WE HAVE seen the necessity of the Union, as our bulwark against
foreign danger, as the conservator of peace among ourselves, as the
guardian of our commerce and other common interests, as the only
substitute for those military establishments which have subverted
the liberties of the Old World, and as the proper antidote for the
diseases of faction, which have proved fatal to other popular
governments, and of which alarming symptoms have been betrayed by
our own. All that remains, within this branch of our inquiries, is
to take notice of an objection that may be drawn from the great
extent of country which the Union embraces. A few observations on
this subject will be the more proper, as it is perceived that the
adversaries of the new Constitution are availing themselves of the
prevailing prejudice with regard to the practicable sphere of
republican administration, in order to supply, by imaginary
difficulties, the want of those solid objections which they endeavor
in vain to find.
The error which limits republican government to a narrow district
has been unfolded and refuted in preceding papers. I remark here
only that it seems to owe its rise and prevalence chiefly to the
confounding of a republic with a democracy, applying to the former
reasonings drawn from the nature of the latter. The true distinction
between these forms was also adverted to on a former occasion. It
is, that in a democracy, the people meet and exercise the government
in person; in a republic, they assemble and administer it by their
representatives and agents. A democracy, consequently, will be
confined to a small spot. A republic may be extended over a large
region.
To this accidental source of the error may be added the artifice of
some celebrated authors, whose writings have had a great share in
forming the modern standard of political opinions. Being subjects
either of an absolute or limited monarchy, they have endeavored to
heighten the advantages, or palliate the evils of those forms, by
placing in comparison the vices and defects of the republican, and
by citing as specimens of the latter the turbulent democracies of
ancient Greece and modern Italy. Under the confusion of names, it
has been an easy task to transfer to a republic observations
applicable to a democracy only; and among others, the observation
that it can never be established but among a small number of people,
living within a small compass of territory.
Such a fallacy may have been the less perceived, as most of the
popular governments of antiquity were of the democratic species; and
even in modern Europe, to which we owe the great principle of
representation, no example is seen of a government wholly popular,
and founded, at the same time, wholly on that principle. If Europe
has the merit of discovering this great mechanical power in
government, by the simple agency of which the will of the largest
political body may be concentrated, and its force directed to any
object which the public good requires, America can claim the merit
of making the discovery the basis of unmixed and extensive
republics. It is only to be lamented that any of her citizens should
wish to deprive her of the additional merit of displaying its full
efficacy in the establishment of the comprehensive system now under
her consideration.
As the natural limit of democracy is that distance from the central
point which will just permit the most remote citizens to assemble as
often as their public functions demand, and will include no greater
number than can join in those functions; so the natural limit of a
republic is that distance from the center which will barely allow
the representatives to meet as often as may be necessary for the
administration of public affairs. Can it be said that the limits of
the United States exceed this distance? It will not be said by those
who recollect that the Atlantic coast is the longest side of the
Union, that during the term of thirteen years, the representatives
of the States have been almost continually assembled, and that the
members from the most distant States are not chargeable with greater
intermissions of attendance than those from the States in the
neighborhood of Congress.
That we may form a juster estimate with regard to this interesting
subject, let us resort to the actual dimensions of the Union. The
limits, as fixed by the treaty of peace, are: on the east the
Atlantic, on the south the latitude of thirty-one degrees, on the
west the Mississippi, and on the north an irregular line running in
some instances beyond the forty-fifth degree, in others falling as
low as the forty-second. The southern shore of Lake Erie lies below
that latitude. Computing the distance between the thirty-first and
forty-fifth degrees, it amounts to nine hundred and seventy-three
common miles; computing it from thirty-one to forty-two degrees, to
seven hundred and sixty-four miles and a half. Taking the mean for
the distance, the amount will be eight hundred and sixty-eight miles
and three fourths. The mean distance from the Atlantic to the
Mississippi does not probably exceed seven hundred and fifty miles.
On a comparison of this extent with that of several countries in
Europe, the practicability of rendering our system commensurate to
it appears to be demonstrable. It is not a great deal larger than
Germany, where a diet representing the whole empire is continually
assembled; or than Poland before the late dismemberment, where
another national diet was the depositary of the supreme power.
Passing by France and Spain, we find that in Great Britain, inferior
as it may be in size, the representatives of the northern extremity
of the island have as far to travel to the national council as will
be required of those of the most remote parts of the Union.
Favorable as this view of the subject may be, some observations
remain which will place it in the light still more satisfactory.
In the first place it is to be remembered that the general
government is not to be charged with the whole power of making and
administering laws. Its jurisdiction is limited to certain
enumerated objects, which concern all the members of the republic,
but which are not to be attained by the separate provisions of any.
The subordinate governments, which can extend their care to all
those other objects which can be separately provided for, will
retain their due authority and activity. Were it proposed by the
plan of the convention to abolish the governments of the particular
States, its adversaries would have some ground for their objection;
though it would not be difficult to show that if they were abolished
the general government would be compelled, by the principle of
self-preservation, to reinstate them in their proper jurisdiction.
A second observation to be made is that the immediate object of the
federal Constitution is to secure the union of the thirteen
primitive States, which we know to be practicable; and to add to
them such other States as may arise in their own bosoms, or in their
neighborhoods, which we cannot doubt to be equally practicable. The
arrangements that may be necessary for those angles and fractions of
our territory which lie on our northwestern frontier, must be left
to those whom further discoveries and experience will render more
equal to the task.
Let it be remarked, in the third place, that the intercourse
throughout the Union will be facilitated by new improvements. Roads
will everywhere be shortened, and kept in better order;
accommodations for travellers will be multiplied and meliorated; an
interior navigation on our eastern side will be opened throughout,
or nearly throughout, the whole extent of the thirteen States. The
communication between the Western and Atlantic districts, and
between different parts of each, will be rendered more and more easy
by those numerous canals with which the beneficence of nature has
intersected our country, and which art finds it so little difficult
to connect and complete.
A fourth and still more important consideration is, that as almost
every State will, on one side or other, be a frontier, and will thus
find, in a regard to its safety, an inducement to make some
sacrifices for the sake of the general protection; so the States
which lie at the greatest distance from the heart of the Union, and
which, of course, may partake least of the ordinary circulation of
its benefits, will be at the same time immediately contiguous to
foreign nations, and will consequently stand, on particular
occasions, in greatest need of its strength and resources. It may be
inconvenient for Georgia, or the States forming our western or
northeastern borders, to send their representatives to the seat of
government; but they would find it more so to struggle alone against
an invading enemy, or even to support alone the whole expense of
those precautions which may be dictated by the neighborhood of
continual danger. If they should derive less benefit, therefore,
from the Union in some respects than the less distant States, they
will derive greater benefit from it in other respects, and thus the
proper equilibrium will be maintained throughout.
I submit to you, my fellow-citizens, these considerations, in full
confidence that the good sense which has so often marked your
decisions will allow them their due weight and effect; and that you
will never suffer difficulties, however formidable in appearance, or
however fashionable the error on which they may be founded, to drive
you into the gloomy and perilous scene into which the advocates for
disunion would conduct you. Hearken not to the unnatural voice which
tells you that the people of America, knit together as they are by
so many cords of affection, can no longer live together as members
of the same family; can no longer continue the mutual guardians of
their mutual happiness; can no longer be fellow-citizens of one
great, respectable, and flourishing empire.
Hearken not to the voice which petulantly tells you that the form of
government recommended for your adoption is a novelty in the
political world; that it has never yet had a place in the theories
of the wildest projectors; that it rashly attempts what it is
impossible to accomplish. No, my countrymen, shut your ears against
this unhallowed language. Shut your hearts against the poison which
it conveys; the kindred blood which flows in the veins of American
citizens, the mingled blood which they have shed in defence of their
sacred rights, consecrate their Union, and excite horror at the idea
of their becoming aliens, rivals, enemies.
And if novelties are to be shunned, believe me, the most alarming of
all novelties, the most wild of all projects, the most rash of all
attempts, is that of rending us in pieces, in order to preserve our
liberties and promote our happiness. But why is the experiment of an
extended republic to be rejected, merely because it may comprise
what is new? Is it not the glory of the people of America, that,
whilst they have paid a decent regard to the opinions of former
times and other nations, they have not suffered a blind veneration
for antiquity, for custom, or for names, to overrule the suggestions
of their own good sense, the knowledge of their own situation, and
the lessons of their own experience?
To this manly spirit, posterity will be indebted for the possession,
and the world for the example, of the numerous innovations displayed
on the American theatre, in favor of private rights and public
happiness.
Had no important step been taken by the leaders of the Revolution
for which a precedent could not be discovered, no government
established of which an exact model did not present itself, the
people of the United States might, at this moment, have been
numbered among the melancholy victims of misguided councils, must at
best have been laboring under the weight of some of those forms
which have crushed the liberties of the rest of mankind.
Happily for America, happily, we trust, for the whole human race,
they pursued a new and more noble course. They accomplished a
revolution which has no parallel in the annals of human society.
They reared the fabrics of governments which have no model on the
face of the globe. They formed the design of a great Confederacy,
which it is incumbent on their successors to improve and perpetuate.
If their works betray imperfections, we wonder at the fewness of
them. If they erred most in the structure of the Union, this was the
work most difficult to be executed; this is the work which has been
new modelled by the act of your convention, and it is that act on
which you are now to deliberate and to decide.
Signed "PUBLIUS"
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