaemonians next governed it twenty-nine years; at
a subsequent period, after the battle of Leuctra, the
Thebans had their turn of domination.
It happened but too often, according to Plutarch,
that the deputies of the strongest cities awed and
corrupted those of the weaker; and that judgment went
in favor of the most powerful party.
Even in the midst of defensive and dangerous wars
with Persia and Macedon, the members never acted in
concert, and were, more or fewer of them, eternally
the dupes or the hirelings of the common enemy. The
intervals of foreign war were filled up by domestic
vicissitudes convulsions, and carnage.
After the conclusion of the war with Xerxes, it
appears that the Lacedaemonians required that a number
of the cities should be turned out of the confederacy
for the unfaithful part they had acted. The Athenians,
finding that the Lacedaemonians would lose fewer
partisans by such a measure than themselves, and would
become masters of the public deliberations, vigorously
opposed and defeated the attempt. This piece of
history proves at once the inefficiency of the union,
the ambition and jealousy of its most powerful
members, and the dependent and degraded condition of
the rest. The smaller members, though entitled by the
theory of their system to revolve in equal pride and
majesty around the common center, had become, in fact,
satellites of the orbs of primary magnitude.
Had the Greeks, says the Abbe Milot, been as wise
as they were courageous, they would have been
admonished by experience of the necessity of a closer
union, and would have availed themselves of the peace
which followed their success against the Persian arms,
to establish such a reformation. Instead of this
obvious policy, Athens and Sparta, inflated with the
victories and the glory they had acquired, became
first rivals and then enemies; and did each other
infinitely more mischief than they had suffered from
Xerxes. Their mutual jealousies, fears, hatreds, and
injuries ended in the celebrated Peloponnesian war;
which itself ended in the ruin and slavery of the
Athenians who had begun it.
As a weak government, when not at war, is ever
agitated by internal dissentions, so these never fail
to bring on fresh calamities from abroad. The Phocians
having ploughed up some consecrated ground belonging
to the temple of Apollo, the Amphictyonic council,
according to the superstition of the age, imposed a
fine on the sacrilegious offenders. The Phocians,
being abetted by Athens and Sparta, refused to submit
to the decree. The Thebans, with others of the cities,
undertook to maintain the authority of the
Amphictyons, and to avenge the violated god. The
latter, being the weaker party, invited the assistance
of Philip of Macedon, who had secretly fostered the
contest. Philip gladly seized the opportunity of
executing the designs he had long planned against the
liberties of Greece. By his intrigues and bribes he
won over to his interests the popular leaders of
several cities; by their influence and votes, gained
admission into the Amphictyonic council; and by his
arts and his arms, made himself master of the
confederacy.
Such were the consequences of the fallacious
principle on which this interesting establishment was
founded. Had Greece, says a judicious observer on her
fate, been united by a stricter confederation, and
persevered in her union, she would never have worn the
chains of Macedon; and might have proved a barrier to
the vast projects of Rome.
The Achaean league, as it is called, was another
society of Grecian republics, which supplies us with
valuable instruction.
The Union here was far more intimate, and its
organization much wiser, tha