to make war and peace; to raise armies and equip fleets; to ascertain
quotas and demand contributions. In all these cases, however, unanimity
and the sanction of their constituents are requisite. They have
authority to appoint and receive ambassadors; to execute treaties and
alliances already formed; to provide for the collection of duties on
imports and exports; to regulate the mint, with a saving to the
provincial rights; to govern as sovereigns the dependent territories.
The provinces are restrained, unless with the general consent, from
entering into foreign treaties; from establishing imposts injurious to
others, or charging their neighbors with higher duties than their own
subjects. A council of state, a chamber of accounts, with five colleges
of admiralty, aid and fortify the federal administration.
The executive magistrate of the union is the stadtholder, who is now an
hereditary prince. His principal weight and influence in the republic
are derived from this independent title; from his great patrimonial
estates; from his family connections with some of the chief potentates
of Europe; and, more than all, perhaps, from his being stadtholder in
the several provinces, as well as for the union; in which provincial
quality he has the appointment of town magistrates under certain
regulations, executes provincial decrees, presides when he pleases in
the provincial tribunals, and has throughout the power of pardon.
As stadtholder of the union, he has, however, considerable
prerogatives.
In his political capacity he has authority to settle disputes between
the provinces, when other methods fail; to assist at the deliberations
of the States-General, and at their particular conferences; to give
audiences to foreign ambassadors, and to keep agents for his particular
affairs at foreign courts.
In his military capacity he commands the federal troops, provides for
garrisons, and in general regulates military affairs; disposes of all
appointments, from colonels to ensigns, and of the governments and
posts of fortified towns.
In his marine capacity he is admiral-general, and superintends and
directs every thing relative to naval forces and other naval affairs;
presides in the admiralties in person or by proxy; appoints
lieutenant-admirals and other officers; and establishes councils of
war, whose sentences are not executed till he approves them.
His revenue, exclusive of his private income, amounts to three hundred
thousand florins. The standing army which he commands consists of about
forty thousand men.
Such is the nature of the celebrated Belgic confederacy, as delineated
on parchment. What are the characters which practice has stamped upon
it? Imbecility in the government; discord among the provinces; foreign
influence and indignities; a precarious existence in peace, and
peculiar calamities from war.
It was long ago remarked by Grotius, that nothing but the hatred of his
countrymen to the house of Austria kept them from being ruined by the
vices of their constitution.
The union of Utrecht, says another respectable writer, reposes an
authority in the States-General, seemingly sufficient to secure
harmony, but the jealousy in each province renders the practice very
different from the theory.
The same instrument, says another, obliges each province to levy
certain contributions; but this article never could, and probably never
will, be executed; because the inland provinces, who have little
commerce, cannot pay an equal quota.
In matters of contribution, it is the practice to waive the articles of
the constitution. The danger of delay obliges the consenting provinces
to furnish their quotas, without waiting for the others; and then to
obtain reimbursement from the others, by deputations, which are
frequent, or otherwise, as they can. The great wealth and influence of
the province of Holland enable her to effect both these purposes.
It has more than once happened, that the deficiencies had to be
ultimately collected at the point of the bayonet; a thing practicable,
though dreadful, in a confedracy where one of the members exceeds in
force all the rest, and where several of them are too small to meditate
resistance; but utterly impracticable in one composed of members,
several of which are equal to each other in strength and resources, and
equal singly to a vigorous and persevering defense.
Foreign ministers, says Sir William Temple, who was himself a foreign
minister, elude matters taken ad referendum, by tampering with the
provinces and cities. In 1726, the treaty of Hanover was delayed by
these means a whole year. Instances of a like nature are numerous and
notorious.
In critical emergencies, the States-General are often compelled to
overleap their constitutional bounds. In 1688, they concluded a treaty
of themselves at the risk of their heads. The treaty of Westphalia, in
1648, by which their independence was formerly and finally recognized,
was concluded without the consent of Zealand. Even as recently as the
last treaty of peace with Great Britain, the constitutional principle
of unanimity was departed from. A weak constitution must necessarily
terminate in dissolution, for want of proper powers, or the usurpation
of powers requisite for the public safety. Whether the usurpation, when
once begun, will stop at the salutary point, or go forward to the
dangerous extreme, must depend on the contingencies of the moment.
Tyranny has perhaps oftener grown out of the assumptions of power,
called for, on pressing exigencies, by a defective constitution, than
out of the full exercise of the largest constitutional authorities.
Notwithstanding the calamities produced by the stadtholdership, it has
been supposed that without his influence in the individual provinces,
the causes of anarchy manifest in the confederacy would long ago have
dissolved it. “Under such a government,” says the Abbe Mably, “the
Union could never have subsisted, if the provinces had not a spring
within themselves, capable of quickening their tardiness, and
compelling them to the same way of thinking. This spring is the
stadtholder.” It is remarked by Sir William Temple, “that in the
intermissions of the stadtholdership, Holland, by her riches and her
authority, which drew the others into a sort of dependence, supplied
the place.”
These are not the only circumstances which have controlled the tendency
to anarchy and dissolution. The surrounding powers impose an absolute
necessity of union to a certain degree, at the same time that they
nourish by their intrigues the constitutional vices which keep the
republic in some degree always at their mercy.
The true patriots have long bewailed the fatal tendency of these vices,
and have made no less than four regular experiments by EXTRAORDINARY
ASSEMBLIES, convened for the special purpose, to apply a remedy. As
many times has their laudable zeal found it impossible to UNITE THE
PUBLIC COUNCILS in reforming the known, the acknowledged, the fatal
evils of the existing constitution. Let us pause, my fellow-citizens,
for one moment, over this melancholy and monitory lesson of history;
and with the tear that drops for the calamities brought on mankind by
their adverse opinions and selfish passions, let our gratitude mingle
an ejaculation to Heaven, for the propitious concord which has
distinguished the consultations for our political happiness.
A design was also conceived of establishing a general tax to be
administered by the federal authority. This also had its adversaries
and failed.
This unhappy people seem to be now suffering from popular convulsions,
from dissensions among the states, and from the actual invasion of
foreign arms, the crisis of their destiny. All nations have their eyes
fixed on the awful spectacle. The first wish prompted by humanity is,
that this severe trial may issue in such a revolution of their
government as will establish their union, and render it the parent of
tranquillity, freedom and happiness: The next, that the asylum under
which, we trust, the enjoyment of these blessings will speedily be
secured in this country, may receive and console them for the
catastrophe of their own.
I make no apology for having dwelt so long on the contemplation of
these federal precedents. Experience is the oracle of truth; and where
its responses are unequivocal, they ought to be conclusive and sacred.
The important truth, which it unequivocally pronounces in the present
case, is that a sovereignty over sovereigns, a government over
governments, a legislation for communities, as contradistinguished from
individuals, as it is a solecism in theory, so in practice it is
subversive of the order and ends of civil polity, by substituting
VIOLENCE in place of LAW, or the destructive COERCION of the SWORD in
place of the mild and salutary COERCION of the MAGISTRACY.
PUBLIUS.
THE FEDERALIST.
No. XXI.
Other Defects of the Present Confederation
For the Independent Journal.
HAMILTON
To the People of the State of New York:
Having in the three last numbers taken a summary review of the
principal circumstances and events which have depicted the genius and
fate of other confederate governments, I shall now proceed in the
enumeration of the most important of those defects which have hitherto
disappointed our hopes from the system established among ourselves. To
form a safe and satisfactory judgment of the proper remedy, it is
absolutely necessary that we should be well acquainted with the extent
and malignity of the disease.
The next most palpable defect of the subsisting Confederation, is the
total want of a SANCTION to its laws. The United States, as now
composed, have no powers to exact obedience, or punish disobedience to
their resolutions, either by pecuniary mulcts, by a suspension or
divestiture of privileges, or by any other constitutional mode. There
is no express delegation of authority to them to use force against
delinquent members; and if such a right should be ascribed to the
federal head, as resulting from the nature of the social compact
between the States, it must be by inference and construction, in the
face of that part of the second article, by which it is declared, “that
each State shall retain every power, jurisdiction, and right, not
EXPRESSLY delegated to the United States in Congress assembled.” There
is, doubtless, a striking absurdity in supposing that a right of this
kind does not exist, but we are reduced to the dilemma either of
embracing that supposition, preposterous as it may seem, or of
contravening or explaining away a provision, which has been of late a
repeated theme of the eulogies of those who oppose the new
Constitution; and the want of which, in that plan, has been the subject
of much plausible animadversion, and severe criticism. If we are
unwilling to impair the force of this applauded provision, we shall be
obliged to conclude, that the United States afford the extraordinary
spectacle of a government destitute even of the shadow of
constitutional power to enforce the execution of its own laws. It will
appear, from the specimens which have been cited, that the American
Confederacy, in this particular, stands discriminated from every other
institution of a similar kind, and exhibits a new and unexampled
phenomenon in the political world.
The want of a mutual guaranty of the State governments is another
capital imperfection in the federal plan. There is nothing of this kind
declared in the articles that compose it; and to imply a tacit guaranty
from considerations of utility, would be a still more flagrant
departure from the clause which has been mentioned, than to imply a
tacit power of coercion from the like considerations. The want of a
guaranty, though it might in its consequences endanger the Union, does
not so immediately attack its existence as the want of a constitutional
sanction to its laws.
Without a guaranty the assistance to be derived from the Union in
repelling those domestic dangers which may sometimes threaten the
existence of the State constitutions, must be renounced. Usurpation may
rear its crest in each State, and trample upon the liberties of the
people, while the national government could legally do nothing more
than behold its encroachments with indignation and regret. A successful
faction may erect a tyranny on the ruins of order and law, while no
succor could constitutionally be afforded by the Union to the friends
and supporters of the government. The tempestuous situation from which
Massachusetts has scarcely emerged, evinces that dangers of this kind
are not merely speculative. Who can determine what might have been the
issue of her late convulsions, if the malcontents had been headed by a
Caesar or by a Cromwell? Who can predict what effect a despotism,
established in Massachusetts, would have upon the liberties of New
Hampshire or Rhode Island, of Connecticut or New York?
The inordinate pride of State importance has suggested to some minds an
objection to the principle of a guaranty in the federal government, as
involving an officious interference in the domestic concerns of the
members. A scruple of this kind would deprive us of one of the
principal advantages to be expected from union, and can only flow from
a misapprehension of the nature of the provision itself. It could be no
impediment to reforms of the State constitution by a majority of the
people in a legal and peaceable mode. This right would remain
undiminished. The guaranty could only operate against changes to be
effected by violence. Towards the preventions of calamities of this
kind, too many checks cannot be provided. The peace of society and the
stability of government depend absolutely on the efficacy of the
precautions adopted on this head. Where the whole power of the
government is in the hands of the people, there is the less pretense
for the use of violent remedies in partial or occasional distempers of
the State. The natural cure for an ill-administration, in a popular or
representative constitution, is a change of men. A guaranty by the
national authority would be as much levelled against the usurpations of
rulers as against the ferments and outrages of faction and sedition in
the community.
The principle of regulating the contributions of the States to the
common treasury by QUOTAS is another fundamental error in the
Confederation. Its repugnancy to an adequate supply of the national
exigencies has been already pointed out, and has sufficiently appeared
from the trial which has been made of it. I speak of it now solely with
a view to equality among the States. Those who have been accustomed to
contemplate the circumstances which produce and constitute national
wealth, must be satisfied that there is no common standard or barometer
by which the degrees of it can be ascertained. Neither the value of
lands, nor the numbers of the people, which have been successively
proposed as the rule of State contributions, has any pretension to
being a just representative. If we compare the wealth of the United
Netherlands with that of Russia or Germany, or even of France, and if
we at the same time compare the total value of the lands and the
aggregate population of that contracted district with the total value
of the lands and the aggregate population of the immense regions of
either of the three last-mentioned countries, we shall at once discover
that there is no comparison between the proportion of either of these
two objects and that of the relative wealth of those nations. If the
like parallel were to be run between several of the American States, it
would furnish a like result. Let Virginia be contrasted with North
Carolina, Pennsylvania with Connecticut, or Maryland with New Jersey,
and we shall be convinced that the respective abilities of those
States, in relation to revenue, bear little or no analogy to their
comparative stock in lands or to their comparative population. The
position may be equally illustrated by a similar process between the
counties of the same State. No man who is acquainted with the State of
New York will doubt that the active wealth of King’s County bears a
much greater proportion to that of Montgomery than it would appear to
be if we should take either the total value of the lands or the total
number of the people as a criterion!
The wealth of nations depends upon an infinite variety of causes.
Situation, soil, climate, the nature of the productions, the nature of
the government, the genius of the citizens, the degree of information
they possess, the state of commerce, of arts, of industry, these
circumstances and many more, too complex, minute, or adventitious to
admit of a particular specification, occasion differences hardly
conceivable in the relative opulence and riches of different countries.
The consequence clearly is that there can be no common measure of
national wealth, and, of course, no general or stationary rule by which
the ability of a state to pay taxes can be determined. The attempt,
therefore, to regulate the contributions of the members of a
confederacy by any such rule, cannot fail to be productive of glaring
inequality and extreme oppression.
This inequality would of itself be sufficient in America to work the
eventual destruction of the Union, if any mode of enforcing a
compliance with its requisitions could be devised. The suffering States
would not long consent to remain associated upon a principle which
distributes the public burdens with so unequal a hand, and which was
calculated to impoverish and oppress the citizens of some States, while
those of others would scarcely be conscious of the small proportion of
the weight they were required to sustain. This, however, is an evil
inseparable from the principle of quotas and requisitions.
There is no method of steering clear of this inconvenience, but by
authorizing the national government to raise its own revenues in its
own way. Imposts, excises, and, in general, all duties upon articles of
consumption, may be compared to a fluid, which will, in time, find its
level with the means of paying them. The amount to be contributed by
each citizen will in a degree be at his own option, and can be
regulated by an attention to his resources. The rich may be
extravagant, the poor can be frugal; and private oppression may always
be avoided by a judicious selection of objects proper for such
impositions. If inequalities should arise in some States from duties on
particular objects, these will, in all probability, be counterbalanced
by proportional inequalities in other States, from the duties on other
objects. In the course of time and things, an equilibrium, as far as it
is attainable in so complicated a subject, will be established
everywhere. Or, if inequalities should still exist, they would neither
be so great in their degree, so uniform in their operation, nor so
odious in their appearance, as those which would necessarily spring
from quotas, upon any scale that can possibly be devised.
It is a signal advantage of taxes on articles of consumption, that they
contain in their own nature a security against excess. They prescribe
their own limit; which cannot be exceeded without defeating the end
proposed, that is, an extension of the revenue. When applied to this
object, the saying is as just as it is witty, that, “in political
arithmetic, two and two do not always make four.”
If duties are too high, they lessen the consumption; the collection is
eluded; and the product to the treasury is not so great as when they
are confined within proper and moderate bounds. This forms a complete
barrier against any material oppression of the citizens by taxes of
this class, and is itself a natural limitation of the power of imposing
them.
Impositions of this kind usually fall under the denomination of
indirect taxes, and must for a long time constitute the chief part of
the revenue raised in this country. Those of the direct kind, which
principally relate to land and buildings, may admit of a rule of
apportionment. Either the value of land, or the number of the people,
may serve as a standard. The state of agriculture and the populousness
of a country have been considered as nearly connected with each other.
And, as a rule, for the purpose intended, numbers, in the view of
simplicity and certainty, are entitled to a preference. In every
country it is a herculean task to obtain a valuation of the land; in a
country imperfectly settled and progressive in improvement, the
difficulties are increased almost to impracticability. The expense of
an accurate valuation is, in all situations, a formidable objection. In
a branch of taxation where no limits to the discretion of the
government are to be found in the nature of things, the establishment
of a fixed rule, not incompatible with the end, may be attended with
fewer inconveniences than to leave that discretion altogether at large.
PUBLIUS.
THE FEDERALIST.
No. XXII.
The Same Subject Continued
(Other Defects of the Present Confederation)
From the New York Packet.
Friday, December 14, 1787.
HAMILTON
To the People of the State of New York:
In addition to the defects already enumerated in the existing federal
system, there are others of not less importance, which concur in
rendering it altogether unfit for the administration of the affairs of
the Union.
The want of a power to regulate commerce is by all parties allowed to
be of the number. The utility of such a power has been anticipated
under the first head of our inquiries; and for this reason, as well as
from the universal conviction entertained upon the subject, little need
be added in this place. It is indeed evident, on the most superficial
view, that there is no object, either as it respects the interests of
trade or finance, that more strongly demands a federal superintendence.
The want of it has already operated as a bar to the formation of
beneficial treaties with foreign powers, and has given occasions of
dissatisfaction between the States. No nation acquainted with the
nature of our political association would be unwise enough to enter
into stipulations with the United States, by which they conceded
privileges of any importance to them, while they were apprised that the
engagements on the part of the Union might at any moment be violated by
its members, and while they found from experience that they might enjoy
every advantage they desired in our markets, without granting us any
return but such as their momentary convenience might suggest. It is
not, therefore, to be wondered at that Mr. Jenkinson, in ushering into
the House of Commons a bill for regulating the temporary intercourse
between the two countries, should preface its introduction by a
declaration that similar provisions in former bills had been found to
answer every purpose to the commerce of Great Britain, and that it
would be prudent to persist in the plan until it should appear whether
the American government was likely or not to acquire greater
consistency.[1]
Several States have endeavored, by separate prohibitions, restrictions,
and exclusions, to influence the conduct of that kingdom in this
particular, but the want of concert, arising from the want of a general
authority and from clashing and dissimilar views in the State, has
hitherto frustrated every experiment of the kind, and will continue to
do so as long as the same obstacles to a uniformity of measures
continue to exist.