stage of national humiliation. There is scarcely anything that can wound
the pride or degrade the character of an independent nation which we do
not experience. Are there engagements to the performance of which we
are held by every tie respectable among men? These are the subjects of
constant and unblushing violation. Do we owe debts to foreigners and
to our own citizens contracted in a time of imminent peril for the
preservation of our political existence? These remain without any
proper or satisfactory provision for their discharge. Have we valuable
territories and important posts in the possession of a foreign
power which, by express stipulations, ought long since to have
been surrendered? These are still retained, to the prejudice of our
interests, not less than of our rights. Are we in a condition to resent
or to repel the aggression? We have neither troops, nor treasury, nor
government.(1) Are we even in a condition to remonstrate with dignity?
The just imputations on our own faith, in respect to the same treaty,
ought first to be removed. Are we entitled by nature and compact to a
free participation in the navigation of the Mississippi? Spain excludes
us from it. Is public credit an indispensable resource in time of
public danger? We seem to have abandoned its cause as desperate and
irretrievable. Is commerce of importance to national wealth? Ours is at
the lowest point of declension. Is respectability in the eyes of foreign
powers a safeguard against foreign encroachments? The imbecility of our
government even forbids them to treat with us. Our ambassadors abroad
are the mere pageants of mimic sovereignty. Is a violent and unnatural
decrease in the value of land a symptom of national distress? The price
of improved land in most parts of the country is much lower than can be
accounted for by the quantity of waste land at market, and can only be
fully explained by that want of private and public confidence, which
are so alarmingly prevalent among all ranks, and which have a direct
tendency to depreciate property of every kind. Is private credit the
friend and patron of industry? That most useful kind which relates to
borrowing and lending is reduced within the narrowest limits, and this
still more from an opinion of insecurity than from the scarcity of
money. To shorten an enumeration of particulars which can afford neither
pleasure nor instruction, it may in general be demanded, what indication
is there of national disorder, poverty, and insignificance that could
befall a community so peculiarly blessed with natural advantages as
we are, which does not form a part of the dark catalogue of our public
misfortunes?
This is the melancholy situation to which we have been brought by those
very maxims and councils which would now deter us from adopting the
proposed Constitution; and which, not content with having conducted us
to the brink of a precipice, seem resolved to plunge us into the abyss
that awaits us below. Here, my countrymen, impelled by every motive that
ought to influence an enlightened people, let us make a firm stand for
our safety, our tranquillity, our dignity, our reputation. Let us at
last break the fatal charm which has too long seduced us from the paths
of felicity and prosperity.
It is true, as has been before observed that facts, too stubborn to
be resisted, have produced a species of general assent to the abstract
proposition that there exist material defects in our national system;
but the usefulness of the concession, on the part of the old adversaries
of federal measures, is destroyed by a strenuous opposition to a remedy,
upon the only principles that can give it a chance of success. While
they admit that the government of the United States is destitute of
energy, they contend against conferring upon it those powers which
are requisite to supply that energy. They seem still to aim at things
repugnant and irreconcilable; at an augmentation of federal authority,
without a diminution of State authority; at sovereignty in the Union,
and complete independence in the members. They still, in fine, seem
to cherish with blind devotion the political monster of an imperium in
imperio. This renders a full display of the principal defects of the
Confederation necessary, in order to show that the evils we experience
do not proceed from minute or partial imperfections, but from
fundamental errors in the structure of the building, which cannot be
amended otherwise than by an alteration in the first principles and main
pillars of the fabric.
The great and radical vice in the construction of the existing
Confederation is in the principle of LEGISLATION for STATES or
GOVERNMENTS, in their CORPORATE or COLLECTIVE CAPACITIES, and as
contradistinguished from the INDIVIDUALS of which they consist. Though
this principle does not run through all the powers delegated to the
Union, yet it pervades and governs those on which the efficacy of the
rest depends. Except as to the rule of appointment, the United States
has an indefinite discretion to make requisitions for men and money; but
they have no authority to raise either, by regulations extending to the
individual citizens of America. The consequence of this is, that
though in theory their resolutions concerning those objects are laws,
constitutionally binding on the members of the Union, yet in practice
they are mere recommendations which the States observe or disregard at
their option.
It is a singular instance of the capriciousness of the human mind, that
after all the admonitions we have had from experience on this head,
there should still be found men who object to the new Constitution, for
deviating from a principle which has been found the bane of the old, and
which is in itself evidently incompatible with the idea of GOVERNMENT;
a principle, in short, which, if it is to be executed at all, must
substitute the violent and sanguinary agency of the sword to the mild
influence of the magistracy.
There is nothing absurd or impracticable in the idea of a league or
alliance between independent nations for certain defined purposes
precisely stated in a treaty regulating all the details of time, place,
circumstance, and quantity; leaving nothing to future discretion; and
depending for its execution on the good faith of the parties. Compacts
of this kind exist among all civilized nations, subject to the usual
vicissitudes of peace and war, of observance and non-observance, as the
interests or passions of the contracting powers dictate. In the early
part of the present century there was an epidemical rage in Europe for
this species of compacts, from which the politicians of the times
fondly hoped for benefits which were never realized. With a view to
establishing the equilibrium of power and the peace of that part of the
world, all the resources of negotiation were exhausted, and triple and
quadruple alliances were formed; but they were scarcely formed before
they were broken, giving an instructive but afflicting lesson to
mankind, how little dependence is to be placed on treaties which have
no other sanction than the obligations of good faith, and which oppose
general considerations of peace and justice to the impulse of any
immediate interest or passion.
If the particular States in this country are disposed to stand in a
similar relation to each other, and to drop the project of a general
DISCRETIONARY SUPERINTENDENCE, the scheme would indeed be pernicious,
and would entail upon us all the mischiefs which have been enumerated
under the first head; but it would have the merit of being, at least,
consistent and practicable Abandoning all views towards a confederate
government, this would bring us to a simple alliance offensive and
defensive; and would place us in a situation to be alternate friends
and enemies of each other, as our mutual jealousies and rivalships,
nourished by the intrigues of foreign nations, should prescribe to us.
But if we are unwilling to be placed in this perilous situation; if we
still will adhere to the design of a national government, or, which
is the same thing, of a superintending power, under the direction of
a common council, we must resolve to incorporate into our plan those
ingredients which may be considered as forming the characteristic
difference between a league and a government; we must extend the
authority of the Union to the persons of the citizens,--the only proper
objects of government.
Government implies the power of making laws. It is essential to the idea
of a law, that it be attended with a sanction; or, in other words, a
penalty or punishment for disobedience. If there be no penalty annexed
to disobedience, the resolutions or commands which pretend to be laws
will, in fact, amount to nothing more than advice or recommendation.
This penalty, whatever it may be, can only be inflicted in two ways: by
the agency of the courts and ministers of justice, or by military force;
by the COERCION of the magistracy, or by the COERCION of arms. The first
kind can evidently apply only to men; the last kind must of necessity,
be employed against bodies politic, or communities, or States. It is
evident that there is no process of a court by which the observance
of the laws can, in the last resort, be enforced. Sentences may be
denounced against them for violations of their duty; but these sentences
can only be carried into execution by the sword. In an association
where the general authority is confined to the collective bodies of the
communities, that compose it, every breach of the laws must involve a
state of war; and military execution must become the only instrument of
civil obedience. Such a state of things can certainly not deserve the
name of government, nor would any prudent man choose to commit his
happiness to it.
There was a time when we were told that breaches, by the States, of the
regulations of the federal authority were not to be expected; that
a sense of common interest would preside over the conduct of the
respective members, and would beget a full compliance with all the
constitutional requisitions of the Union. This language, at the present
day, would appear as wild as a great part of what we now hear from
the same quarter will be thought, when we shall have received further
lessons from that best oracle of wisdom, experience. It at all times
betrayed an ignorance of the true springs by which human conduct is
actuated, and belied the original inducements to the establishment of
civil power. Why has government been instituted at all? Because the
passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice,
without constraint. Has it been found that bodies of men act with more
rectitude or greater disinterestedness than individuals? The contrary
of this has been inferred by all accurate observers of the conduct of
mankind; and the inference is founded upon obvious reasons. Regard to
reputation has a less active influence, when the infamy of a bad action
is to be divided among a number than when it is to fall singly upon
one. A spirit of faction, which is apt to mingle its poison in the
deliberations of all bodies of men, will often hurry the persons of whom
they are composed into improprieties and excesses, for which they would
blush in a private capacity.
In addition to all this, there is, in the nature of sovereign power,
an impatience of control, that disposes those who are invested with the
exercise of it, to look with an evil eye upon all external attempts to
restrain or direct its operations. From this spirit it happens, that
in every political association which is formed upon the principle of
uniting in a common interest a number of lesser sovereignties, there
will be found a kind of eccentric tendency in the subordinate or
inferior orbs, by the operation of which there will be a perpetual
effort in each to fly off from the common centre. This tendency is not
difficult to be accounted for. It has its origin in the love of power.
Power controlled or abridged is almost always the rival and enemy
of that power by which it is controlled or abridged. This simple
proposition will teach us how little reason there is to expect, that
the persons intrusted with the administration of the affairs of the
particular members of a confederacy will at all times be ready, with
perfect good-humor, and an unbiased regard to the public weal, to
execute the resolutions or decrees of the general authority. The reverse
of this results from the constitution of human nature.
If, therefore, the measures of the Confederacy cannot be executed
without the intervention of the particular administrations, there will
be little prospect of their being executed at all. The rulers of the
respective members, whether they have a constitutional right to do it
or not, will undertake to judge of the propriety of the measures
themselves. They will consider the conformity of the thing proposed
or required to their immediate interests or aims; the momentary
conveniences or inconveniences that would attend its adoption. All this
will be done; and in a spirit of interested and suspicious scrutiny,
without that knowledge of national circumstances and reasons of
state, which is essential to a right judgment, and with that strong
predilection in favor of local objects, which can hardly fail to mislead
the decision. The same process must be repeated in every member of which
the body is constituted; and the execution of the plans, framed by the
councils of the whole, will always fluctuate on the discretion of the
ill-informed and prejudiced opinion of every part. Those who have been
conversant in the proceedings of popular assemblies; who have seen
how difficult it often is, where there is no exterior pressure of
circumstances, to bring them to harmonious resolutions on important
points, will readily conceive how impossible it must be to induce a
number of such assemblies, deliberating at a distance from each other,
at different times, and under different impressions, long to co-operate
in the same views and pursuits.
In our case, the concurrence of thirteen distinct sovereign wills is
requisite, under the Confederation, to the complete execution of every
important measure that proceeds from the Union. It has happened as was
to have been foreseen. The measures of the Union have not been executed;
the delinquencies of the States have, step by step, matured themselves
to an extreme, which has, at length, arrested all the wheels of the
national government, and brought them to an awful stand. Congress
at this time scarcely possess the means of keeping up the forms of
administration, till the States can have time to agree upon a more
substantial substitute for the present shadow of a federal government.
Things did not come to this desperate extremity at once. The
causes which have been specified produced at first only unequal and
disproportionate degrees of compliance with the requisitions of the
Union. The greater deficiencies of some States furnished the pretext of
example and the temptation of interest to the complying, or to the least
delinquent States. Why should we do more in proportion than those who
are embarked with us in the same political voyage? Why should we consent
to bear more than our proper share of the common burden? These were
suggestions which human selfishness could not withstand, and which even
speculative men, who looked forward to remote consequences, could not,
without hesitation, combat. Each State, yielding to the persuasive voice
of immediate interest or convenience, has successively withdrawn its
support, till the frail and tottering edifice seems ready to fall upon
our heads, and to crush us beneath its ruins.
PUBLIUS
1. "I mean for the Union."
FEDERALIST No. 16
The Same Subject Continued (The Insufficiency of the Present
Confederation to Preserve the Union)
From the New York Packet. Tuesday, December 4, 1787.
HAMILTON
To the People of the State of New York:
THE tendency of the principle of legislation for States, or communities,
in their political capacities, as it has been exemplified by the
experiment we have made of it, is equally attested by the events which
have befallen all other governments of the confederate kind, of which
we have any account, in exact proportion to its prevalence in those
systems. The confirmations of this fact will be worthy of a distinct
and particular examination. I shall content myself with barely observing
here, that of all the confederacies of antiquity, which history has
handed down to us, the Lycian and Achaean leagues, as far as there
remain vestiges of them, appear to have been most free from the fetters
of that mistaken principle, and were accordingly those which have best
deserved, and have most liberally received, the applauding suffrages of
political writers.
This exceptionable principle may, as truly as emphatically, be styled
the parent of anarchy: It has been seen that delinquencies in the
members of the Union are its natural and necessary offspring; and that
whenever they happen, the only constitutional remedy is force, and the
immediate effect of the use of it, civil war.
It remains to inquire how far so odious an engine of government, in its
application to us, would even be capable of answering its end. If there
should not be a large army constantly at the disposal of the national
government it would either not be able to employ force at all, or,
when this could be done, it would amount to a war between parts of
the Confederacy concerning the infractions of a league, in which the
strongest combination would be most likely to prevail, whether it
consisted of those who supported or of those who resisted the general
authority. It would rarely happen that the delinquency to be redressed
would be confined to a single member, and if there were more than one
who had neglected their duty, similarity of situation would induce them
to unite for common defense. Independent of this motive of sympathy, if
a large and influential State should happen to be the aggressing member,
it would commonly have weight enough with its neighbors to win over some
of them as associates to its cause. Specious arguments of danger to
the common liberty could easily be contrived; plausible excuses for
the deficiencies of the party could, without difficulty, be invented
to alarm the apprehensions, inflame the passions, and conciliate the
good-will, even of those States which were not chargeable with any
violation or omission of duty. This would be the more likely to take
place, as the delinquencies of the larger members might be expected
sometimes to proceed from an ambitious premeditation in their rulers,
with a view to getting rid of all external control upon their designs
of personal aggrandizement; the better to effect which it is presumable
they would tamper beforehand with leading individuals in the adjacent
States. If associates could not be found at home, recourse would be
had to the aid of foreign powers, who would seldom be disinclined to
encouraging the dissensions of a Confederacy, from the firm union
of which they had so much to fear. When the sword is once drawn, the
passions of men observe no bounds of moderation. The suggestions of
wounded pride, the instigations of irritated resentment, would be apt
to carry the States against which the arms of the Union were exerted, to
any extremes necessary to avenge the affront or to avoid the disgrace
of submission. The first war of this kind would probably terminate in a
dissolution of the Union.
This may be considered as the violent death of the Confederacy. Its more
natural death is what we now seem to be on the point of experiencing, if
the federal system be not speedily renovated in a more substantial form.
It is not probable, considering the genius of this country, that the
complying States would often be inclined to support the authority of the
Union by engaging in a war against the non-complying States. They would
always be more ready to pursue the milder course of putting themselves
upon an equal footing with the delinquent members by an imitation of
their example. And the guilt of all would thus become the security of
all. Our past experience has exhibited the operation of this spirit in
its full light. There would, in fact, be an insuperable difficulty in
ascertaining when force could with propriety be employed. In the article
of pecuniary contribution, which would be the most usual source of
delinquency, it would often be impossible to decide whether it had
proceeded from disinclination or inability. The pretense of the latter
would always be at hand. And the case must be very flagrant in which its
fallacy could be detected with sufficient certainty to justify the harsh
expedient of compulsion. It is easy to see that this problem alone, as
often as it should occur, would open a wide field for the exercise of
factious views, of partiality, and of oppression, in the majority that
happened to prevail in the national council.
It seems to require no pains to prove that the States ought not to
prefer a national Constitution which could only be kept in motion by
the instrumentality of a large army continually on foot to execute the
ordinary requisitions or decrees of the government. And yet this is the
plain alternative involved by those who wish to deny it the power of
extending its operations to individuals. Such a scheme, if practicable
at all, would instantly degenerate into a military despotism; but it
will be found in every light impracticable. The resources of the Union
would not be equal to the maintenance of an army considerable enough to
confine the larger States within the limits of their duty; nor would the
means ever be furnished of forming such an army in the first instance.
Whoever considers the populousness and strength of several of these
States singly at the present juncture, and looks forward to what they
will become, even at the distance of half a century, will at once
dismiss as idle and visionary any scheme which aims at regulating their
movements by laws to operate upon them in their collective capacities,
and to be executed by a coercion applicable to them in the same
capacities. A project of this kind is little less romantic than the
monster-taming spirit which is attributed to the fabulous heroes and
demi-gods of antiquity.
Even in those confederacies which have been composed of members smaller
than many of our counties, the principle of legislation for sovereign
States, supported by military coercion, has never been found effectual.
It has rarely been attempted to be employed, but against the weaker
members; and in most instances attempts to coerce the refractory and
disobedient have been the signals of bloody wars, in which one half of
the confederacy has displayed its banners against the other half.
The result of these observations to an intelligent mind must be
clearly this, that if it be possible at any rate to construct a federal
government capable of regulating the common concerns and preserving the
general tranquillity, it must be founded, as to the objects committed
to its care, upon the reverse of the principle contended for by the
opponents of the proposed Constitution. It must carry its agency to
the persons of the citizens. It must stand in need of no intermediate
legislations; but must itself be empowered to employ the arm of the
ordinary magistrate to execute its own resolutions. The majesty of the
national authority must be manifested through the medium of the courts
of justice. The government of the Union, like that of each State,
must be able to address itself immediately to the hopes and fears of
individuals; and to attract to its support those passions which have the
strongest influence upon the human heart. It must, in short, possess all
the means, and have aright to resort to all the methods, of executing
the powers with which it is intrusted, that are possessed and exercised
by the government of the particular States.
To this reasoning it may perhaps be objected, that if any State should
be disaffected to the authority of the Union, it could at any time
obstruct the execution of its laws, and bring the matter to the same
issue of force, with the necessity of which the opposite scheme is
reproached.