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 from your progress in as compendious a manner
as it can be done, without sacrificing utility to despatch.
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 not either controverted
or 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 this sentiment, at least,
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 lengthy 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 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 any thing 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. (footnote 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
apportionment, 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
negotiations 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 it 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 center. 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 cooperate 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.
Signed "PUBLIUS"
Footnotes Explained:
Footnote Number 1. "I mean for the Union."
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