Lacedaemonians required that a number of the cities should be turned
out of the confederacy for the unfaithful part they had acted. The
Athenians, finding that the Lacedaemonians would lose fewer partisans
by such a measure than themselves, and would become masters of the
public deliberations, vigorously opposed and defeated the attempt. This
piece of history proves at once the inefficiency of the union, the
ambition and jealousy of its most powerful members, and the dependent
and degraded condition of the rest. The smaller members, though
entitled by the theory of their system to revolve in equal pride and
majesty around the common center, had become, in fact, satellites of
the orbs of primary magnitude.
Had the Greeks, says the Abbe Milot, been as wise as they were
courageous, they would have been admonished by experience of the
necessity of a closer union, and would have availed themselves of the
peace which followed their success against the Persian arms, to
establish such a reformation. Instead of this obvious policy, Athens
and Sparta, inflated with the victories and the glory they had
acquired, became first rivals and then enemies; and did each other
infinitely more mischief than they had suffered from Xerxes. Their
mutual jealousies, fears, hatreds, and injuries ended in the celebrated
Peloponnesian war; which itself ended in the ruin and slavery of the
Athenians who had begun it.
As a weak government, when not at war, is ever agitated by internal
dissentions, so these never fail to bring on fresh calamities from
abroad. The Phocians having ploughed up some consecrated ground
belonging to the temple of Apollo, the Amphictyonic council, according
to the superstition of the age, imposed a fine on the sacrilegious
offenders. The Phocians, being abetted by Athens and Sparta, refused to
submit to the decree. The Thebans, with others of the cities, undertook
to maintain the authority of the Amphictyons, and to avenge the
violated god. The latter, being the weaker party, invited the
assistance of Philip of Macedon, who had secretly fostered the contest.
Philip gladly seized the opportunity of executing the designs he had
long planned against the liberties of Greece. By his intrigues and
bribes he won over to his interests the popular leaders of several
cities; by their influence and votes, gained admission into the
Amphictyonic council; and by his arts and his arms, made himself master
of the confederacy.
Such were the consequences of the fallacious principle on which this
interesting establishment was founded. Had Greece, says a judicious
observer on her fate, been united by a stricter confederation, and
persevered in her union, she would never have worn the chains of
Macedon; and might have proved a barrier to the vast projects of Rome.
The Achaean league, as it is called, was another society of Grecian
republics, which supplies us with valuable instruction.
The Union here was far more intimate, and its organization much wiser,
than in the preceding instance. It will accordingly appear, that though
not exempt from a similar catastrophe, it by no means equally deserved
it.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 weakened 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.
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.
THE FEDERALIST.
No. XIX.
The Same Subject Continued
(The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union)
For the Independent Journal.
HAMILTON AND MADISON
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 Abb 300 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.
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.
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.
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.
They have no common treasury; no common troops even in war; no common
coin; no common judicatory; nor any other common mark of sovereignty.
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.
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.
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.
THE FEDERALIST.
No. XX.
The Same Subject Continued
(The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union)
From the New York Packet.
Tuesday, December 11, 1787.
HAMILTON AND MADISON
To the People of the State of New York:
The United Netherlands are a confederacy of republics, or rather of
aristocracies of a very remarkable texture, yet confirming all the
lessons derived from those which we have already reviewed.
The union is composed of seven coequal and sovereign states, and each
state or province is a composition of equal and independent cities. In
all important cases, not only the provinces but the cities must be
unanimous.
The sovereignty of the Union is represented by the States-General,
consisting usually of about fifty deputies appointed by the provinces.
They hold their seats, some for life, some for six, three, and one
years; from two provinces they continue in appointment during pleasure.