THAT there may happen cases in which the national government may be
necessitated to resort to force, cannot be denied. Our own
experience has corroborated the lessons taught by the examples of
others nations; that emergencies of this sort will sometimes arise
in all societies, however constituted; that seditions and
insurrections are, unhappily, maladies as inseparable from the body
politic as tumors and eruptions from the natural body; that the idea
of governing at all times by the simple force of law (which we have
been told is the only admissible principle of republican
government), has no place but in the reveries of those political
doctors whose sagacity disdains the admonitions of experimental
instruction.
Should such emergencies at any time happen under the national
government, there could be no remedy but force. The means to be
employed must be proportioned to the extent of the mischief. If it
should be a slight commotion in a small part of a State, the militia
of the residue would be adequate to its suppression; and the natural
presumption is that they would be ready to do their duty. An
insurrection, whatever may be its immediate cause, eventually
endangers all government. Regard to the public peace, if not to the
rights of the Union, would engage the citizens to whom the contagion
had not communicated itself to oppose the insurgents; and if the
general government should be found in practice conducive to the
prosperity and felicity of the people, it were irrational to believe
that they would be disinclined to its support.
If, on the contrary, the insurrection should pervade a whole State,
or a principal part of it, the employment of a different kind of
force might become unavoidable. It appears that Massachusetts found
it necessary to raise troops for repressing the disorders within
that State; that Pennsylvania, from the mere apprehension of
commotions among a part of her citizens, has thought proper to have
recourse to the same measure. Suppose the State of New York had been
inclined to re-establish her lost jurisdiction over the inhabitants
of Vermont, could she have hoped for success in such an enterprise
from the efforts of the militia alone? Would she not have been
compelled to raise and to maintain a more regular force for the
execution of her design? If it must then be admitted that the
necessity of recurring to a force different from the militia, in
cases of this extraordinary nature, is applicable to the State
governments themselves, why should the possibility, that the
national government might be under a like necessity, in similar
extremities, be made an objection to its existence? Is it not
surprising that men who declare an attachment to the Union in the
abstract should urge as an objection to the proposed Constitution
what applies with tenfold weight to the plan for which they contend;
and what, as far as it has any foundation in truth, is an inevitable
consequence of civil society upon an enlarged scale? Who would not
prefer that possibility to the unceasing agitations and frequent
revolutions which are the continual scourges of petty republics?
Let us presume this examination in another light. Suppose, in lieu
of one general system, two, or three, or even four Confederacies
were to be formed, would not the same difficulty oppose itself to
the operations of either of these Confederacies? Would not each of
them be exposed to the same casualties; and when these happened, be
obliged to have recourse to the same expedients for upholding its
authority which are objected to in a government for all the States?
Would the militia, in this supposition, be more ready or more able
to support the federal authority than in the case of a general
union? All candid and intelligent men must, upon due consideration,
acknowledge that the principle of the objection is equally
applicable to either of the two cases; and that whether they have
one government for all the States, or different governments for
different parcels of them, or even if there should be an entire
separation of the States, there might sometimes be a necessity to
make use of a force constituted differently from the militia, to
preserve the peace of the community and to maintain the just
authority of the laws against those violent invasions of them which
amount to insurrections and rebellions.
Independent of all other reasonings upon the subject, it is a full
answer to those who require a more peremptory provision against
military establishments in time of peace, to say that the whole
powers of the proposed government is to be in the hands of the
representatives of the people. This is the essential, and, after
all, only efficacious security for the rights and privileges of the
people, which is attainable in civil society. (footnote 1.)
If the representatives of the people betray their constituents,
there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original
right of self-defence which is paramount to all positive forms of
government, and which against the usurpations of the national rulers
may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than
against those of the rulers of an individual state. In a single
state, if the persons intrusted with supreme power become usurpers,
the different parcels, subdivisions, or districts of which it
consists, having no distinct government in each, can take no regular
measures for defence. The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms,
without concert, without system, without resource, except in their
courage and despair. The usurpers, clothed with the forms of legal
authority, can too often crush the opposition in embryo. The smaller
the extent of the territory, the more difficult will it be for the
people to form a regular or systematic plan of opposition, and the
more easy will it be to defeat their early efforts. Intelligence can
be more speedily obtained of their preparations and movements, and
the military force in the possession of the usurpers can be more
rapidly directed against the part where the opposition has begun. In
this situation there must be a peculiar coincidence of circumstances
to insure success to the popular resistance.
The obstacles to usurpation and the facilities of resistance
increase with the increased extent of the state, provided the
citizens understand their rights and are disposed to defend them.
The natural strength of the people in a large community, in
proportion to the artificial strength of the government, is greater
than in a small, and of course more competent to a struggle with the
attempts of the government to establish a tyranny. But in a
confederacy the people, without exaggeration, may be said to be
entirely the masters of their own fate. Power being almost always
the rival of power, the general government will at times stand ready
to check the usurpations of the state governments, and these will
have the same disposition towards the general government. The
people, by throwing themselves into either scale, will infallibly
make it preponderate. If their rights are invaded by either, they
can make use of the other as the instrument of redress. How wise
will it be in them by cherishing the union to preserve to themselves
an advantage which can never be too highly prized!
It may safely be received as an axiom in our political system, that
the State governments will, in all possible contingencies, afford
complete security against invasions of the public liberty by the
national authority. Projects of usurpation cannot be masked under
pretences so likely to escape the penetration of select bodies of
men, as of the people at large. The legislatures will have better
means of information. They can discover the danger at a distance;
and possessing all the organs of the civil power, and the confidence
of the people, they can at once adopt a regular plan of opposition,
in which they can combine all the resources of the community. They
can readily communicate with each other in the different States, and
unite their common forces for the protection of their common
liberty.
The great extent of the country is a further security. We have
already experienced its utility against the attacks of a foreign
power. And it would have precisely the same effect against the
enterprises of ambitious rulers in the national councils. If the
federal army should be able to quell the resistance of one State,
the distant States would have it in their power to make head with
fresh forces. The advantages obtained in one place must be abandoned
to subdue the opposition in others; and the moment the part which
had been reduced to submission was left to itself, its efforts would
be renewed, and its resistance revive.
We should recollect that the extent of the military force must, at
all events, be regulated by the resources of the country. For a long
time to come, it will not be possible to maintain a large army; and
as the means of doing this increase, the population and natural
strength of the community will proportionably increase. When will
the time arrive that the federal government can raise and maintain
an army capable of erecting a despotism over the great body of the
people of an immense empire, who are in a situation, through the
medium of their State governments, to take measures for their own
defence, with all the celerity, regularity, and system of
independent nations? The apprehension may be considered as a
disease, for which there can be found no cure in the resources of
argument and reasoning.
Signed "PUBLIUS"
Footnotes Explained:
Footnote Number 1. Its full efficacy will be examined hereafter.
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