less just because to some it may appear new; which is, that the more
the operations of the national authority are intermingled in the
ordinary exercise of government, the more the citizens are accustomed
to meet with it in the common occurrences of their political life, the
more it is familiarized to their sight and to their feelings, the
further it enters into those objects which touch the most sensible
chords and put in motion the most active springs of the human heart,
the greater will be the probability that it will conciliate the respect
and attachment of the community. Man is very much a creature of habit.
A thing that rarely strikes his senses will generally have but little
influence upon his mind. A government continually at a distance and out
of sight can hardly be expected to interest the sensations of the
people. The inference is, that the authority of the Union, and the
affections of the citizens towards it, will be strengthened, rather
than weakened, by its extension to what are called matters of internal
concern; and will have less occasion to recur to force, in proportion
to the familiarity and comprehensiveness of its agency. The more it
circulates through those channels and currents in which the passions of
mankind naturally flow, the less will it require the aid of the violent
and perilous expedients of compulsion.
One thing, at all events, must be evident, that a government like the
one proposed would bid much fairer to avoid the necessity of using
force, than that species of league contend for by most of its
opponents; the authority of which should only operate upon the States
in their political or collective capacities. It has been shown that in
such a Confederacy there can be no sanction for the laws but force;
that frequent delinquencies in the members are the natural offspring of
the very frame of the government; and that as often as these happen,
they can only be redressed, if at all, by war and violence.
The plan reported by the convention, by extending the authority of the
federal head to the individual citizens of the several States, will
enable the government to employ the ordinary magistracy of each, in the
execution of its laws. It is easy to perceive that this will tend to
destroy, in the common apprehension, all distinction between the
sources from which they might proceed; and will give the federal
government the same advantage for securing a due obedience to its
authority which is enjoyed by the government of each State, in addition
to the influence on public opinion which will result from the important
consideration of its having power to call to its assistance and support
the resources of the whole Union. It merits particular attention in
this place, that the laws of the Confederacy, as to the ENUMERATED and
LEGITIMATE objects of its jurisdiction, will become the SUPREME LAW of
the land; to the observance of which all officers, legislative,
executive, and judicial, in each State, will be bound by the sanctity
of an oath. Thus the legislatures, courts, and magistrates, of the
respective members, will be incorporated into the operations of the
national government AS FAR AS ITS JUST AND CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY
EXTENDS; and will be rendered auxiliary to the enforcement of its
laws.[1] Any man who will pursue, by his own reflections, the
consequences of this situation, will perceive that there is good ground
to calculate upon a regular and peaceable execution of the laws of the
Union, if its powers are administered with a common share of prudence.
If we will arbitrarily suppose the contrary, we may deduce any
inferences we please from the supposition; for it is certainly
possible, by an injudicious exercise of the authorities of the best
government that ever was, or ever can be instituted, to provoke and
precipitate the people into the wildest excesses. But though the
adversaries of the proposed Constitution should presume that the
national rulers would be insensible to the motives of public good, or
to the obligations of duty, I would still ask them how the interests of
ambition, or the views of encroachment, can be promoted by such a
conduct?
PUBLIUS.
[1] The sophistry which has been employed to show that this will tend
to the destruction of the State governments, will, in its will, in its
proper place, be fully detected.
THE FEDERALIST.
No. XXVIII.
The Same Subject Continued
(The Idea of Restraining the Legislative Authority in Regard to the
Common Defense Considered)
For the Independent Journal.
HAMILTON
To the People of the State of New York:
That there may happen cases in which the national government may be
necessitated to resort to force, cannot be denied. Our own experience
has corroborated the lessons taught by the examples of other nations;
that emergencies of this sort will sometimes arise in all societies,
however constituted; that seditions and insurrections are, unhappily,
maladies as inseparable from the body politic as tumors and eruptions
from the natural body; that the idea of governing at all times by the
simple force of law (which we have been told is the only admissible
principle of republican government), has no place but in the reveries
of those political doctors whose sagacity disdains the admonitions of
experimental instruction.
Should such emergencies at any time happen under the national
government, there could be no remedy but force. The means to be
employed must be proportioned to the extent of the mischief. If it
should be a slight commotion in a small part of a State, the militia of
the residue would be adequate to its suppression; and the national
presumption is that they would be ready to do their duty. An
insurrection, whatever may be its immediate cause, eventually endangers
all government. Regard to the public peace, if not to the rights of the
Union, would engage the citizens to whom the contagion had not
communicated itself to oppose the insurgents; and if the general
government should be found in practice conducive to the prosperity and
felicity of the people, it were irrational to believe that they would
be disinclined to its support.
If, on the contrary, the insurrection should pervade a whole State, or
a principal part of it, the employment of a different kind of force
might become unavoidable. It appears that Massachusetts found it
necessary to raise troops for repressing the disorders within that
State; that Pennsylvania, from the mere apprehension of commotions
among a part of her citizens, has thought proper to have recourse to
the same measure. Suppose the State of New York had been inclined to
re-establish her lost jurisdiction over the inhabitants of Vermont,
could she have hoped for success in such an enterprise from the efforts
of the militia alone? Would she not have been compelled to raise and to
maintain a more regular force for the execution of her design? If it
must then be admitted that the necessity of recurring to a force
different from the militia, in cases of this extraordinary nature, is
applicable to the State governments themselves, why should the
possibility, that the national government might be under a like
necessity, in similar extremities, be made an objection to its
existence? Is it not surprising that men who declare an attachment to
the Union in the abstract, should urge as an objection to the proposed
Constitution what applies with tenfold weight to the plan for which
they contend; and what, as far as it has any foundation in truth, is an
inevitable consequence of civil society upon an enlarged scale? Who
would not prefer that possibility to the unceasing agitations and
frequent revolutions which are the continual scourges of petty
republics?
Let us pursue this examination in another light. Suppose, in lieu of
one general system, two, or three, or even four Confederacies were to
be formed, would not the same difficulty oppose itself to the
operations of either of these Confederacies? Would not each of them be
exposed to the same casualties; and when these happened, be obliged to
have recourse to the same expedients for upholding its authority which
are objected to in a government for all the States? Would the militia,
in this supposition, be more ready or more able to support the federal
authority than in the case of a general union? All candid and
intelligent men must, upon due consideration, acknowledge that the
principle of the objection is equally applicable to either of the two
cases; and that whether we have one government for all the States, or
different governments for different parcels of them, or even if there
should be an entire separation of the States, there might sometimes be
a necessity to make use of a force constituted differently from the
militia, to preserve the peace of the community and to maintain the
just authority of the laws against those violent invasions of them
which amount to insurrections and rebellions.
Independent of all other reasonings upon the subject, it is a full
answer to those who require a more peremptory provision against
military establishments in time of peace, to say that the whole power
of the proposed government is to be in the hands of the representatives
of the people. This is the essential, and, after all, only efficacious
security for the rights and privileges of the people, which is
attainable in civil society.[1]
If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there
is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of
self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government,
and which against the usurpations of the national rulers, may be
exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those
of the rulers of an individual state. In a single state, if the persons
intrusted with supreme power become usurpers, the different parcels,
subdivisions, or districts of which it consists, having no distinct
government in each, can take no regular measures for defense. The
citizens must rush tumultuously to arms, without concert, without
system, without resource; except in their courage and despair. The
usurpers, clothed with the forms of legal authority, can too often
crush the opposition in embryo. The smaller the extent of the
territory, the more difficult will it be for the people to form a
regular or systematic plan of opposition, and the more easy will it be
to defeat their early efforts. Intelligence can be more speedily
obtained of their preparations and movements, and the military force in
the possession of the usurpers can be more rapidly directed against the
part where the opposition has begun. In this situation there must be a
peculiar coincidence of circumstances to insure success to the popular
resistance.
The obstacles to usurpation and the facilities of resistance increase
with the increased extent of the state, provided the citizens
understand their rights and are disposed to defend them. The natural
strength of the people in a large community, in proportion to the
artificial strength of the government, is greater than in a small, and
of course more competent to a struggle with the attempts of the
government to establish a tyranny. But in a confederacy the people,
without exaggeration, may be said to be entirely the masters of their
own fate. Power being almost always the rival of power, the general
government will at all times stand ready to check the usurpations of
the state governments, and these will have the same disposition towards
the general government. The people, by throwing themselves into either
scale, will infallibly make it preponderate. If their rights are
invaded by either, they can make use of the other as the instrument of
redress. How wise will it be in them by cherishing the union to
preserve to themselves an advantage which can never be too highly
prized!
It may safely be received as an axiom in our political system, that the
State governments will, in all possible contingencies, afford complete
security against invasions of the public liberty by the national
authority. Projects of usurpation cannot be masked under pretenses so
likely to escape the penetration of select bodies of men, as of the
people at large. The legislatures will have better means of
information. They can discover the danger at a distance; and possessing
all the organs of civil power, and the confidence of the people, they
can at once adopt a regular plan of opposition, in which they can
combine all the resources of the community. They can readily
communicate with each other in the different States, and unite their
common forces for the protection of their common liberty.
The great extent of the country is a further security. We have already
experienced its utility against the attacks of a foreign power. And it
would have precisely the same effect against the enterprises of
ambitious rulers in the national councils. If the federal army should
be able to quell the resistance of one State, the distant States would
have it in their power to make head with fresh forces. The advantages
obtained in one place must be abandoned to subdue the opposition in
others; and the moment the part which had been reduced to submission
was left to itself, its efforts would be renewed, and its resistance
revive.
We should recollect that the extent of the military force must, at all
events, be regulated by the resources of the country. For a long time
to come, it will not be possible to maintain a large army; and as the
means of doing this increase, the population and natural strength of
the community will proportionably increase. When will the time arrive
that the federal government can raise and maintain an army capable of
erecting a despotism over the great body of the people of an immense
empire, who are in a situation, through the medium of their State
governments, to take measures for their own defense, with all the
celerity, regularity, and system of independent nations? The
apprehension may be considered as a disease, for which there can be
found no cure in the resources of argument and reasoning.
PUBLIUS.
[1] Its full efficacy will be examined hereafter.
THE FEDERALIST.
No. XXIX.
Concerning the Militia
From the Daily Advertiser.
Thursday, January 10, 1788
HAMILTON
To the People of the State of New York:
The power of regulating the militia, and of commanding its services in
times of insurrection and invasion are natural incidents to the duties
of superintending the common defense, and of watching over the internal
peace of the Confederacy.
It requires no skill in the science of war to discern that uniformity
in the organization and discipline of the militia would be attended
with the most beneficial effects, whenever they were called into
service for the public defense. It would enable them to discharge the
duties of the camp and of the field with mutual intelligence and
concert an advantage of peculiar moment in the operations of an army;
and it would fit them much sooner to acquire the degree of proficiency
in military functions which would be essential to their usefulness.
This desirable uniformity can only be accomplished by confiding the
regulation of the militia to the direction of the national authority.
It is, therefore, with the most evident propriety, that the plan of the
convention proposes to empower the Union “to provide for organizing,
arming, and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of
them as may be employed in the service of the United States, RESERVING
TO THE STATES RESPECTIVELY THE APPOINTMENT OF THE OFFICERS, AND THE
AUTHORITY OF TRAINING THE MILITIA ACCORDING TO THE DISCIPLINE
PRESCRIBED BY CONGRESS.”
Of the different grounds which have been taken in opposition to the
plan of the convention, there is none that was so little to have been
expected, or is so untenable in itself, as the one from which this
particular provision has been attacked. If a well-regulated militia be
the most natural defense of a free country, it ought certainly to be
under the regulation and at the disposal of that body which is
constituted the guardian of the national security. If standing armies
are dangerous to liberty, an efficacious power over the militia, in the
body to whose care the protection of the State is committed, ought, as
far as possible, to take away the inducement and the pretext to such
unfriendly institutions. If the federal government can command the aid
of the militia in those emergencies which call for the military arm in
support of the civil magistrate, it can the better dispense with the
employment of a different kind of force. If it cannot avail itself of
the former, it will be obliged to recur to the latter. To render an
army unnecessary, will be a more certain method of preventing its
existence than a thousand prohibitions upon paper.
In order to cast an odium upon the power of calling forth the militia
to execute the laws of the Union, it has been remarked that there is
nowhere any provision in the proposed Constitution for calling out the
POSSE COMITATUS, to assist the magistrate in the execution of his duty,
whence it has been inferred, that military force was intended to be his
only auxiliary. There is a striking incoherence in the objections which
have appeared, and sometimes even from the same quarter, not much
calculated to inspire a very favorable opinion of the sincerity or fair
dealing of their authors. The same persons who tell us in one breath,
that the powers of the federal government will be despotic and
unlimited, inform us in the next, that it has not authority sufficient
even to call out the POSSE COMITATUS. The latter, fortunately, is as
much short of the truth as the former exceeds it. It would be as absurd
to doubt, that a right to pass all laws NECESSARY AND PROPER to execute
its declared powers, would include that of requiring the assistance of
the citizens to the officers who may be intrusted with the execution of
those laws, as it would be to believe, that a right to enact laws
necessary and proper for the imposition and collection of taxes would
involve that of varying the rules of descent and of the alienation of
landed property, or of abolishing the trial by jury in cases relating
to it. It being therefore evident that the supposition of a want of
power to require the aid of the POSSE COMITATUS is entirely destitute
of color, it will follow, that the conclusion which has been drawn from
it, in its application to the authority of the federal government over
the militia, is as uncandid as it is illogical. What reason could there
be to infer, that force was intended to be the sole instrument of
authority, merely because there is a power to make use of it when
necessary? What shall we think of the motives which could induce men of
sense to reason in this manner? How shall we prevent a conflict between
charity and judgment?
By a curious refinement upon the spirit of republican jealousy, we are
even taught to apprehend danger from the militia itself, in the hands
of the federal government. It is observed that select corps may be
formed, composed of the young and ardent, who may be rendered
subservient to the views of arbitrary power. What plan for the
regulation of the militia may be pursued by the national government, is
impossible to be foreseen. But so far from viewing the matter in the
same light with those who object to select corps as dangerous, were the
Constitution ratified, and were I to deliver my sentiments to a member
of the federal legislature from this State on the subject of a militia
establishment, I should hold to him, in substance, the following
discourse:
“The project of disciplining all the militia of the United States is as
futile as it would be injurious, if it were capable of being carried
into execution. A tolerable expertness in military movements is a
business that requires time and practice. It is not a day, or even a
week, that will suffice for the attainment of it. To oblige the great
body of the yeomanry, and of the other classes of the citizens, to be
under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and
evolutions, as often as might be necessary to acquire the degree of
perfection which would entitle them to the character of a
well-regulated militia, would be a real grievance to the people, and a
serious public inconvenience and loss. It would form an annual
deduction from the productive labor of the country, to an amount which,
calculating upon the present numbers of the people, would not fall far
short of the whole expense of the civil establishments of all the
States. To attempt a thing which would abridge the mass of labor and
industry to so considerable an extent, would be unwise: and the
experiment, if made, could not succeed, because it would not long be
endured. Little more can reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the
people at large, than to have them properly armed and equipped; and in
order to see that this be not neglected, it will be necessary to
assemble them once or twice in the course of a year.
“But though the scheme of disciplining the whole nation must be
abandoned as mischievous or impracticable; yet it is a matter of the
utmost importance that a well-digested plan should, as soon as
possible, be adopted for the proper establishment of the militia. The
attention of the government ought particularly to be directed to the
formation of a select corps of moderate extent, upon such principles as
will really fit them for service in case of need. By thus
circumscribing the plan, it will be possible to have an excellent body
of well-trained militia, ready to take the field whenever the defense
of the State shall require it. This will not only lessen the call for
military establishments, but if circumstances should at any time oblige
the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be
formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body
of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the
use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of
their fellow-citizens. This appears to me the only substitute that can
be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against
it, if it should exist.”
Thus differently from the adversaries of the proposed Constitution
should I reason on the same subject, deducing arguments of safety from
the very sources which they represent as fraught with danger and
perdition. But how the national legislature may reason on the point, is
a thing which neither they nor I can foresee.
There is something so far-fetched and so extravagant in the idea of
danger to liberty from the militia, that one is at a loss whether to
treat it with gravity or with raillery; whether to consider it as a
mere trial of skill, like the paradoxes of rhetoricians; as a
disingenuous artifice to instil prejudices at any price; or as the
serious offspring of political fanaticism. Where in the name of
common-sense, are our fears to end if we may not trust our sons, our
brothers, our neighbors, our fellow-citizens? What shadow of danger can
there be from men who are daily mingling with the rest of their
countrymen and who participate with them in the same feelings,
sentiments, habits and interests? What reasonable cause of apprehension
can be inferred from a power in the Union to prescribe regulations for
the militia, and to command its services when necessary, while the
particular States are to have the SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE APPOINTMENT OF THE
OFFICERS? If it were possible seriously to indulge a jealousy of the
militia upon any conceivable establishment under the federal
government, the circumstance of the officers being in the appointment
of the States ought at once to extinguish it. There can be no doubt
that this circumstance will always secure to them a preponderating
influence over the militia.
In reading many of the publications against the Constitution, a man is
apt to imagine that he is perusing some ill-written tale or romance,
which instead of natural and agreeable images, exhibits to the mind
nothing but frightful and distorted shapes—
“Gorgons, hydras, and chimeras dire;”
discoloring and disfiguring whatever it represents, and transforming
everything it touches into a monster.