THE FEDERALIST PAPERS
The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction
and Insurrection
From the Daily Advertiser
Thursday, November 22, 1787
MADISON
TABLE OF CONTENTS
To the People of the State of New York:
FEDERALIST No. 10
To the People of the State of New York:
AMONG the numerous advantages promised by a well constructed Union, none
deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control
the violence of faction. The friend of popular governments never finds himself
so much alarmed for their character and fate, as when he contemplates their
propensity to this dangerous vice. He will not fail, therefore, to set a due
value on any plan which, without violating the principles to which he is
attached, provides a proper cure for it. The instability, injustice, and
confusion introduced into the public councils, have, in truth, been the mortal
diseases under which popular governments have everywhere perished; as they
continue to be the favorite and fruitful topics from which the adversaries to
liberty derive their most specious declamations. The valuable improvements made
by the American constitutions on the popular models, both ancient and modern,
cannot certainly be too much admired; but it would be an unwarrantable
partiality, to contend that they have as effectually obviated the danger on this
side, as was wished and expected. Complaints are everywhere heard from our most
considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and private
faith, and of public and personal liberty, that our governments are too
unstable, that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties,
and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice
and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested
and overbearing majority. However anxiously we may wish that these complaints
had no foundation, the evidence, of known facts will not permit us to deny that
they are in some degree true. It will be found, indeed, on a candid review of
our situation, that some of the distresses under which we labor have been
erroneously charged on the operation of our governments; but it will be found,
at the same time, that other causes will not alone account for many of our
heaviest misfortunes; and, particularly, for that prevailing and increasing
distrust of public engagements, and alarm for private rights, which are echoed
from one end of the continent to the other. These must be chiefly, if not
wholly, effects of the unsteadiness and injustice with which a factious spirit
has tainted our public administrations.
2 By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a
majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common
impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or
to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.
3 There are two methods of curing the mischiefs of faction: the one, by
removing its causes; the other, by controlling its effects.
4 There are again two methods of removing the causes of faction: the one, by
destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence; the other, by giving
to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests.
5 It could never be more truly said than of the first remedy, that it was worse
than the disease. Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without
which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty,
which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it
would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life,
because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.
6 The second expedient is as impracticable as the first would be unwise. As
long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise
it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists
between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a
reciprocal influence on each other; and the former will be objects to which the
latter will attach themselves. The diversity in the faculties of men, from which
the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a
uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object
of government. From the protection of different and unequal faculties of
acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property
immediately results; and from the influence of these on the sentiments and views
of the respective proprietors, ensues a division of the society into different
interests and parties.
7 The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see
them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the
different circumstances of civil society. A zeal for different opinions
concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of
speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously
contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose
fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided
mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them
much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their
common good. So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual
animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most
frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their
unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts. But the most common
and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of
property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed
distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those who are
debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing
interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests,
grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different
classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of these
various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern
legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and
ordinary operations of the government.
8 No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would
certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity. With
equal, nay with greater reason, a body of men are unfit to be both judges and
parties at the same time; yet what are many of the most important acts of
legislation, but so many judicial determinations, not indeed concerning the
rights of single persons, but concerning the rights of large bodies of citizens?
And what are the different classes of legislators but advocates and parties to
the causes which they determine? Is a law proposed concerning private debts? It
is a question to which the creditors are parties on one side and the debtors on
the other. Justice ought to hold the balance between them. Yet the parties are,
and must be, themselves the judges; and the most numerous party, or, in other
words, the most powerful faction must be expected to prevail. Shall domestic
manufactures be encouraged, and in what degree, by restrictions on foreign
manufactures? are questions which would be differently decided by the landed and
the manufacturing classes, and probably by neither with a sole regard to justice
and the public good. The apportionment of taxes on the various descriptions of
property is an act which seems to require the most exact impartiality; yet there
is, perhaps, no legislative act in which greater opportunity and temptation are
given to a predominant party to trample on the rules of justice. Every shilling
with which they overburden the inferior number, is a shilling saved to their own
pockets.
9 It is in vain to say that enlightened statesmen will be able to adjust these
clashing interests, and render them all subservient to the public good.
Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm. Nor, in many cases, can
such an adjustment be made at all without taking into view indirect and remote
considerations, which will rarely prevail over the immediate interest which one
party may find in disregarding the rights of another or the good of the whole.
10 The inference to which we are brought is, that the CAUSES of faction cannot
be removed, and that relief is only to be sought in the means of controlling its
EFFECTS.
11 If a faction consists of less than a majority, relief is supplied by the
republican principle, which enables the majority to defeat its sinister views by
regular vote. It may clog the administration, it may convulse the society; but
it will be unable to execute and mask its violence under the forms of the
Constitution. When a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular
government, on the other hand, enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or
interest both the public good and the rights of other citizens. To secure the
public good and private rights against the danger of such a faction, and at the
same time to preserve the spirit and the form of popular government, is then the
great object to which our inquiries are directed. Let me add that it is the
great desideratum by which this form of government can be rescued from the
opprobrium under which it has so long labored, and be recommended to the esteem
and adoption of mankind.
12 By what means is this object attainable? Evidently by one of two only. Either
the existence of the same passion or interest in a majority at the same time
must be prevented, or the majority, having such coexistent passion or interest,
must be rendered, by their number and local situation, unable to concert and
carry into effect schemes of oppression. If the impulse and the opportunity be
suffered to coincide, we well know that neither moral nor religious motives can
be relied on as an adequate control. They are not found to be such on the
injustice and violence of individuals, and lose their efficacy in proportion to
the number combined together, that is, in proportion as their efficacy becomes
needful.
13 From this view of the subject it may be concluded that a pure democracy, by
which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble
and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs
of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by
a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of
government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice
the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies
have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found
incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in
general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.
Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have
erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their
political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and
assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions.
14 A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of
representation takes place, opens a different prospect, and promises the cure
for which we are seeking. Let us examine the points in which it varies from pure
democracy, and we shall comprehend both the nature of the cure and the efficacy
which it must derive from the Union.
15 The two great points of difference between a democracy and a republic are:
first, the delegation of the government, in the latter, to a small number of
citizens elected by the rest; secondly, the greater number of citizens, and
greater sphere of country, over which the latter may be extended.
16 The effect of the first difference is, on the one hand, to refine and enlarge
the public views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of
citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country, and
whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to
temporary or partial considerations. Under such a regulation, it may well happen
that the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be
more consonant to the public good than if pronounced by the people themselves,
convened for the purpose. On the other hand, the effect may be inverted. Men of
factious tempers, of local prejudices, or of sinister designs, may, by intrigue,
by corruption, or by other means, first obtain the suffrages, and then betray
the interests, of the people. The question resulting is, whether small or
extensive republics are more favorable to the election of proper guardians of
the public weal; and it is clearly decided in favor of the latter by two obvious
considerations:
17 In the first place, it is to be remarked that, however small the republic may
be, the representatives must be raised to a certain number, in order to guard
against the cabals of a few; and that, however large it may be, they must be
limited to a certain number, in order to guard against the confusion of a
multitude. Hence, the number of representatives in the two cases not being in
proportion to that of the two constituents, and being proportionally greater in
the small republic, it follows that, if the proportion of fit characters be not
less in the large than in the small republic, the former will present a greater
option, and consequently a greater probability of a fit choice.
18 In the next place, as each representative will be chosen by a greater number
of citizens in the large than in the small republic, it will be more difficult
for unworthy candidates to practice with success the vicious arts by which
elections are too often carried; and the suffrages of the people being more
free, will be more likely to centre in men who possess the most attractive merit
and the most diffusive and established characters.
19 It must be confessed that in this, as in most other cases, there is a mean,
on both sides of which inconveniences will be found to lie. By enlarging too
much the number of electors, you render the representatives too little
acquainted with all their local circumstances and lesser interests; as by
reducing it too much, you render him unduly attached to these, and too little
fit to comprehend and pursue great and national objects. The federal
Constitution forms a happy combination in this respect; the great and aggregate
interests being referred to the national, the local and particular to the State
legislatures.
20 The other point of difference is, the greater number of citizens and extent
of territory which may be brought within the compass of republican than of
democratic government; and it is this circumstance principally which renders
factious combinations less to be dreaded in the former than in the latter. The
smaller the society, the fewer probably will be the distinct parties and
interests composing it; the fewer the distinct parties and interests, the more
frequently will a majority be found of the same party; and the smaller the
number of individuals composing a majority, and the smaller the compass within
which they are placed, the more easily will they concert and execute their plans
of oppression. Extend the sphere, and you take in a greater variety of parties
and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have
a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens; or if such a common
motive exists, it will be more difficult for all who feel it to discover their
own strength, and to act in unison with each other. Besides other impediments,
it may be remarked that, where there is a consciousness of unjust or
dishonorable purposes, communication is always checked by distrust in proportion
to the number whose concurrence is necessary.
21 Hence, it clearly appears, that the same advantage which a republic has over
a democracy, in controlling the effects of faction, is enjoyed by a large over a
small republic, -- is enjoyed by the Union over the States composing it. Does
the advantage consist in the substitution of representatives whose enlightened
views and virtuous sentiments render them superior to local prejudices and
schemes of injustice? It will not be denied that the representation of the Union
will be most likely to possess these requisite endowments. Does it consist in
the greater security afforded by a greater variety of parties, against the event
of any one party being able to outnumber and oppress the rest? In an equal
degree does the increased variety of parties comprised within the Union,
increase this security. Does it, in fine, consist in the greater obstacles
opposed to the concert and accomplishment of the secret wishes of an unjust and
interested majority? Here, again, the extent of the Union gives it the most
palpable advantage.
22 The influence of factious leaders may kindle a flame within their particular
States, but will be unable to spread a general conflagration through the other
States. A religious sect may degenerate into a political faction in a part of
the Confederacy; but the variety of sects dispersed over the entire face of it
must secure the national councils against any danger from that source. A rage
for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of property,
or for any other improper or wicked project, will be less apt to pervade the
whole body of the Union than a particular member of it; in the same proportion
as such a malady is more likely to taint a particular county or district, than
an entire State.
23 In the extent and proper structure of the Union, therefore, we behold a
republican remedy for the diseases most incident to republican government. And
according to the degree of pleasure and pride we feel in being republicans,
ought to be our zeal in cherishing the spirit and supporting the character of
Federalists.
PUBLIUS
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.
2 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.
3 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?
4 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.
5 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.
6 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.
7 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.
8 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.
9 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?
10 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.
11 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.
12 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.
13 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.
14 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.
2 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.
3 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.
4 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.
5 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.
6 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.
7 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.
8 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.
9 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.
10 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.
11 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.
12 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.
2 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.
3 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.
4 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.
2 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.
3 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.
4 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.
5 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.
6 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.
7 Favorable as this view of the subject may be, some observations remain which
will place it in a light still more satisfactory.
8 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.
9 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.
10 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.
11 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.
12 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.
2 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.
3 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?
4 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.
5 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.
6 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.
7 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.
8 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.
9 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.
10 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.
11 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.
12 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.
13 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.
14 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.
15 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.
2 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.
3 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.
4 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.
5 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.
6 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.
7 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.
8 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.
9 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.
10 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.
11 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.
2 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.
3 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.
4 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.
5 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.
6 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.
7 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.
8 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.
9 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.
10 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.
11 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.
12 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.
2 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.
3 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.
4 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.
5 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.
6 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.
7 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.
8 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.
9 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.
10 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.
11 The Union here was far more intimate, and its organization much wiser, than
in the preceding instance. It will accordingly appear, that though not exempt
from a similar catastrophe, it by no means equally deserved it.
12 The cities composing this league retained their municipal jurisdiction,
appointed their own officers, and enjoyed a perfect equality. The senate, in
which they were represented, had the sole and exclusive right of peace and war;
of sending and receiving ambassadors; of entering into treaties and alliances;
of appointing a chief magistrate or praetor, as he was called, who commanded
their armies, and who, with the advice and consent of ten of the senators, not
only administered the government in the recess of the senate, but had a great
share in its deliberations, when assembled. According to the primitive
constitution, there were two praetors associated in the administration; but on
trial a single one was preferred.
13 It appears that the cities had all the same laws and customs, the same
weights and measures, and the same money. But how far this effect proceeded from
the authority of the federal council is left in uncertainty. It is said only
that the cities were in a manner compelled to receive the same laws and usages.
When Lacedaemon was brought into the league by Philopoemen, it was attended with
an abolition of the institutions and laws of Lycurgus, and an adoption of those
of the Achaeans. The Amphictyonic confederacy, of which she had been a member,
left her in the full exercise of her government and her legislation. This
circumstance alone proves a very material difference in the genius of the two
systems.
14 It is much to be regretted that such imperfect monuments remain of this
curious political fabric. Could its interior structure and regular operation be
ascertained, it is probable that more light would be thrown by it on the science
of federal government, than by any of the like experiments with which we are
acquainted.
15 One important fact seems to be witnessed by all the historians who take
notice of Achaean affairs. It is, that as well after the renovation of the
league by Aratus, as before its dissolution by the arts of Macedon, there was
infinitely more of moderation and justice in the administration of its
government, and less of violence and sedition in the people, than were to be
found in any of the cities exercising SINGLY all the prerogatives of
sovereignty. The Abbe Mably, in his observations on Greece, says that the
popular government, which was so tempestuous elsewhere, caused no disorders in
the members of the Achaean republic, BECAUSE IT WAS THERE TEMPERED BY THE
GENERAL AUTHORITY AND LAWS OF THE CONFEDERACY.
16 We are not to conclude too hastily, however, that faction did not, in a
certain degree, agitate the particular cities; much less that a due
subordination and harmony reigned in the general system. The contrary is
sufficiently displayed in the vicissitudes and fate of the republic.
17 Whilst the Amphictyonic confederacy remained, that of the Achaeans, which
comprehended the less important cities only, made little figure on the theatre
of Greece. When the former became a victim to Macedon, the latter was spared by
the policy of Philip and Alexander. Under the successors of these princes,
however, a different policy prevailed. The arts of division were practiced among
the Achaeans. Each city was seduced into a separate interest; the union was
dissolved. Some of the cities fell under the tyranny of Macedonian garrisons;
others under that of usurpers springing out of their own confusions. Shame and
oppression erelong awaken their love of liberty. A few cities reunited. Their
example was followed by others, as opportunities were found of cutting off their
tyrants. The league soon embraced almost the whole Peloponnesus. Macedon saw its
progress; but was hindered by internal dissensions from stopping it. All Greece
caught the enthusiasm and seemed ready to unite in one confederacy, when the
jealousy and envy in Sparta and Athens, of the rising glory of the Achaeans,
threw a fatal damp on the enterprise. The dread of the Macedonian power induced
the league to court the alliance of the Kings of Egypt and Syria, who, as
successors of Alexander, were rivals of the king of Macedon. This policy was
defeated by Cleomenes, king of Sparta, who was led by his ambition to make an
unprovoked attack on his neighbors, the Achaeans, and who, as an enemy to
Macedon, had interest enough with the Egyptian and Syrian princes to effect a
breach of their engagements with the league.
18 The Achaeans were now reduced to the dilemma of submitting to Cleomenes, or
of supplicating the aid of Macedon, its former oppressor. The latter expedient
was adopted. The contests of the Greeks always afforded a pleasing opportunity
to that powerful neighbor of intermeddling in their affairs. A Macedonian army
quickly appeared. Cleomenes was vanquished. The Achaeans soon experienced, as
often happens, that a victorious and powerful ally is but another name for a
master. All that their most abject compliances could obtain from him was a
toleration of the exercise of their laws. Philip, who was now on the throne of
Macedon, soon provoked by his tyrannies, fresh combinations among the Greeks.
The Achaeans, though weakenened by internal dissensions and by the revolt of
Messene, one of its members, being joined by the AEtolians and Athenians,
erected the standard of opposition. Finding themselves, though thus supported,
unequal to the undertaking, they once more had recourse to the dangerous
expedient of introducing the succor of foreign arms. The Romans, to whom the
invitation was made, eagerly embraced it. Philip was conquered; Macedon subdued.
A new crisis ensued to the league. Dissensions broke out among it members. These
the Romans fostered. Callicrates and other popular leaders became mercenary
instruments for inveigling their countrymen. The more effectually to nourish
discord and disorder the Romans had, to the astonishment of those who confided
in their sincerity, already proclaimed universal liberty[1] throughout Greece.
With the same insidious views, they now seduced the members from the league, by
representing to their pride the violation it committed on their sovereignty. By
these arts this union, the last hope of Greece, the last hope of ancient
liberty, was torn into pieces; and such imbecility and distraction introduced,
that the arms of Rome found little difficulty in completing the ruin which their
arts had commenced. The Achaeans were cut to pieces, and Achaia loaded with
chains, under which it is groaning at this hour.
19 I have thought it not superfluous to give the outlines of this important
portion of history; both because it teaches more than one lesson, and because,
as a supplement to the outlines of the Achaean constitution, it emphatically
illustrates the tendency of federal bodies rather to anarchy among the members,
than to tyranny in the head.
PUBLIUS
1. This was but another name more specious for the independence of the
members on the federal head.
FEDERALIST No. 19
The Same Subject Continued (The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to
Preserve the Union)
For the Independent Journal.
Saturday, December 8, 1787
MADISON, with HAMILTON
To the People of the State of New York:
THE examples of ancient confederacies, cited in my last paper, have not
exhausted the source of experimental instruction on this subject. There are
existing institutions, founded on a similar principle, which merit particular
consideration. The first which presents itself is the Germanic body.
2 In the early ages of Christianity, Germany was occupied by seven distinct
nations, who had no common chief. The Franks, one of the number, having
conquered the Gauls, established the kingdom which has taken its name from them.
In the ninth century Charlemagne, its warlike monarch, carried his victorious
arms in every direction; and Germany became a part of his vast dominions. On the
dismemberment, which took place under his sons, this part was erected into a
separate and independent empire. Charlemagne and his immediate descendants
possessed the reality, as well as the ensigns and dignity of imperial power. But
the principal vassals, whose fiefs had become hereditary, and who composed the
national diets which Charlemagne had not abolished, gradually threw off the yoke
and advanced to sovereign jurisdiction and independence. The force of imperial
sovereignty was insufficient to restrain such powerful dependants; or to
preserve the unity and tranquillity of the empire. The most furious private
wars, accompanied with every species of calamity, were carried on between the
different princes and states. The imperial authority, unable to maintain the
public order, declined by degrees till it was almost extinct in the anarchy,
which agitated the long interval between the death of the last emperor of the
Suabian, and the accession of the first emperor of the Austrian lines. In the
eleventh century the emperors enjoyed full sovereignty: In the fifteenth they
had little more than the symbols and decorations of power.
3 Out of this feudal system, which has itself many of the important features of
a confederacy, has grown the federal system which constitutes the Germanic
empire. Its powers are vested in a diet representing the component members of
the confederacy; in the emperor, who is the executive magistrate, with a
negative on the decrees of the diet; and in the imperial chamber and the aulic
council, two judiciary tribunals having supreme jurisdiction in controversies
which concern the empire, or which happen among its members.
4 The diet possesses the general power of legislating for the empire; of making
war and peace; contracting alliances; assessing quotas of troops and money;
constructing fortresses; regulating coin; admitting new members; and subjecting
disobedient members to the ban of the empire, by which the party is degraded
from his sovereign rights and his possessions forfeited. The members of the
confederacy are expressly restricted from entering into compacts prejudicial to
the empire; from imposing tolls and duties on their mutual intercourse, without
the consent of the emperor and diet; from altering the value of money; from
doing injustice to one another; or from affording assistance or retreat to
disturbers of the public peace. And the ban is denounced against such as shall
violate any of these restrictions. The members of the diet, as such, are subject
in all cases to be judged by the emperor and diet, and in their private
capacities by the aulic council and imperial chamber.
5 The prerogatives of the emperor are numerous. The most important of them are:
his exclusive right to make propositions to the diet; to negative its
resolutions; to name ambassadors; to confer dignities and titles; to fill vacant
electorates; to found universities; to grant privileges not injurious to the
states of the empire; to receive and apply the public revenues; and generally to
watch over the public safety. In certain cases, the electors form a council to
him. In quality of emperor, he possesses no territory within the empire, nor
receives any revenue for his support. But his revenue and dominions, in other
qualities, constitute him one of the most powerful princes in Europe.
6 From such a parade of constitutional powers, in the representatives and head
of this confederacy, the natural supposition would be, that it must form an
exception to the general character which belongs to its kindred systems. Nothing
would be further from the reality. The fundamental principle on which it rests,
that the empire is a community of sovereigns, that the diet is a representation
of sovereigns and that the laws are addressed to sovereigns, renders the empire
a nerveless body, incapable of regulating its own members, insecure against
external dangers, and agitated with unceasing fermentations in its own bowels.
7 The history of Germany is a history of wars between the emperor and the
princes and states; of wars among the princes and states themselves; of the
licentiousness of the strong, and the oppression of the weak; of foreign
intrusions, and foreign intrigues; of requisitions of men and money disregarded,
or partially complied with; of attempts to enforce them, altogether abortive, or
attended with slaughter and desolation, involving the innocent with the guilty;
of general inbecility, confusion, and misery.
8 In the sixteenth century, the emperor, with one part of the empire on his
side, was seen engaged against the other princes and states. In one of the
conflicts, the emperor himself was put to flight, and very near being made
prisoner by the elector of Saxony. The late king of Prussia was more than once
pitted against his imperial sovereign; and commonly proved an overmatch for him.
Controversies and wars among the members themselves have been so common, that
the German annals are crowded with the bloody pages which describe them.
Previous to the peace of Westphalia, Germany was desolated by a war of thirty
years, in which the emperor, with one half of the empire, was on one side, and
Sweden, with the other half, on the opposite side. Peace was at length
negotiated, and dictated by foreign powers; and the articles of it, to which
foreign powers are parties, made a fundamental part of the Germanic
constitution.
9 If the nation happens, on any emergency, to be more united by the necessity
of self-defense, its situation is still deplorable. Military preparations must
be preceded by so many tedious discussions, arising from the jealousies, pride,
separate views, and clashing pretensions of sovereign bodies, that before the
diet can settle the arrangements, the enemy are in the field; and before the
federal troops are ready to take it, are retiring into winter quarters.
10 The small body of national troops, which has been judged necessary in time of
peace, is defectively kept up, badly paid, infected with local prejudices, and
supported by irregular and disproportionate contributions to the treasury.
11 The impossibility of maintaining order and dispensing justice among these
sovereign subjects, produced the experiment of dividing the empire into nine or
ten circles or districts; of giving them an interior organization, and of
charging them with the military execution of the laws against delinquent and
contumacious members. This experiment has only served to demonstrate more fully
the radical vice of the constitution. Each circle is the miniature picture of
the deformities of this political monster. They either fail to execute their
commissions, or they do it with all the devastation and carnage of civil war.
Sometimes whole circles are defaulters; and then they increase the mischief
which they were instituted to remedy.
12 We may form some judgment of this scheme of military coercion from a sample
given by Thuanus. In Donawerth, a free and imperial city of the circle of Suabia,
the Abbe de St. Croix enjoyed certain immunities which had been reserved to him.
In the exercise of these, on some public occasions, outrages were committed on
him by the people of the city. The consequence was that the city was put under
the ban of the empire, and the Duke of Bavaria, though director of another
circle, obtained an appointment to enforce it. He soon appeared before the city
with a corps of ten thousand troops, and finding it a fit occasion, as he had
secretly intended from the beginning, to revive an antiquated claim, on the
pretext that his ancestors had suffered the place to be dismembered from his
territory,[1] he took possession of it in his own name, disarmed, and punished
the inhabitants, and reannexed the city to his domains.
13 It may be asked, perhaps, what has so long kept this disjointed machine from
falling entirely to pieces? The answer is obvious: The weakness of most of the
members, who are unwilling to expose themselves to the mercy of foreign powers;
the weakness of most of the principal members, compared with the formidable
powers all around them; the vast weight and influence which the emperor derives
from his separate and heriditary dominions; and the interest he feels in
preserving a system with which his family pride is connected, and which
constitutes him the first prince in Europe; -- these causes support a feeble and
precarious Union; whilst the repellant quality, incident to the nature of
sovereignty, and which time continually strengthens, prevents any reform
whatever, founded on a proper consolidation. Nor is it to be imagined, if this
obstacle could be surmounted, that the neighboring powers would suffer a
revolution to take place which would give to the empire the force and
preeminence to which it is entitled. Foreign nations have long considered
themselves as interested in the changes made by events in this constitution; and
have, on various occasions, betrayed their policy of perpetuating its anarchy
and weakness.
14 If more direct examples were wanting, Poland, as a government over local
sovereigns, might not improperly be taken notice of. Nor could any proof more
striking be given of the calamities flowing from such institutions. Equally
unfit for self-government and self-defense, it has long been at the mercy of its
powerful neighbors; who have lately had the mercy to disburden it of one third
of its people and territories.
15 The connection among the Swiss cantons scarcely amounts to a confederacy;
though it is sometimes cited as an instance of the stability of such
institutions.
16 They have no common treasury; no common troops even in war; no common coin;
no common judicatory; nor any other common mark of sovereignty.
17 They are kept together by the peculiarity of their topographical position; by
their individual weakness and insignificancy; by the fear of powerful neighbors,
to one of which they were formerly subject; by the few sources of contention
among a people of such simple and homogeneous manners; by their joint interest
in their dependent possessions; by the mutual aid they stand in need of, for
suppressing insurrections and rebellions, an aid expressly stipulated and often
required and afforded; and by the necessity of some regular and permanent
provision for accomodating disputes among the cantons. The provision is, that
the parties at variance shall each choose four judges out of the neutral
cantons, who, in case of disagreement, choose an umpire. This tribunal, under an
oath of impartiality, pronounces definitive sentence, which all the cantons are
bound to enforce. The competency of this regulation may be estimated by a clause
in their treaty of 1683, with Victor Amadeus of Savoy; in which he obliges
himself to interpose as mediator in disputes between the cantons, and to employ
force, if necessary, against the contumacious party.
18 So far as the peculiarity of their case will admit of comparison with that of
the United States, it serves to confirm the principle intended to be
established. Whatever efficacy the union may have had in ordinary cases, it
appears that the moment a cause of difference sprang up, capable of trying its
strength, it failed. The controversies on the subject of religion, which in
three instances have kindled violent and bloody contests, may be said, in fact,
to have severed the league. The Protestant and Catholic cantons have since had
their separate diets, where all the most important concerns are adjusted, and
which have left the general diet little other business than to take care of the
common bailages.
19 That separation had another consequence, which merits attention. It produced
opposite alliances with foreign powers: of Berne, at the head of the Protestant
association, with the United Provinces; and of Luzerne, at the head of the
Catholic association, with France.
PUBLIUS
1. Pfeffel, "Nouvel Abrég. Chronol. de l'Hist., etc., d'Allemagne,"
says the pretext was to indemnify himself for the expense of the expedition.
|
