In the course of the preceding papers, I have endeavored, my fellow
citizens, to place before you, in a clear and convincing light, the
importance of union to your political safety and happiness. I have
unfolded to you a complication of dangers to which you would be
exposed, should you permit that sacred knot, which binds the people of
America together, to be severed or dissolved by ambition or by
avarice, by jealousy or by misrepresentation. In the sequel of the
inquiry through which I propose to accompany you the truths intended
to be inculcated will receive further confirmation from facts and
arguments hitherto unnoticed. If the road over which you will still
have to pass should in some places appear to you tedious or irksome,
you will recollect that you are in quest of information on a subject
the most momentous which can engage the attention of a free people;
that the field through which you have to travel is in itself spacious,
and that the difficulties of the journey have been unnecessarily
increased by the mazes with which sophistry has beset the way. It will
be my aim to remove the obstacles to your progress in as compendious a
manner as it can be done without sacrificing utility to dispatch.
[Footnote 42: From No. 15 of the "Federalist" Papers, now printed in
Volume IX of the "Works of Hamilton," edited by Henry Cabot Lodge.]
In pursuance of the plan which I have laid down for the discussion of
the subject, the point next in order to be examined is the
"insufficiency of the present confederation to the preservation of the
Union."
It may perhaps be asked what need there is of reasoning or proof to
illustrate a position which is neither controverted nor doubted; to
which the understandings and feelings of all classes of men assent;
and which in substance is admitted by the opponents as well as by the
friends of the new constitution? It must in truth be acknowledged
that, however these may differ in other respects, they in general
appear to harmonize in the opinion that there are material
imperfections in our national system, and that something is necessary
to be done to rescue us from impending anarchy. The facts that support
this opinion are no longer objects of speculation. They have forced
themselves upon the sensibility of the people at large, and have at
length extorted from those whose mistaken policy has had the principal
share in precipitating the extremity at which we are arrived, a
reluctant confession of the reality of many of those defects in the
scheme of our federal government which have been long pointed out and
regretted by the intelligent friends of the Union.
We may, indeed, with propriety be said to have reached almost the last
stage of national humiliation. There is scarcely anything that can
wound the pride, or degrade the character of an independent people
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. 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 a 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 blest with natural advantages as we are, which does not
form a part of the dark catalog of our public misfortunes?
This is the melancholy situation to which we have been brought by
those very maxims and counsels 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 can not be amended otherwise than by an
alteration in the very elements 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
contra-distinguished from the individuals of whom they consist. Tho
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 apportionment, the United
States have 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, tho in theory their resolutions concerning those objects
are laws constitutionally binding on the members of the Union, yet in
practise 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 a
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.