THE necessity of a Constitution, at least equally energetic with the
one proposed, to the preservation of the Union, is the point at the
examination of which we are now arrived.
This inquiry will naturally divide itself into three branches--the
objects to be provided for by the federal government, the quantity
of power necessary to the accomplishment of those objects, the
persons upon whom that power ought to operate. Its distribution and
organization will more properly claim our attention under the
succeeding head.
The principal purposes to be answered by union are these--the common
defence of the members; the preservation of the public peace, as
well against internal convulsions as external attacks; the
regulation of commerce with other nations and between the States;
the superintendence of our intercourse, political and commercial,
with foreign countries.
The authorities essential to the common defence are these: to raise
armies; to build and equip fleets; to prescribe rules for the
government of both; to direct their operations; to provide for their
support. These powers ought to exist without limitation, because it
is impossible to foresee or define the extent and variety of
national exigencies, or the correspondent extend and variety of the
means which may be necessary to satisfy them. The circumstances that
endanger the safety of nations are infinite, and for this reason no
constitutional shackles can wisely be imposed on the power to which
the care of it is committed. This power ought to be co-extensive
with all the possible combinations of such circumstances; and ought
to be under the direction of the same councils which are appointed
to preside over the common defence.
This is one of those truths which, to a correct and unprejudiced
mind, carries its own evidence along with it; and may be obscured,
but cannot be made plainer by argument or reasoning. It rests upon
axioms as simple as they are universal; the means ought to be
proportioned to the end; the persons, from whose agency the
attainment of any end is expected, ought to possess the means by
which it is to be attained.
Whether there ought to be a federal government intrusted with the
care of the common defence is a question in the first instance, open
for discussion; but the moment it is decided in the affirmative, it
will follow that that government ought to be clothed with all the
powers requisite to complete execution of its trust. And unless it
can be shown that the circumstances which may affect the public
safety are reducible within certain determinate limits, unless the
contrary of this position can be fairly and rationally disputed, it
must be admitted, as a necessary consequence, that there can be no
limitation of that authority which is to provide for the defence and
protection of the community, in any matter essential to its
efficacy--that is, in any matter essential to the formation,
direction, or support of the NATIONAL FORCES.
Defective as the present Confederation has been proved to be, this
principle appears to have been fully recognized by the framers of
it, though they have not made proper or adequate provision for its
exercise. Congress have an unlimited discretion to make requisitions
of men and money; to govern the army and navy; to direct their
operations. As their requisitions are made constitutionally binding
upon the States, who are in fact under the most solemn obligations
to furnish the supplies required of them, the intention evidently
was that the United States should command whatever resources where
by them judged requisite to the "common defence and general
welfare." It was presumed that a sense of their true interests, and
a regard to the dictates of good faith, would be found sufficient
pledges for the punctual performance of the duty of the members to
the federal head.
The experiment has, however, demonstrated that this expectation was
ill-founded and illusory; and the observations, made under the last
head, will, I imagine, have sufficed to convince the impartial and
discerning that there is an absolute necessity for an entire change
in the first principles of the system; that if we are in earnest
about giving the Union energy and duration, we must abandon the vain
project of legislating upon the States in their collective
capacities; we must extend the laws of the federal government to the
individual citizens of America; we must discard the fallacious
scheme of quotas and requisitions, as equally impracticable and
unjust. The result from all this is that the Union ought to be
invested with full power to levy troops; to build and equip fleets;
and to raise the revenues which will be required for the formation
and support of an army and navy, in the customary and ordinary modes
practiced in other governments.
If the circumstances of our country are such as to demand a compound
instead of a simple, a confederate instead of a sole, government,
the essential point which will remain to be adjusted will be to
discriminate the OBJECTS, as far as it can be done, which shall
appertain to the different provinces or departments of power,
allowing to each the most ample authority for fulfilling the objects
committed to its charge. Shall the Union be constituted the guardian
of the common safety? Are fleets and armies and revenues necessary
to this purpose? The government of the Union must be empowered to
pass all laws, and to make all regulations which have relation to
them. The same must be the case in respect to commerce, and to every
other matter to which its jurisdiction is permitted to extend. Is
the administration of justice between the citizens of the same State
the proper department of the local governments? These must possess
all the authorities which are connected with this object, and with
every other that may be allotted to their particular cognizance and
direction. Not to confer in each case a degree of power commensurate
to the end would be to violate the most obvious rules of prudence
and propriety, and improvidently to trust the great interests of the
nation to hands which are disabled from managing them with vigor and
success.
Who [is] so likely to make suitable provisions for the public
defence as that body to which the guardianship of the public safety
is confided; which, as the center of information, will best
understand the extent and urgency of the dangers that threaten; as
the representative of the WHOLE, will feel itself most deeply
interested in the preservation of every part; which, from the
responsibility implied in the duty assigned to it, will be most
sensibly impressed with the necessity of proper exertions; and
which, by the extension of its authority throughout the States, can
alone establish uniformity and concert in the plans and measures by
which the common safety is to be secured? Is there not a manifest
inconsistency in devolving upon the federal government the care of
the general defence, and leaving in the State governments the
effective powers by which it is to be provided for? Is not a want of
co-operation the infallible consequence of such a system? And will
not weakness, disorder, and undue distribution of the burdens and
calamities of war, an unnecessary and intolerable increase of
expense, be its natural and inevitable concomitants? Have we not had
unequivocal experience of its effects in the course of the
revolution which we have just accomplished.
Every view we may take of the subject, as candid inquirers after
truth, will serve to convince us, that it is both unwise and
dangerous to deny the federal government and unconfined authority,
as to all those objects which are intrusted to its management. It
will indeed deserve the most vigilant and careful attention of the
people to see that it be modelled in such a manner as to admit of
its being safely vested with the requisite powers. If any plan which
has been, or may be, offered to our consideration, should not, upon
a dispassionate inspection, be found to answer this description, it
ought to be rejected. A government, the constitution of which
renders it unfit to be trusted with all the powers which a free
people ought to delegate to any government, would be an unsafe and
improper depositary of the NATIONAL INTERESTS. Wherever THESE can
with propriety be confided, the coincident powers may safely
accompany them. This is the true result of all just reasoning upon
the subject. And the adversaries of the plan promulgated by the
convention ought to have confined themselves to showing, that the
internal structure of the proposed government was such as to render
it unworthy of the confidence of the people. They ought not to have
wandered into inflammatory declamations and unmeaning cavils about
the extent of the powers. The POWERS are not too extensive for the
OBJECTS of federal administration, or, in other words, for the
management of our NATIONAL INTERESTS; not can any satisfactory
argument be framed to show that they are chargeable with such an
excess. If it be true, as has been insinuated by some of the writers
on the other side, that the difficulty arises from the nature of the
thing, and that the extent of the country will not permit us to form
a government in which such ample powers can safely be reposed, it
would prove that ought to contract our views, and resort to the
expedient of separate confederacies, which will move within more
practicable spheres. For the absurdity must continually stare us in
the face of confiding to a government the direction of the most
essential national interests, without daring to trust it to the
authorities which are indispensable to their proper and efficient
management. Let us not attempt to reconcile contradictions, but
firmly embrace a rational alternative.
I trust, however, that the impracticability of one general system
cannot be shown. I am greatly mistaken, if any thing of weight has
yet been advanced of this tendency; and I flatter myself that the
observations which have been made in the course of these papers have
served to place the reverse of that position in as clear a light as
any matter still in the womb of time and experience can be
susceptible of. This, at all events, must be evident, that the very
difficulty itself, drawn from the extent of the country, is the
strongest argument in favor of an energetic government; for any
other can certainly never preserve the Union of so large an empire.
If we embrace the tenets of those who oppose the adoption of the
proposed Constitution, as the standard of our political creed, we
cannot fail to verify the gloomy doctrines which predict the
impracticability of a national system pervading entire limits of the
present Confederacy.
Signed "PUBLIUS"
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