The authors/submitters alone is responsible for
what is expressed
DID YOU KNOW
FROM THE WEBSITE WWW.MEXICA-MOVEMENT.ORG
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"Latino" denies us our true Nican Tlaca (Indigenous) identity and heritage. It keeps us slaves to European interests and Spaniard culture. Collectively, we have no Latin genealogy, Latin blood group, Latin history, or a common Latin culture of food or mythology. The "Latino" labeling of our people is a colonialist-racist act of Genocide---an attempt to "kill off" our people's true identity, history, independence, and our rights to our land and its wealth. Notice how this is not about "Latino Americans" in the U.S. This is about all of the "Spanish speaker" European Spaniards and their colonies of Nican Tlaca and Africans in the "Americas". What they are in fact doing is separating us from our Anahuac Heritage (Mexican and "Central American" Nican Tlaca identity and history) and enslaving us to their needs. THE CONCEPT OF HISPANIC is even more racist than "Latino" because it completely denies us our true Nican Tlaca heritage by not even referring to our colonized condition of being in "Latin America". We now become direct possessions of Spaniards. This is an attempt (successful so far) to actively reactivate the Spanish colonial empire through their colonials on our land. The media is their main tool in this parasitic renewed colonialist machine of the European Spaniards.
A side note: A
Mixed-blood is not a Criollo or a European.
Spaniards, Europeans, And Their Squatter
Descendants On Our Land Who Force Their Eurocentric, Racist, &
Anti-Indigenous "Hispanic" & "Latino" Labels On Our People!
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1) THEFT OF OUR
LAND was the initial crime of the
Europeans. We did not ever give up the ownership of our land, nor
did we ever invite Europeans onto our lands.
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THE LYNCHING OF SO CALLED NEGROES. (BLACK PEOPLE)
1885. . . . .184 1895. . . . .171 1886. . . . .138 1896. . . . .131 1887. . . . .122 1897. . . . .166 1888. . . . .142 1898. . . . .127 1889. . . . .176 1899. . . . .107 1890. . . . .127 1900. . . . .115 1891. . . . .192 1901. . . . .135 1892. . . . .235 1902. . . . .96 1893. . . . .200 1903(to Sept. 14, eight and a half months). . . . .76 1894. . . . .190 Total lynchings. Whites. Negroes. In the South. In the North. 1900. . . . . . . 115 8 107 107 8 1901. . . . . . . 135 26 107 121 14 1902. . . . . . . . 96 9 86 87 9 1903(to Sept. 14). . . . .76 13 63 66 10 Causes Assigned. 1900 1901.* 1902.† 1903. Murder 39 39 37 32 Rape 18 19 19 8 Attempted rape 13 9 11 5 Race prejudice 10 9 2 3 Assaulting whites 6 - 3 3 Threats to kill 5 - 1 - Burglary 4 1 - - Attempt to murder 4 9 4 6 Informing 2 - - - Robbery 2 “Theft” 12 1 - Complicity in murder 2 6 3 5 Rape and murder - - - 1 Suspicion of murder 2 3 1 3 Suspicion of robbery 1 - - - No offence 1 - - - Arson 2 4 - - Suspicion of arson 1 - - - Aiding escape of murderer 1 - 1 - Insulting a white woman - 1 - - Cattle and horse stealing - 7 1 - Quarrel over profit-sharing - 5 - - Suspicion of rape - 1 - - Suspicion of rape and murder - 1 - - Unknown offences 2 6 - 4 Mistaken identity - 1 1 3 NOTE.—The lynchings in the various States and Territories in 1900 were as follows: Alabama 8 New York 0 Arkansas 6 Nevada 0 California 0 North Carolina 3 Colorado 3 North Dakota 0 Connecticut 0 Ohio 0 Delaware 0 Oregon 0 Florida 9 Pennsylvania 0 Georgia 16 Rhode Island 0 Idaho 0 South Carolina 2 Illinois 0 South Dakota 0 Indiana 3 Tennessee 7 Iowa 0 Texas 4 Kansas 2 Vermont 0 Kentucky 1 Virginia 6 Louisiana 20 West Virginia 2 Maine 0 Wisconsin 0 Maryland 1 Washington 0 Massachusetts 0 ! Wyoming 0 Michigan 0 Arizona 0 Minnesota 0 District of Columbia 0 Mississippi 20 New Mexico 0 Missouri 2 Utah 0 Montana 0 Indian Territory 0 Nebraska 0 Oklahoma 0 New Jersey 0 Alaska 0 New Hampshire 0 * In 1901 one Indian and one Chinaman lynched. † In 1902 one Indian lynched. From these tables certain facts may be deduced. The first is that, in the year of which an analysis is given (1900), over nine-tenths of the lynchings occurred in the South, where only about one-third of the population of the country were, but where nine- tenths of the negroes were; secondly, that, of these lynchings, about nine-tenths were of negroes and one-third were in the three States where the negroes are most numerous; thirdly, that, while the lynchings appear to be diminishing at the South, the ratio, at least, is increasing at the North. It further appears that, though lynching began as a punishment for assault on white women, it has extended until less than one-fourth of the instances are for this crime, while over three-fourths of them are for murder, attempts at murder, or some less heinous offence. This may be accounted for, in part, by the fact that the murders in the South partake somewhat of the nature of race-conflicts. Over 2,700 lynchings in eighteen years are enough to stagger the mind. Either we are relapsing into barbarism, or there is some terrific cause for our reversion to the methods of mediaevalism, and our laws are inefficient to meet it. The only gleam of light is that, of late years, the number appears to have diminished. To get at the remedy, we must first get at the cause. Time was when the crime of assault was unknown throughout the South. During the whole period of slavery, it did not exist, nor did it exist to any considerable extent for some years after Emancipation. During the War, the men were away in the army, and the negroes were the loyal guardians of the women and children. On isolated plantations and in lonely ! neighbor hoods, women were as secure as in the streets of Boston or New York. Then came the period and process of Reconstruction, with its teachings. Among these was the teaching that the negro was the equal of the white, that the white was his enemy, and that he must assert his equality. The growth of the idea was a gradual one in the negro’s mind. This was followed by a number of cases where members of the negro militia ravished white women; in some instances in the presence of their families.*[A] The result of the hostility between the Southern whites and Government at that time was to throw the former upon their own acts for their defence or revenge, with a consequent training in lawless punishment of acts which should have been punished by law. And here lynching had its evil origin. It was suggested some time ago, in a thoughtful paper read by Professor Wilcox, that a condition something like this had its rise in France during the religious wars. The first instance of rape, outside of these attacks by armed negroes, and of consequent lynching, that attracted the attention of the country was a case which occurred in Mississippi, where the teaching of equality and of violence found one of its most fruitful fields. A negro dragged a woman down into the woods, and tying her, kept her bound there a prisoner for several days, when he butchered her. He was caught and was lynched. With the resumption of local power by the whites came the temporary and partial ending of the crimes of assault and of lynching. As the old relation, which had survived even the strain of Reconstruction, dwindled with the passing of the old generation from the stage, and the “New Issue” with the new teaching took its place, the crime broke out again with renewed violence. The idea of equality began to percolate more extensively among the negroes. In evidence of it is the fact that since the assaults began again they have been chiefly directed against the plainer order of people, instances of ! attacks on women of the upper class, though not unknown, being of rare occurrence.*[B] Conditions in the South render the commission of this crime peculiarly easy. The white population is sparse, the forests are extensive, the officers of the law distant and difficult to reach; but, above all, the negro population has appeared inclined to condone the fact of mere assault. Twenty-five years ago, women went unaccompanied and unafraid throughout the South, as they still go throughout the North. To-day, no white woman, or girl, or female child, goes alone out of sight of the house except on necessity; and no man leaves his wife alone in his house, if he can help it. Cases have occurred of assault and murder in broad day, within sight and sound of the victim’s home. Indeed, an instance occurred not a great while ago in the District of Columbia, within a hundred yards of a fashionable drive, when, about three o’clock of a bright June day, a young girl was attacked within sight and sound of her house, and when she screamed her throat was cut. So near to her home was the spot that her mother and an officer, hearing her cries, reached her before life was extinct. For a time, the ordinary course of the law was, in the main, relied on to meet the trouble; but it was found that, notwithstanding the inevitable infliction of the death penalty, several evils resulted therefrom. The chief one was that the ravishing of women, instead of diminishing, steadily increased. The criminal, under the ministrations of his preachers, usually professed to have “gotten religion,” and from the shadow of the gallows called on his friends to follow him to glory. So that the punishment lost to these emotional people much of its deterrent force, especially where the real sympathy of the race was mainly with the criminal rather than with his victim. Another evil was the dreadful necessity of calling on the innocent victim, who, if she survived, as she rarely did, was already bowed to the earth by shame, to relate in public! the sto ry of the assault--an ordeal which was worse than death. Yet another was the delay in the execution of the law. With these, however, was one other which, perhaps, did more than all the rest together to wrest the trial and punishment from the Courts and carry them out by mob-violence. This was the unnamable brutality with which the causing crime was, in nearly every case, attended. The death of the victim of the ravisher was generally the least of the attendant horrors. In Texas, in Mississippi, in Georgia, in Kentucky, in Colorado, as later in Delaware, the facts in the case were so unspeakable that they have never been put in print. They could not be put in print. It is these unnamable horrors which have outraged the minds of those who live in regions where they have occurred, and where they may at any time occur again, and, upsetting reason, have swept from their bearings cool men and changed them into madmen, drunk with the lust of revenge. Not unnaturally, such barbarity as burning at the stake has shocked the sense of the rest of the country, and, indeed, of the world. But it is well for the rest of the country, and for the world, to know that it has also shocked the sense of the South, and, in their calmer moments, even the sense of those men who, in their frenzy, have been guilty of it. Only, a deeper shock than even this is at the bottom of their ferocious rage—the shock which comes from the ravishing and butchery of their women and children. It is not necessary to be an apologist for barbarity because one states with bluntness the cause. The stern underlying principle of the people who commit these barbarities is one that has its root deep in the basic passions of humanity; the determination to put an end to the ravishing of their women by an inferior race, no matter what the consequence. For a time, a speedy execution by hanging was the only mode of retribution resorted to by the lynchers; then, when this failed of its purpose, a more savage method was essayed, born of a! savage fury at the failure of the first, and a stern resolve to strike a deeper terror into those whom the other method had failed to awe. The following may serve as an illustration. Ten or twelve years ago, the writer lectured one afternoon in the early spring in a town in the cotton-belt of Texas--one of the prettiest towns in the Southwest. The lecture was delivered in the Court-house. The writer was introduced by a gentleman who had been a member of the Confederate Cabinet and a Senator of the United States, and the audience was composed of refined and cultured people, representing, perhaps, every State from Maine to Texas. Two days later, the papers contained the account of the burning at the stake in this town of a negro. He had picked up a little girl of five or six years of age on the street where she was playing in front of her home, and carried her off, telling her that her mother had sent him for her; and when she cried, he had soothed her with candy which, with deliberate prevision, he had bought for the purpose. When she was found, she was unrecognizable. With her little body broken and mangled, he had cut her throat and thrown her into a ditch. A strong effort was made to save him for the law, but without avail: the people had reverted to the primal law of vengeance. Farmers came from fifty miles to see that vengeance was exacted. They had resolved to strike terror into the breasts of all, so that such a crime could never occur again. This was, perhaps, the second or third instance of burning in the country. Of late, lynching at the stake has spread beyond the region where it has such reason for existence as may be given by the conditions that prevail in the South. Three frightful instances by burning have occurred recently in Northern States, in communities where some of these conditions were partly wanting. The horror of the main fact of lynching was increased, in two of the cases, by a concerted attack on a large element of the negro population which was wholly i! nnocent. Even the unoffending negroes were driven from their homes, a consequence which has never followed in the South, where it might seem there was more occasion for it. It thus appears that the original crime, and also the consequent one in its most brutal form, are not confined to the South, and, possibly, are only more frequent there because of the greater number of negroes in that section. The deep racial instincts are not limited by geographical bounds. These last-mentioned lynchings were so ferocious, and so unwarranted by any such necessity, real or fancied, as may be thought to exist at the South by reason of the frequency of assault and the absence of a strong police force, that they not unnaturally called forth almost universal condemnation. The President felt it proper to write an open letter, commending the action of the Governor of Indiana on the proper and efficient exercise of his authority to uphold the law and restore order in his State. But who has ever thought it necessary to commend the Governors of the Southern States under similar circumstances? The militia of some of the Southern States are almost veterans, so frequently have they been called on to protect wretches whose crimes stank in the nostrils of all decent men. The Governor of Virginia boasted, a few years ago, that no lynching should take place during his incumbency, and he nearly made good his boast; though, to do so, he had to call out at one time or another almost the entire force of the State. Editorials in some of the Eastern papers note with astonishment recent instances where law-officers in the South have protected their prisoners or eluded a mob. The writers of these editorials know so little of the South that one is scarcely surprised at their ignorance. But men are hanged by law for this crime of assault every few months in some State in the South. A few years ago, Sheriff Smith, of Birmingham, protected a murderer at the cost of many lives; a little later, Mayor Prout, of Roanoke, defended a n! egro rav isher and murderer, and, though the mob finally succeeded in their aim, six men were killed by the guards before the jail was carried. These are only two of the many instances in which brave and faithful officers have, at the risk of their lives, defended their charges against that most terrible of all assailants—a determined mob.* *The following table is from the Chicago Tribune. The number of legal executions in 1900 was 118, as compared with 131 in 1899, 109 in 1898, 128 in 1897, 122 in 1896, 132 in 1895, 132 in 1894, 126 in 1893, and 107 in 1892. The executions in the several States and Territories were in 1900 as follows: Alabama 4 New York 3 Arkansas 0 Nevada 0 California 5 North Carolina 9 Colorado 0 North Dakota 1 Connecticut 1 Ohio 1 Delaware 0 Oregon 1 Florida 1 Pennsylvania 15 Georgia 14 Rhode Island 0 Idaho 2 South Carolina 3 Illinois 0 South Dakota 0 Indiana 0 Tennessee 4 Iowa 0 Texas 18 Kansas 0 Vermont 0 Kentucky 0 Virginia 7 Louisiana 6 West Virginia 0 Maine 0 Wisconsin 0 Maryland 3 Wyoming 0 Massachusetts 0 Washington 2 Michigan 0 Arizona 4 Minnesota 0 District of Columbia 3 Mississippi 1 New Mexico 0 Missouri 3 Utah 0 Montana 3 Indian Territory 0 Nebraska 0 Oklahoma 0 New Jersey 4 Alaska 0 New Hampshire 0 There were 80 hanged in the South and 39 in the North, of whom 60 were whites, 58 were blacks, and one a Chinaman. The crimes for which they were executed were: murder, 113; rape, 5; arson, 1. Thus, of the 119 hangings, about two-thirds (80) were in the South and one-third (39) in the North; about one-half (60) of the entire number were of whites, and one-half (58) were of blacks. So, the South appears to have done its part in the matter of punishing by law as well as by violence. For a time, the assaults by negroes were confined to young women who were caught alone in solitary and secluded places. The company even of a child was sufficient to protect ! them. Th en the ravishers grew bolder, and attacks followed on women when they were in company. And then, not content with this, the ravishers began to attack women in their own homes. Sundry instances of this have occurred within the last few years. As an illustration, may be cited the notorious case of Samuel Hose, who, after making a bet with a negro preacher that he could have access to a white woman, went into a farmer’s house while the family, father, mother, and child, were at supper; brained the man with his axe; threw the child into a corner with a violence which knocked it senseless, and ravished the wife and mother with unnamable horrors, butchered her and bore away with him the indisputable proof of having won his wager. He was caught and was burnt. Another instance, only less appalling, occurred two years ago in Lynchburg, Virginia, where the colored janitor of a white female school, who had been brought up and promoted by the Superintendent of Schools, and was regarded as a shining example of what education might accomplish with his race, entered the house of a respectable man one morning, after the husband, who was a foreman in a factory, had gone to his work; and ravished the wife, and then putting his knee on her breast, coolly cut her throat as he might have done a calf’s. There was no attempt at lynching; but the Governor, resolved to preserve the good name of the commonwealth, felt it necessary to order out two regiments of soldiers, in which course he was sustained by the entire sentiment of the State. These cases were neither worse nor better than many of those which have occurred in the South in the last twenty years, and in that period hundreds of women and a number of children have been ravished and slain. Now, how is this crime of assault to be stopped? For stopped it must be, and stopped it will be, whatever the cost. One proposition is that separation of the races, complete separation, is the only remedy. The theory appears Utopian. Colonization has been! the dre am of certain philanthropists for a hundred years. And, meantime, the negroes have increased from less than a million to nine millions. They will never be deported; not because we have not the money, for an amount equal to that spent in pensions during three years would pay the expenses of such deportation, and an amount equal to that paid in six years would set them up in a new country. But the negroes have rights; many of them are estimable citizens; and even the body of them, when well regulated, are valuable laborers. It might, therefore, as well be assumed that this plan will never be carried out, unless the occasion becomes so imperative that all other rights give way to the supreme right of necessity. It is plain, then, that we must deal with the matter in a more practicable manner, accepting conditions as they are, and applying to them legal methods which will be effective. Lynching does not end ravishing, and that is the prime necessity. Most right- thinking men are agreed as to this. Indeed, lynching, through lacking the supreme principle of law, the deliberateness from which is supposed to come the certainty of identification, fails utterly to meet the necessity of the case even as a deterrent. Not only have assaults occurred again and again in the same neighborhood where lynching has followed such crime; but, a few years ago, it was publicly stated that a negro who had just witnessed a lynching for this crime actually committed an assault on his way home. However this may be, lynching as a remedy is a ghastly failure; and its brutalizing effect on the community is incalculable. The charge that is often made, that the innocent are sometimes lynched, has little foundation. The rage of a mob is not directed against the innocent, but against the guilty; and its fury would not be satisfied with any other sacrifices than the death of the real criminal. Nor does the criminal merit any consideration, however terrible the punishment. The real injury is to the perpetrators of the crime ! of destr oying the law, and to the community in which the law is slain.[C] It is pretty generally conceded that the “law’s delay” is partly responsible for the “wild justice” of mob vengeance, and this has undoubtedly been the cause of many mobs. But it is far from certain if any change in the methods of administration of law will effect the stopping of lynching; while to remedy this evil we may bring about a greater peril. Trial by jury is the bed-rock of our liberties, and the inherent principle of such trial is its deliberateness. It has been said that the whole purpose of the Constitution of Great Britain is that twelve men may sit in the jury-box. The methods of the law may well be reformed; but any movement should be jealously scanned which touches the chief barrier of all liberty. The first step, then, would appear to be the establishment of a system securing a reasonably prompt trial and speedy execution by law, rather than a wholesome revolution of the existing system. Many expedients have been suggested; some of the most drastic by Northern men. One of them proposed, not long since, that to meet the mob--spirit, a trial somewhat in the nature of a drum-head court-martial might be established by law, by which the accused may be tried and, if found guilty, executed immediately. Others have proposed as a remedy emasculation by law; while a Justice of the Supreme Court has recently given the weight of his personal opinion in favor of prompt trial and the abolishment of appeals in such cases. Even the terrible suggestion has been made that burning at the stake might be legalized! These suggestions testify how grave the matter is considered to be by those who make them. But none of these, unless it be the one relating to emasculation, is more than an expedient. The trouble lies deeper. The crime of lynching is not likely to cease until the crime of ravishing and murdering women and children is less frequent than it has been of late. And this crime, which is will-nigh wholly con! fined to the negro race, will not greatly diminish until the negroes themselves take it in hand and stamp it out. From recent developments, it may be properly inferred that the absence of this crime during the period of Slavery was due more to the feeling among the negroes themselves than to any repressive measures on the part of the whites. The negro had the same animal instincts in Slavery that he exhibits now; the punishment that follows the crime now is as certain, as terrible, and as swift as it could have been then. So, to what is due the alarming increase of this terrible brutality? To the writer it appears plain that it is due to two things: first, to racial antagonism and to the talk of social inequality, from which it first sprang, that inflames the ignorant negro, who has grown up unregulated and undisciplined; and, secondly, to the absence of a strong restraining public opinion among the negroes of any class, which alone can extirpate the crime. In the first place, the negro does not generally believe in the virtue of women. It is beyond his experience. He does not generally believe in the existence of actual assault. It is beyond his comprehension. In the next place, his passion, always his controlling force, is now, since the new teaching, for the white woman.*[D] That there are many negroes who are law-abiding and whose influence is for good, no one who knows the worthy members of the race, those who represent the better element, will deny. But while there are, of course, notable exceptions, they are not often of the “New Issue,” nor even generally among the prominent leaders: those who publish papers and control conventions. As the crime of rape had its baleful origin in the teaching of equality and the placing of power in the ignorant negroes’ hands, so its perpetration and increase have undoubtedly been due in large part to the same teaching. The intelligent negro may understand what social equality truly means; but to the ignorant and brutal young negro, it ! signifie s but one thing: the opportunity to enjoy, equally with white men, the privilege of cohabiting with white women. This the whites of the South understand; and if it were understood abroad, it would serve to explain some things which have not been understood hitherto. It will explain, in part, the universal and furious hostility of the South to even the least suggestion of social equality. A close following of the instances of rape and lynching, and the public discussion consequent thereon, has led the writer to the painful realization that even the leaders of the negro race--at least, those who are prominent enough to hold conventions and write papers on the subject--have rarely, by act or word, shown a true appreciation of the enormity of the crime of ravishing and murdering women. Their discussion and denunciation have been almost invariably and exclusively devoted to the crime of lynching. Underlying most of their protests is the suggestion, that the victim of the mob is innocent and a martyr. Now and then, there is a mild generalization on the evil of lawbreaking and the violation of women; but, for one stern word of protest against violating women and cutting their throats, the records of negro meetings will show many against the attack of the mob on the criminal. And, as to any serious and determined effort to take hold of and stamp out the crime that is blackening the entire negro race to- day, and arousing against them the fatal and possibly the undying enmity of the stronger race, there is, with the exception of the utterances of a few score individuals like Booker Washington, who always speaks for the right, Hannibal Thomas and Bishop Turner, hardly a trace of such a thing. A crusade has been preached against lynching, even as far as England; but none has been thought of against the ravishing and tearing to pieces of white women and children. Happily, there is an element of sound-minded, law-abiding negroes, representative of the old negro, who without parade stand for good order! , and do what they can to repress lawlessness among their people. But for this class and the kindly relations which are preserved between them and the whites, the situation in the South would long since have become unbearable. These, however, are not generally among the leaders, and, unfortunately, their influence is not sufficiently extended to counteract the evil influences which are at work with such fatal results. One who reads the utterances of negro orators and preachers on the subject of lynching, and who knows the negro race, cannot doubt that, at bottom, their sympathy is generally with the “victim” of the mob, and not with his victim. Until the negroes shall create among themselves a sound public opinion which, instead of fostering, shall reprobate and sternly repress the crime of assaulting women and children, the crime will never be extirpated, and until this crime is stopped the crime of lynching will never be extirpated. Lynching will never be done away with while the sympathy of the whites is with the lynchers, and no more will ravishing be done away with while the sympathy of the negroes is with the ravisher. When the negroes shall stop applying all their energies to harboring and defending negroes, no matter what their crime so it be against the whites, and shall distinguish between the law-abiding negro and the law-breaker, a long step will have been taken. Should the negroes sturdily and faithfully set themselves to prevent the crime of rape by members of that race, it could be stamped out. Should the whites set themselves against lynching, lynching would be stopped. The remedy then is plain. Let the negroes take charge of the crime of ravishing and firmly put it away from them, and let the whites take charge of the crime of lynching and put it away from them. It is time that the races should address themselves to the task; for it is with nations as with individual men; whatsoever they sow that shall they also reap. It is the writer’s belief that the arrest and ! the prom pt handing over to the law of negroes by negroes, for assault on white women, would do more to break up ravishing, and to restore amicable relations between the two races, than all the resolutions of all the Conventions and all the harangues of all the politicians. It has been tried in various States to put an end to lynching by making the county in which the lynching occurs liable in damages for the crime. It is a good theory; and, if it has not worked well, it is because of the difficulty of executing the provision. Could some plan be devised to array each race against the crime to which it is prone, both rape and lynching might be diminished, if not wholly prevented. The practical application of such a principle is difficult, but, perhaps, it is not impossible. It is possible that in every community negroes might be appointed officers of the law, to look exclusively after lawbreakers of their own race. The English in the East manage such matters well, under equally complicated and delicate conditions. For example, in the Island of Malta, where the population are of different classes among whom a certain jealousy exists, there are several classes of police: the naval police, the military police, and the civil or municipal police. To each of these is assigned more especially the charge of one of the three classes of whom the population of the Island is composed. Again, in Hong Kong, where the situation is even more delicate, there are several classes of police: the English, the Chinese, and the Indian police. Only the first are empowered to make general arrests; the others have powers relating exclusively to the good order of the races to which they belong, though they may in all cases be called in to assist the English police. Somewhat in the same way, the negroes might be given within their province powers sufficiently full to enable them to keep order among their people, and they might on the other hand be held to a certain accountability for such good order. It might even be ! required that every person should be listed and steadily kept track of, as is one in Germany at present. The recent vagrant laws of Georgia, where there are more negroes than in the entire North, are an attempt in this direction. In the same way, the white officials charged with the good order of the county or town might be given enlarged powers of summoning posses, and might be held to a high accountability. For example, ipso facto forfeiture of the official bond and removal from office, with perpetual disability to hold any office again, might be provided as a penalty for permitting any persons to be taken out of their hands. Few ravishings by negroes would occur if the more influential members of the race were held accountable for the good order of their race in every community; and few lynchings would occur, at least after the prisoners were in the hands of the officers of the law, if those officers, by the mere fact of relinquishing their prisoners should be disqualified from ever holding office again. These suggestions may be as Utopian as others which have been made; but if they cannot be carried out, it is because the ravishings by negroes and the murders by mobs have their roots so deep in racial instincts that nothing can eradicate them, and in such case the ultimate issue will be a resort to the final test of might, which in the last analysis underlies everything. |
WHERE THE NATIVE AMERICANS GOT THE NAME INDIANS
It was stated by Russell Means that he was given
documents
from scholars in Turin, Italy (the true home of the Shroud of Turin) that
the Native people of this continent were called "Indians", not because of so
called confusion between this land and India, but because the early
explorers to this continent saw the spiritual nature of the Original Man
living here and wrote back to Italy and Spain and said "these people are
Indios (In-Dios)" meaning, In God or with God.
Please share this little known fact with the Universal Zulu Nation. Respect
due, Bro. Ernie Panicciolio
That Phoebe Fraunces a Black women saved George Washington's life on the eve
of the Revolutionary War. The British had a agent Irishman name Thomas Hickey,
who was George Washingtons bodyguard who had an intimate friendship with Fraunces and gave her
a dish of poisoned peas to served Washington when he came for dinner. She became suspicious of the Irishmans
actions and warned Washington, who threw away the peas into the yard, where some chickens ate the peas and fell dead
. For Hickey assassination attempt on Washington's life, he was hanged before a crowed of 20,000 in
New York City. Both Miss Fraunces and her father, Black Sam were officially recognized by the Continental
Congress for their service to the fledging country and given a sum of money. When George became Americas
President, he appointed Fraunces White House steward.
That President Ulysses Grant was probably the first and only American President to be arrested, and that it was a Black
District of Columbia policeman by the name of Officer William West who performed the deed in
the 19th century. Officer West book the President for violating the district speeding law and for professionalism as an officer of the law,
the President later on promoted Officer West to a mounted policeman. President Grant not want to be in the public eye as someone who is above the law.
HISTORY LINKS
Noontide Press Moors Paper Writing :: Book Reports :: American ... KKK SITES
Moroccan African Moors Mulims First to America? Islam in America
Muslim Legacy in Early Americas - W. Africans, Moors tribal Terrorism
American History From About African-Amercian History The African African Americans Indians
The African-American Mosaic Exhibition (Library of Congress) Native Americans
The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History America's West - Development & History
American Indian Genealogy and Media Sites by Phil Konstantin American Indian History Resources
On This Date in North American Indian History by Phil Konstantin African Americans - Black Indians
American President: Presidential History Resources American President
The North Star: A Journal of African-American Religious History THE SLAUGHTER
Black Indians (Afro-Native Americans) American Women's History: A Research Guide
Documents For The Study Of American History American Military History LYNCHINGS
American History, Page 1, Spanish Conquest of Native America American History Sites
Europe blackantiquity
African Presence in the Americas 1492 - 1992
The 1700's
http://www.phoenixmasonry.org/masonicmuseum/fraternalism/red_men.htm
http://www.abaris.net/freemasonry/marin_red_men.htm
The African Presence in the Americas many centuries before Columbus
http://www.abaris.net/freemasonry/marin_red_men.htm
Colonization: African-American Mosaic Exhibition
http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~shannara/Emblems/emblemidx.htm
Colonization Civil Rights AFRO-AMERICAN ALMANAC - African-American History Resource
Our Shared History, African American Heritage African American History: Welcome
www.martygrant.com/gen/origins.htm
Hitchhiker's
Guide to American History
Popular Songs in American History
VODOUN
American Cultural History - Decade 1920-1929 Center for History of Physics Home Page
The Avalon Project : Chronology of American History Money in North American History
American History Government
African American History - Black History Resources - Academic Info
Colonial American History Social Studies Resources Historical Text Archive BLACK INDIANS
The Journal of the Moorish Paradigm First Nations Histories
LATIN AMERICA-COLONIAL ECONOMIC HISTORY NEVADA-19TH-CENTURY MINING HISTORY
Civil War American History 1860 1865 Timeline Battle Map Maps of Native American Nations, History, Info
Bibliography II NATIVE AMERICANS A History of RACISM
1499 Amerigo Vespucci and Alonso de Hojeda sail for South America and reach mouth of Amazon
1502 Vespucci, after second voyage, concludes South America is not part of India and names it Mundus Novus.
1513 Balboa crosses Isthmus of Panama and reaches Pacific for the first time, but believes it to be part of the Indian Ocean.
1513 Ponce de Leon, searching for the "fountain of youth" reaches and names Florida.
1519 Cortes enters Tenochtitlan (Mexico City); Domenico de Pineda explores Gulf of Mexico from Florida to Vera Cruz.
1522 Andagoya discovers Peru
1523 Jamaica founded.
1531 Pizarro invades Peru, conquers Incas.
1535 Lima founded.
1536 Buenos Aires founded.
1538 Bogota founded.
1539 First printing press in New World set up in Mexico City.
1540 Grand Canyon discovered.
1541 De soto discovers Mississippi River; Coronado explores from New Mexico across Texas, Oklahoma, and eastern Kansas.
1549 Jesuit missionaries arrive in South America.
1551 Universities founded in Lima and Mexico City;
1565 ST. Augustine founded (razed by Francis Drake in 1586).
1567 Rio de Janeiro founded.
1605 Santa Fe, New Mexico founded (date in dispute; some say 1609).
A Lesson in
Black History
The Statue of Liberty
It is hard to believe that after my many years of schooling (secondary and
post) the following facts about the Statue of Liberty were never taught.
Hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of people including myself have
visited the Statue of Liberty over the years but yet I'm unable to find one
person who knows the true history behind the Statue...amazing!
Yes, amazing that so much important Black history (such as this) is hidden
from us (Black and White). What makes this even worse is the fact that the
current twist on history perpetuates and promotes white supremacy at the
expense of Black Pride!
During my visit to France I saw the original Statue of Liberty. However,
there was a difference...the statue in France is BLACK!!!!!!
"Ya learn something new everyday!"
The Statue of Liberty was originally a Black woman. But, as memory serves,
it was because the model was Black. In a book called "The Journey of The
Songhai People," as Dr. Jim Haskins (a member of the National Education
Advisory Committee of the Liberty-Ellis Island Committee, professor of
English at the University of Florida, and prolific Black author) points out
that is what stimulated the original idea for that 151 foot statue in the
harbor. He says that the idea for the creation of the statue initially was
to acknowledge the part that Black soldiers played in the ending of Black
African Bondage in the United States.
It was created in the mind of the French historian Edourd de Laboulaye,
Chairman of the French Anti-Slavery Society, who, together with sculptor
Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, proposed to the French government that the
people of France present to the people of the United States through the
American Abolitionist Society, the gift of a Statue of Liberty in
recognition of the fact that Black soldiers won the Civil War in the United
States. It was widely known then that it was Black Soldiers who played the
pivotal role in winning the war, and this gift would be a tribute to their
prowess.
Suzanne Nakasian, director of the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island
Foundations' National Ethnic Campaign said that the Black Americans' direct
connection to Lady Liberty is unknown to the majority of Americans, BLACK
or WHITE.
When the statue was presented to the US. Minister to France in 1884, it is
said that he remonstrated that the dominant view of the broken shackles
would be offensive to the U.S. South because the statue was a reminder of
Blacks winning their freedom. It was a reminder to a beaten South of the
ones who caused their defeat, their despised former captives.
Documents of Proof:
1.) You may go and see the original model of the Statue of Liberty, with
the broken chains at her feet and in her left hand. Go to the Museum of the
City of NY, Fifth Avenue and 103rd Street (212) 534-1672 or call the same
number and dial ext. 208 and speak to Peter Simmons and he can send you
some documentation.
2.) Check with the N. Y. Times magazine, part II May 18, 1986.
3.) The dark original face of the Statue of Liberty can be seen in the N.
Y. Post June 17, 1986, also the Post stated the reason for the broken
chains at her feet.
4.) Finally, you may check with the French Mission or the French Embassy at
the U.N. or in Washington, D.C. and ask for some original French material
on the Statue of Liberty, including the Bartholdi original model. You can
call (202) 944-6060 or 6400.
Please pass this information along! Be sure to send it to people with
children! Open a dialog and discuss it with your friends! Let this be the
beginning of your quest for the Truth about American History past and
present!
ORIGINS
OF THE POLICE DEPARTMENT
The contests herein give a historical development of
Police forces in the U.S.
19th Century
Organized polices forces as we know them today are a comparatively recent thing in U.S. history. Until the middle of the 19th century, the cities were usually guarded by what was called the “watch system”, meaning a handful of men who patrolled the streets during the night, sometimes calling out the time and the state of the weather. The night watch system was noted for disorganization and inefficiency. Little was expected of it and it wasn’t considered an important service to deserve much money or attention. Watchmen were notorious for falling asleep or being drunk on the job.
1838
The first major change in this system came when Boston introduced a “DAY” watch, composed of six men, to compliment its night watch.
1844
New York City created a “Day and Night Police”, the first to combine both day and night watches into a single force. This was the forerunner of the modern city police, and its example was followed by many cities;
1851 Chicago
1852 Cincinnati and New Orleans
1854 Philadelphia and Boston
1857 Baltimore and Newark
By the 1870’s, virtually every major city in the U.S. had created an organized police force along the lines that are still the basis of most police organizations in this country.
The usual answer given by liberal police historians stresses the increasing population density and ethnic diversity in the cities that came with the beginning of massive immigration from the 1830’s onward. This explanation only scratches the surface and is basically misleading. Although increasing population and ethnic diversity were important features of this period, there is no reason why, in themselves, they should call forth greatly increased use of police force.
The basic social process going on from the 1830’s to the 1860’s was the beginning of industrial capitalism in the United States, and the emergence of the typical class structure that industrial capitalism creates. Before this time, of course there were poor people in the cities: but capitalist industrialization dramatically increased their numbers, their visibility, and their militancy, and therefore increased the problems of “social control.”
Regional Police Department: Northeast/Midwest
Immigration from the American countryside and from overseas (at this time mainly from Ireland and Germany) provided a steady supply of cheap labor for the growing factories of the industrial Northeast and Midwest. Between 1810 and 1870, the number of factory workers in the U.S.; as a whole increased from about 75 thousand to about 2.5 million. This early industrial work force was subject to harsh exploitation in the factories and grim living conditions in the growing slums of the industrial cities.
Militant conflict between workers and owners began on a large scale with the first stirrings of a significant American Labor Movement. At the same time, rioting in the cities was common and rates of crime were high. The wealthy and powerful began to define working people and the unemployed poor as the “dangerous classes” and to demand more effective means of controlling and disciplining them. They had an example available over seas since England had undergone the process of capitalist industrialization somewhat earlier, they also were the first to develop modern police forces, and most of the early U.S. police departments took their basic form from the London police , created in 183?
The development of the police was somewhat different in the south and southwest. In the south, the early urban police forces were designed mainly to control slave and free blacks in the cities, and in the southwest the early police were developed in connection with the subordination of Mexicans and Native Americans, rather than an immigrant industrial working class.
Brutality and unpredictability in behavior.
Although these early police forces were designed as instruments of class domination, they were generally ineffective instruments and were usually regarded as such. There were two main reasons for this;
1. The early police were sometimes to close to the
Classes and communities they were suppose to
Be controlling
2. When they were not, they relied almost entirely
On the most primitive method of control, BRUTE FORCE
Although designed to intimidate and control the “dangerous classes”, the police were usually recruited at least partly from those classes and were therefore unreliable often as enforcers of the interests of property and power. It’s doubtful that the police forces of many cities ever consistently represented the interests of the poor, but they were sometimes sympathetic with them to a significant extent. This became especially clear during some of the labor violence of the 1880’s, when several local police forces refused to intimidate strikers, and military troops had to be called in.
The development of the National Guard system, which took place between 1877 and 1892, was one result of this unreliability of the local police. Originally officered mainly by business and professional men, and sometimes directly subsidized by wealthy industrialists, the National Guard was specifically designed to be a more direct and therefore more reliable instrument of the wealthy and propertied.
Bell
did not invent telephone, US rules
Scot accused of finding fame by stealing Italian's ideas
Rory Carroll in Rome
Monday June 17, 2002
The Guardian
Italy hailed the redress of a historic injustice yesterday after the
US Congress recognised an impoverished Florentine immigrant as the
inventor of the telephone rather than Alexander Graham Bell.
Historians and Italian-Americans won their battle to persuade
Washington to recognise a little-known mechanical genius, Antonio
Meucci, as a father of modern communications, 113 years after his
death.
The vote by the House of Representatives prompted joyous claims in
Meucci's homeland that finally Bell had been outed as a perfidious
Scot who found fortune and fame by stealing another man's work.
Calling the Italian's career extraordinary and tragic, the resolution
said his "teletrofono", demonstrated in New York in 1860, made him
the inventor of the telephone in the place of Bell, who had access to
Meucci's materials and who took out a patent 16 years later.
"It is the sense of the House of Representatives that the life and
achievements of Antonio Meucci should be recognised, and his work in
the invention of the telephone should be acknowledged," the
resolution stated.
Bell's immortalisation in books and films has rankled with
generations of Italians who know Meucci's story. Born in 1808, he
studied design and mechanical engineering at the Academy of Fine Arts
in Florence, and as a stage technician at the city's Teatro della
Pergola developed a primitive system to help colleagues communicate.
In the 1830s he moved to Cuba and, while working on methods to treat
illnesses with electric shocks, found that sounds could travel by
electrical impulses through copper wire. Sensing potential, he moved
to Staten Island, near New York City, in 1850 to develop the
technology.
When Meucci's wife, Ester, became paralysed he rigged a system to
link her bedroom with his neighbouring workshop and in 1860 held a
public demonstration which was reported in New York's Italian-
language press.
In between giving shelter to political exiles, Meucci struggled to
find financial backing, failed to master English and was severely
burned in an accident aboard a steamship.
Forced to make new prototype telephones after Ester sold his machines
for $6 to a secondhand shop, his models became more sophisticated. An
inductor formed around an iron core in the shape of a cylinder was a
technique so sophisticated that it was used decades later for long-
distance connections.
Meucci could not afford the $250 needed for a definitive patent for
his "talking telegraph" so in 1871 filed a one-year renewable notice
of an impending patent. Three years later he could not even afford
the $10 to renew it.
He sent a model and technical details to the Western Union telegraph
company but failed to win a meeting with executives. When he asked
for his materials to be returned, in 1874, he was told they had been
lost. Two years later Bell, who shared a laboratory with Meucci,
filed a patent for a telephone, became a celebrity and made a
lucrative deal with Western Union.
Meucci sued and was nearing victory - the supreme court agreed to
hear the case and fraud charges were initiated against Bell - when
the Florentine died in 1889. The legal action died with him.
Yesterday the newspaper La Repubblica welcomed the vote to recognise
the Tuscan inventor as a belated comeuppance for Bell, a "cunning
Scotsman" and "usurper" whose per- fidy built a communications
empire.
From:
EIngram517
Startling Facts.....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
These facts are very interesting. Here are
a few of the things learned
at the Black Think Tank this week.
Facts:
1. The first Americans or native Americans going back to
13,000 BC were
black! Look up the Folsom people who
lived in Arizona.
2. Best reason to stop our use of the term African
American and say
Black. A white person who was born in Africa, who moves
to America is an
African American and qualifies for financial aid, etc., but will get the
jobs/pay privileges afforded to whites.
3. Look up the Slavery Law of 1665 (which stayed
in effect until 1968)
and the Maryland Doctrine of Exclusion (1638): both laws
state that
blacks must be excluded from the benefits afforded whites and
that
blacks must remain noncompetitive with whites, except in
sports and
entertainment.
4. Two white men: Bill Gates and Larry Elision,
combined have more
wealth than the combined wealth of all 36 million
blacks in America.
Civil Rights did not change the economic landscape or the
balance of power
in America.
5. Asians received 80% of all government
minority set aside contracts.
Hello!!!!!!!
6. Blacks eat more fish than whites by a
four to one margin. For every
dollar whites spend on fish, blacks spend nine
dollars on fish. Fish
sold wholesale for will retail at $2.50 --$3.00.
Guess what business we
should be in as Blacks?
7. There are no black owned national cable or
major network television
stations. The black woman who owns our only black owned radio
stations,
plans to sell to white owners after hearing the deal
Bob Johnson
received for selling BET. (Cathy Hughes is from OMAHA, ya'll!)
8. There are no black owned companies on the Wall
Street Stock Exchange
where blacks own the majority or controlling interest of the stock.
9. 96% of all black inmates are men.
10. Over the next two years 440,000 black inmates will be
released from
prison. The State has no place to put them as they
reenter society.
Halfway house business!
11. In 1860, 98% of all Blacks in America worked
for White people.2001,
98% of all Blacks in America still work for white
people.
12. In 1860, blacks in America had a combined net
worth of half of one
percentage point. Guess what in 2001, after Civil
Rights, Jesse Jackson,
Oprah, Shaq, NAACP, and Urban League, our combined net worth
is half a
percentage point.
13. For every dollar earned by a Jewish person, that dollar
touches
12-18 Jewish hands before it leaves their community. For
every dollar
earned by a black person it leaves the community soon as he
or she earns
it.
14. Last week in Washington, DC black teenagers where
arrested and
booked for eating McDonalds on the metro subway. Cops cited
the recent
5-4 court decision as the permission to arrest lawbreakers
even for minor
offenses.
15. 67% of all hate crimes in America are against blacks. After we
get
through being pleased that we have carpet in our office, a
secretary, our
name on the door and make six figures, we do not own anything. What
will
happen if you miss six months of work without pay? All we have left
our
children is debt not an inheritance. You cannot pass
welfare or food
stamps onto our kids as a nest egg! We are not even in the
race. By the
way, the word "race" hit the English language in the
16th century when
Europeans held a contest to see who will win the race
to gather the most wealth through exploitation of
blacks.
You must read Powernomics by Claude
Anderson. This is our blueprint to
create wealth, not just have a job,
but be a business owner, so you can
hire people, be listed on the stock
exchange, develop businesses to meet
our needs.
African Spirituality
and its Influences on
Christianity
Howard University- Blackburn Center / Room 148
Tony Browder s book. Nile Valley Contributions to Civilization, is
about
correcting some of the misconceptions so the reader, in fact, can be
introduced to a Nile Valley civilization in order to understand its
role as
the parent of future civilizations.
These events are free and open to the public and are
sponsored by NCOBRA, UBIQUITY and IKG.
For information call 301-853-2465.
Click Here:
http://www.auser.org/tour.html"
African Centered Tour of Chocolate City
BOOKS by Anthony Browder3
1) From The Browder Files
2) Nile Valley Contributions To Civilization
3) Survival Strategies For African Americans
Washington, D.C. is significant because it was the first city, built
in
modern times, which was laid out on paper before construction began.
The
layout and design of the city was based on plans of city planning and
temple
orientation which were first developed in ancient Kemet (Egypt) andÂ
incorporated in the building of many cities in Europe. The founding
fathers
of the United States borrowed many aspects of Nile Valley symbolism
and
philosophy and incorporated them into the very fabric of the creation
of this
nation. Their intention was to recreate the spiritual essence of Egypt
in the
Americas. The African origins of architecture, symbolism and temple
orientation are discussed during the tour. Also established is the
African
origins of Masonry and the Masonic influence on the development of the
United
States and the District of Columbia.
The African Centered Tour of Washington, D.C. was designed by Tony
Browder in
1986, after his travel to Egypt and realization that many symbols of
ancient
Africa were perpetuated in Washington, D.C. architecture. His tour,
designed
in part to 'instill a sense of self-worth in black Americans about
their
heritage', underscores the architectural and symbolic relationships
between
the Nation's Capital and ancient Egypt.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
The sites visited include:
DISCOVER AMERICA'S BEST KEPT SECRETS IN AN AFRICAN CENTERED TOUR OF
WASHINGTON, D.C.
The sites visited include:
Meridian Hill Park
Scottish Rite Temple
The House of the Temple
Lafayette Park
The White House
The Lincoln Memorial
The Washington Monument
L'Enfant Plaza
The Library of Congress
The Capitol
This tour will reveal:
The Egyptian Origins of Architecture & Masonry
Sacred Architecture & Symbolism
The True Meaning of the Washington Monument
The Spiritual Significance of 16th Street
Masonic Influences on the Design of Washington, D.C.
A Symbolic Interpretation of Numbers
The Library of Congress & the African Origins of Mankind
Recommended Reading
RECOMMENDED READING. YOU CAME INTO THIS WORLD WITH ALL THAT YOU NEEDED
TO
KNOW IN ORDER TO FULFILL YOUR PURPOSE IN THIS LIFE BUT THE YEARS OF
BULL SHIT
HAVE TAKEN OVER YOUR MIND. THIS LIST WILL...
http://www.fearkiller.com/new_page_1.index.htm
THE BILLS OF RIGHTS
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
The judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by citizens of another state, or by citizens or subjects of any foreign state.
The electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate;--The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted;--the person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President. The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each state, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each state shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislatures.
When vacancies happen in the representation of any state in the Senate, the executive authority of such state shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, that the legislature of any state may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.
This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election or term of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution.
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
A number of electors of President and Vice President equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives in Congress to which the District would be entitled if it were a state, but in no event more than the least populous state; they shall be in addition to those appointed by the states, but they shall be considered, for the purposes of the election of President and Vice President, to be electors appointed by a state; and they shall meet in the District and perform such duties as provided by the twelfth article of amendment.
Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.
No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.
1788
THE FEDERALIST PAPERS
NO 1: Introduction
by Alexander Hamilton
-
AFTER an unequivocal experience of the inefficiency of the
subsisting federal government, you are called upon to deliberate on
a new Constitution for the United States of America. The subject
speaks its own importance; comprehending in its consequences nothing
less than the existence of the UNION, the safety and welfare of the
parts of which it is composed, the fate of an empire in many
respects the most interesting in the world. It has been frequently
remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this
country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important
question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of
establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether
they are forever destined to depend for their political
constitutions on accident and force. If there be any truth in the
remark, the crisis at which we are arrived may with propriety be
regarded as the era in which that decision is to be made; and a
wrong election of the part we shall act may, in this view, deserve
to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind.
This idea will add the inducements of philanthropy to those of
patriotism, to heighten the solicitude which all considerate and
good men must feel for the event. Happy will it be if our choice
should be directed by a judicious estimate of our true interests,
unperplexed and unbiased by considerations not connected with the
public good. But this is a thing more ardently to be wished than
seriously to be expected. The plan offered to our deliberations
affects too many particular interests, innovates upon too many local
institutions, not to involve in its discussion a variety of objects
foreign to its merits, and of views, passions, and prejudices little
favorable to the discovery of truth.
Among the most formidable of the obstacles which the new
Constitution will have to encounter may readily be distinguished the
obvious interest of a certain class of men in every State to resist
all changes which may hazard a diminution of the power, emolument, and
consequence of the offices they hold under the State establishments;
and the perverted ambition of another class of men, who will either
hope to aggrandize themselves by the confusions of their country, or
will flatter themselves with fairer prospects of elevation from the
subdivision of the empire into several partial confederacies than from
its union under one government.
It is not, however, my design to dwell upon observations of this
nature. I am well aware that it would be disingenuous to resolve
indiscriminately the opposition of any set of men (merely because
their situations might subject them to suspicion) into interested or
ambitious views. Candor will oblige us to admit that even such men may
be actuated by upright intentions; and it cannot be doubted that
much of the opposition which has made its appearance, or may hereafter
make its appearance, will spring from sources, blameless at least,
if not respectable- the honest errors of minds led astray by
preconceived jealousies and fears. So numerous indeed and so
powerful are the causes which serve to give a false bias to the
judgment, that we, upon many occasions, see wise and good men on the
wrong as well as on the right side of questions of the first magnitude
to society. This circumstance, if duly attended to, would furnish a
lesson of moderation to those who are ever so much persuaded of
their being in the right in any controversy. And a further reason
for caution, in this respect, might be drawn from the reflection
that we are not always sure that those who advocate the truth are
influenced by purer principles than their antagonists. Ambition,
avarice, personal animosity, party opposition, and many other
motives not more laudable than these, are apt to operate as well
upon those who support as those who oppose the right side of a
question. Were there not even inducements to moderation, nothing could
be more ill-judged than that intolerant spirit which has, at all
times, characterized political parties. For in politics as in
religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and
sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution.
And yet, however just these sentiments will be allowed to be, we
have already sufficient indications that it will happen in this as
in all former cases of great national discussion. A torrent of angry
and malignant passions will be let loose. To judge from the conduct of
the opposite parties, we shall be led to conclude that they will
mutually hope to evince the justness of their opinions, and to
increase the number of their converts by the loudness of their
declamations and the bitterness of their invectives. An enlightened
zeal for the energy and efficiency of government will be stigmatized
as the offspring of a temper fond of despotic power and hostile to the
principles of liberty. An over-scrupulous jealousy of danger to the
rights of the people, which is more commonly the fault of the head
than of the heart, will be represented as mere pretence and
artifice, the stale bait for popularity at the expense of the public
good. It will be forgotten, on the one hand, that jealousy is the
usual concomitant of love, and that the noble enthusiasm of liberty is
apt to be infected with a spirit of narrow and illiberal distrust.
On the other hand, it will be equally forgotten that the vigor of
government is essential to the security of liberty; that, in the
contemplation of a sound and well-informed judgment, their interest
can never be separated; and that a dangerous ambition more often lurks
behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than
under the forbidding appearance of zeal for the firmness and
efficiency of the government. History will teach us that the former
has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of
despotism than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned
the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their
career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing
demagogues, and ending tyrants.
In the course of the preceding observations, I have had an eye, my
fellow-citizens, to putting you upon your guard against all
attempts, from whatever quarter, to influence your decision in a
matter of the utmost moment to your welfare, by any impressions
other than those which may result from the evidence of truth. You
will, no doubt, at the same time, have collected from the general
scope of them, that they proceed from a source not unfriendly to the
new Constitution. Yes, my countrymen, I own to you that, after
having given it an attentive consideration, I am clearly of opinion it
is your interest to adopt it. I am convinced that this is the safest
course for your liberty, your dignity, and your happiness. I affect
not reserves which I do not feel. I will not amuse you with an
appearance of deliberation when I have decided. I frankly
acknowledge to you my convictions, and I will freely lay before you
the reasons on which they are founded. The consciousness of good
intentions disdains ambiguity. I shall not, however, multiply
professions on this head. My motives must remain in the depository
of my own breast. My arguments will be open to all, and may be
judged of by all. They shall at least be offered in a spirit which
will not disgrace the cause of truth.
I propose, in a series of papers, to discuss the following
interesting particulars:- The utility of the UNION to your political
prosperity- The insufficiency of the present Confederation to preserve
that Union- The necessity of a government at least equally energetic
with the one proposed, to the attainment of this object- The
conformity of the proposed Constitution to the true principles of
republican government- Its analogy to your own State constitution- and
lastly, The additional security which its adoption will afford to
the preservation of that species of government to liberty, and to
property.
In the progress of this discussion I shall endeavor to give a
satisfactory answer to all the objections which shall have made
their appearance, that may seem to have any claim to your attention.
It may perhaps be thought superfluous to offer arguments to prove
the utility of the UNION, a point, no doubt, deeply engraved on the
hearts of the great body of the people in every State, and one,
which it may be imagined, has no adversaries. But the fact is, that we
already hear it whispered in the private circles of those who oppose
the new Constitution, that the thirteen States are of too great extent
for any general system, and that we must of necessity resort to
separate confederacies of distinct portions of the whole. *001 This
doctrine will, in all probability, be gradually propagated, till it
has votaries enough to countenance an open avowal of it. For nothing
can be more evident, to those who are able to take an enlarged view of
the subject, than the alternative of an adoption of the new
Constitution or a dismemberment of the Union. It will therefore be
of use to begin by examining the advantages of that Union, the certain
evils, and the probable dangers, to which every State will be
exposed from its dissolution. This shall accordingly constitute the
subject of my next address.
- PUBLIUS
NO 2: Concerning Dangers from Foreign Force and Influence
by John Jay
-
WHEN the people of America reflect that they are now called upon
to decide a question, which, in its consequences, must prove one of
the most important that ever engaged their attention, the propriety of
their taking a very comprehensive, as well as a very serious, view
of it, will be evident.
Nothing is more certain than the indispensable necessity of
government, and it is equally undeniable, that whenever and however it
is instituted, the people must cede to it some of their natural
rights, in order to vest it with requisite powers. It is well worthy
of consideration therefore, whether it would conduce more to the
interest of the people of America that they should, to all general
purposes, be one nation, under one federal government, or that they
should divide themselves into separate confederacies, and give to
the head of each the same kind of powers which they are advised to
place in one national government.
It has until lately been a received and uncontradicted opinion, that
the prosperity of the people of America depended on their continuing
firmly united, and the wishes, prayers, and efforts of our best and
wisest citizens have been constantly directed to that object. But
politicians now appear, who insist that this opinion is erroneous, and
that instead of looking for safety and happiness in union, we ought to
seek it in a division of the States into distinct confederacies or
sovereignties. However extraordinary this new doctrine may appear,
it nevertheless has its advocates; and certain characters who were
much opposed to it formerly, are at present of the number. Whatever
may be the arguments or inducements which have wrought this change
in the sentiments and declarations of these gentlemen, it certainly
would not be wise in the people at large to adopt these new
political tenets without being fully convinced that they are founded
in truth and sound policy.
It has often given me pleasure to observe, that independent
America was not composed of detached and distant territories, but that
one connected, fertile, wide-spreading country was the portion of
our western sons of liberty. Providence has in a particular manner
blessed it with a variety of soils and productions, and watered it
with innumerable streams, for the delight and accommodation of its
inhabitants. A succession of navigable waters forms a kind of chain
round its borders, as if to bind it together; while the most noble
rivers in the world, running at convenient distances, present them
with highways for the easy communication of friendly aids, and the
mutual transportation and exchange of their various commodities.
With equal pleasure I have as often taken notice, that Providence
has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united
people- a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the
same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same
principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs,
and who, by their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side
by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established
general liberty and independence.
This country and this people seem to have been made for each
other, and it appears as if it was the design of Providence, that an
inheritance so proper and convenient for a band of brethren, united to
each other by the strongest ties, should never be split into a
number of unsocial, jealous, and alien sovereignties.
Similar sentiments have hitherto prevailed among all orders and
denominations of men among us. To all general purposes we have
uniformly been one people; each individual citizen everywhere enjoying
the same national rights, privileges, and protection. As a nation we
have made peace and war; as a nation we have vanquished our common
enemies; as a nation we have formed alliances, and made treaties,
and entered into various compacts and conventions with foreign states.
A strong sense of the value and blessings of union induced the
people, at a very early period, to institute a federal government to
preserve and perpetuate it. They formed it almost as soon as they
had political existence; nay, at a time when their habitations were in
flames, when many of their citizens were bleeding, and when the
progress of hostility and desolation left little room for those calm
and mature inquiries and reflections which must ever precede the
formation of a wise and well-balanced government for a free people. It
is not to be wondered at, that a government instituted in times so
inauspicious, should on experiment be found greatly deficient and
inadequate to the purpose it was intended to answer.
This intelligent people perceived and regretted these defects. Still
continuing no less attached to union than enamored of liberty, they
observed the danger which immediately threatened the former and more
remotely the latter; and being persuaded that ample security for
both could only be found in a national government more wisely
framed, they, as with one voice, convened the late convention at
Philadelphia, to take that important subject under consideration.
This convention, composed of men who possessed the confidence of the
people, and many of whom had become highly distinguished by their
patriotism, virtue, and wisdom, in times which tried the minds and
hearts of men, undertook the arduous task. In the mild season of
peace, with minds unoccupied by other subjects, they passed many
months in cool, uninterrupted, and daily consultation; and finally,
without having been awed by power, or influenced by any passions
except love for their country, they presented and recommended to the
people the plan produced by their joint and very unanimous councils.
Admit, for so is the fact, that this plan is only recommended, not
imposed, yet let it be remembered that it is neither recommended to
blind approbation, nor to blind reprobation; but to that sedate and
candid consideration which the magnitude and importance of the subject
demand, and which it certainly ought to receive. But this (as was
remarked in the foregoing number of this paper) is more to be wished
than expected, that it may be so considered and examined. Experience
on a former occasion teaches us not to be too sanguine in such
hopes. It is not yet forgotten that well-grounded apprehensions of
imminent danger induced the people of America to form the memorable
Congress of 1774. That body recommended certain measures to their
constituents, and the event proved their wisdom; yet it is fresh in
our memories how soon the press began to team with pamphlets and
weekly papers against those very measures. Not only many of the
officers of government, who obeyed the dictates of personal
interest, but others, from a mistaken estimate of consequences, or the
undue influence of former attachments or whose ambition aimed at
objects which did not correspond with the public good, were
indefatigable in their efforts to persuade the people to reject the
advice of that patriotic Congress. Many, indeed, were deceived and
deluded, but the majority of the people reasoned and decided
judiciously; and happy they are in reflecting that they did so.
They considered that the Congress was composed of many wise and
experienced men. That, being convened from different parts of the
country, they brought with them and communicated to each other a
variety of useful information. That, in the course of the time they
passed together in inquiring into and discussing the true interests of
their country, they must have acquired very accurate knowledge on that
head. That they were individually interested in the public liberty and
prosperity, and therefore that it was not less their inclination
than their duty to recommend only such measures as, after the most
mature deliberation, they really thought prudent and advisable.
These and similar considerations then induced the people to rely
greatly on the judgment and integrity of the Congress; and they took
their advice, notwithstanding the various arts and endeavors used to
deter them from it. But if the people at large had reason to confide
in the men of that Congress, few of whom had been fully tried or
generally known, still greater reason have they now to respect the
judgment and advice of the convention, for it is well known that
some of the most distinguished members of that Congress, who have been
since tried and justly approved for patriotism and abilities, and
who have grown old in acquiring political information, were also
members of this convention, and carried into it their accumulated
knowledge and experience.
It is worthy of remark that not only the first, but every succeeding
Congress, as well as the late convention, have invariably joined
with the people in thinking that the prosperity of America depended on
its Union. To preserve and perpetuate it was the great object of the
people in forming that convention, and it is also the great object
of the plan which the convention has advised them to adopt. With
what propriety, therefore, or for what good purposes, are attempts
at this particular period made by some men to depreciate the
importance of the Union? Or why is it suggested that three of four
confederacies would be better than one? I am persuaded in my own
mind that the people have always thought right on this subject, and
that their universal and uniform attachment to the cause of the
Union rests on great and weighty reasons, which I shall endeavor to
develop and explain in some ensuing papers. They who promote the
idea of substituting a number of distinct confederacies in the room of
the plan of the convention, seem clearly to foresee that the rejection
of it would put the continuance of the Union in the utmost jeopardy.
That certainly would be the case, and I sincerely wish that it may
be as clearly foreseen by every good citizen, that whenever the
dissolution of the Union arrives, America will have reason to exclaim,
in the words of the poet: "Farewell! A Long Farewell to All My
Greatness."
- PUBLIUS
NO 3: The Same Subject Continued
by John Jay
-
IT IS not a new observation that the people of any country (if, like
the Americans, intelligent and well-informed) seldom adopt and
steadily persevere for many years in an erroneous opinion respecting
their interests. That consideration naturally tends to create great
respect for the high opinion which the people of America have so
long and uniformly entertained of the importance of their continuing
firmly united under one federal government, vested with sufficient
powers for all general and national purposes.
The more attentively I consider and investigate the reasons which
appear to have given birth to this opinion, the more I become
convinced that they are cogent and conclusive.
Among the many objects to which a wise and free people find it
necessary to direct their attention, that of providing for their
safety seems to be the first. The safety of the people doubtless has
relation to a great variety of circumstances and considerations, and
consequently affords great latitude to those who wish to define it
precisely and comprehensively.
At present I mean only to consider it as it respects security for
the preservation of peace and tranquillity, as well as against dangers
from foreign arms and influence, as from dangers of the like kind
arising from domestic causes. As the former of these comes first in
order, it is proper it should be the first discussed. Let us therefore
proceed to examine whether the people are not right in their opinion
that a cordial Union, under an efficient national government,
affords them the best security that can be devised against hostilities
from abroad.
The number of wars which have happened or will happen in the world
will always be found to be in proportion to the number and weight of
the causes, whether real or pretended, which provoke or invite them.
If this remark be just, it becomes useful to inquire whether so many
just causes of war are likely to be given by United America as by
disunited America; for if it should turn out that United America
will probably give the fewest, then it will follow that in this
respect the Union tends most to preserve the people in a state of
peace with other nations.
The just causes of war, for the most part, arise either from
violations of treaties or from direct violence. America has already
formed treaties with no less than six foreign nations, and all of
them, except Prussia, are maritime, and therefore able to annoy and
injure us. She has also extensive commerce with Portugal, Spain, and
Britain, and, with respect to the two latter, has, in addition, the
circumstance of neighborhood to attend to.
It is of high importance to the peace of America that she observe
the laws of nations towards all these powers, and to me it appears
evident that this will be more perfectly and punctually done by one
national government than it could be either by thirteen separate
States or by three or four distinct confederacies.
Because when once an efficient national government is established,
the best men in the country will not only consent to serve, but also
will generally be appointed to manage it; for, although town or
country, or other contracted influence, may place men in State
assemblies, or senates, or courts of justice, or executive
departments, yet more general and extensive reputation for talents and
other qualifications will be necessary to recommend men to offices
under the national government,- especially as it will have the
widest field for choice, and never experience that want of proper
persons which is not uncommon in some of the States. Hence, it will
result that the administration, the political counsels, and the
judicial decisions of the national government will be more wise,
systematical, and judicious than those of individual States, and
consequently more satisfactory with respect to other nations, as
well as more safe with respect to us.
Because, under the national government, treaties and articles of
treaties, as well as the laws of nations, will always be expounded
in one sense and executed in the same manner,- whereas adjudications
on the same points and questions, in thirteen States, or in three or
four confederacies, will not always accord or be consistent; and that,
as well from the variety of independent courts and judges appointed by
different and independent governments, as from the different local
laws and interests which may affect and influence them. The wisdom
of the convention, in committing such questions to the jurisdiction
and judgment of courts appointed by and responsible only to one
national government, cannot be too much commended.
Because the prospect of present loss or advantage may often tempt
the governing party in one or two States to swerve from good faith and
justice; but those temptations, not reaching the other States, and
consequently having little or no influence on the national government,
the temptation will be fruitless, and good faith and justice be
preserved. The case of the treaty of peace with Britain adds great
weight to this reasoning.
Because, even if the governing party in a State should be disposed
to resist such temptations, yet, as such temptations may, and commonly
do, result from circumstances peculiar to the State, and may affect
a great number of the inhabitants, the governing party may not
always be able, if willing, to prevent the injustice meditated, or
to punish the aggressors. But the national government, not being
affected by those local circumstances, will neither be induced to
commit the wrong themselves, nor want power or inclination to
prevent or punish its commission by others. So far, therefore, as
either designed or accidental violations of treaties and the laws of
nations afford just causes of war, they are less to be apprehended
under one general government than under several lesser ones, and in
that respect the former most favors the safety of the people.
As to those just causes of war which proceed from direct and
unlawful violence, it appears equally clear to me that one good
national government affords vastly more security against dangers of
that sort than can be derived from any other quarter.
Because such violences are more frequently caused by the passions
and interests of a part than of the whole; of one or two States than
of the Union. Not a single Indian war has yet been occasioned by
aggressions of the present federal government, feeble as it is; but
there are several instances of Indian hostilities having been provoked
by the improper conduct of individual States, who, either unable or
unwilling to restrain or punish offenses, have given occasion to the
slaughter of many innocent inhabitants.
The neighborhood of Spanish and British territories, bordering on
some States and not on others, naturally confines the causes of
quarrel more immediately to the borderers. The bordering States, if
any, will be those who, under the impulse of sudden irritation, and
a quick sense of apparent interest or injury, will be most likely,
by direct violence, to excite war with these nations; and nothing
can so effectually obviate that danger as a national government, whose
wisdom and prudence will not be diminished by the passions which
actuate the parties immediately interested.
But not only fewer just causes of war will be given by the
national government, but it will also be more in their power to
accommodate and settle them amicably. They will be more temperate
and cool, and in that respect, as well as in others, will be more in
capacity to act advisedly than the offending State. The pride of
states, as well as of men, naturally disposes them to justify all
their actions, and opposes their acknowledging, correcting, or
repairing their errors and offenses. The national government, in
such cases, will not be affected by this pride, but will proceed
with moderation and candor to consider and decide on the means most
proper to extricate them from the difficulties which threaten them.
Besides, it is well known that acknowledgments, explanations, and
compensations are often accepted as satisfactory from a strong
united nation, which would be rejected as unsatisfactory if offered by
a State or confederacy of little consideration or power.
In the year 1685, the state of Genoa having offended Louis XIV.,
endeavored to appease him. He demanded that they should send their
Doge, or chief magistrate, accompanied by four of their senators, to
France, to ask his pardon and receive his terms. They were obliged
to submit to it for the sake of peace. Would he on any occasion either
have demanded or have received the like humiliation from Spain, or
Britain, or any other powerful nation?
- PUBLIUS
NO 4: The Same Subject Continued
by John Jay
-
MY LAST paper assigned several reasons why the safety of the
people would be best secured by union against the danger it may be
exposed to by just causes of war given to other nations; and those
reasons show that such causes would not only be more rarely given, but
would also be more easily accommodated, by a national government
than either by the State governments or the proposed little
confederacies.
But the safety of the people of America against dangers from foreign
force depends not only on their forbearing to give just causes of
war to other nations, but also on their placing and continuing
themselves in such a situation as not to invite hostility or insult;
for it need not be observed that there are pretended as well as just
causes of war.
It is too true, however disgraceful it may be to human nature,
that nations in general will make war whenever they have a prospect of
getting any thing by it; nay, absolute monarchs will often make war
when their nations are to get nothing by it, but for purposes and
objects merely personal, such as a thirst for military glory,
revenge for personal affronts, ambition, or private compacts to
aggrandize or support their particular families or partisans. These
and a variety of other motives, which affect only the mind of the
sovereign, often lead him to engage in wars not sanctified by
justice or the voice and interests of his people. But, independent
of these inducements to war, which are more prevalent in absolute
monarchies, but which well deserve our attention, there are others
which affect nations as often as kings; and some of them will on
examination be found to grow out of our relative situation and
circumstances.
With France and with Britain we are rivals in the fisheries, and can
supply their markets cheaper then they can themselves, notwithstanding
any efforts to prevent it by bounties on their own or duties on
foreign fish.
With them and with most other European nations we are rivals in
navigation and the carrying trade; and we shall deceive ourselves if
we suppose that any of them will rejoice to see it flourish; for, as
our carrying trade cannot increase without in some degree
diminishing theirs, it is more their interest, and will be more
their policy, to restrain than to promote it.
In the trade to China and India, we interfere with more than one
nation, inasmuch as it enables us to partake in advantages which
they had in a manner monopolized, and as we thereby supply ourselves
with commodities which we used to purchase from them.
The extension of our own commerce in our own vessels cannot give
pleasure to any nations who possess territories on or near this
continent, because the cheapness and excellence of our productions,
added to the circumstance of vicinity, and the enterprise and
address of our merchants and navigators, will give us a greater
share in the advantages which those territories afford, than
consists with the wishes or policy of their respective sovereigns.
Spain thinks it convenient to shut the Mississippi against us on the
one side, and Britain excludes us from the Saint Lawrence on the
other; not will either of them permit the other waters which are
between them and us to become the means of mutual intercourse and
traffic.
From these and such like considerations, which might, if
consistent with prudence, be more amplified and detailed, it is easy
to see that jealousies and uneasinesses may gradually slide into the
minds and cabinets of other nations, and that we are not to expect
that they should regard our advancement in union, in power and
consequence by land and by sea, with an eye of indifference and
composure.
The people of America are aware that inducements to war may arise
out of these circumstances, as well as from others not so obvious at
present, and that whenever such inducements may find fit time and
opportunity for operation, pretenses to color and justify them will
not be wanting. Wisely, therefore, do they consider union and a good
national government as necessary to put and keep them in such a
situation as, instead of inviting war, will tend to repress and
discourage it. That situation consists in the best possible state of
defence, and necessarily depends on the government, the arms, and
the resources of the country.
As the safety of the whole is the interest of the whole, and
cannot be provided for without government, either one or more or many,
let us inquire whether one good government is not, relative to the
object in question, more competent then any other given number
whatever.
One government can collect and avail itself of the talents and
experience of the ablest men, in whatever part of the Union they may
be found. It can move on uniform principles of policy. It can
harmonize, assimilate, and protect the several parts and members,
and extend the benefit of its foresight and precautions to each. In
the formation of treaties, it will regard the interest of the whole,
and the particular interests of the parts as connected with that of
the whole. It can apply the resources and power of the whole to the
defence of any particular part, and that more easily and expeditiously
than State governments or separate confederacies can possibly do,
for want of concert and unity of system. It can place the militia
under one plan of discipline, and, by putting their officers in a
proper line of subordination to the Chief Magistrate, will, as it
were, consolidate them into one corps, and thereby render them more
efficient than if divided into thirteen or into three or four distinct
independent companies.
What would the militia of Britain be if the English militia obeyed
the government of England, if the Scotch militia obeyed the government
of Scotland, and if the Welsh militia obeyed the government of
Wales? Suppose an invasion; would those three governments (if they
agreed at all) be able, with all their respective forces, to operate
against the enemy so effectually as the single government of Great
Britain would?
We have heard much of the fleets of Britain, and the time may
come, if we are wise, when the fleets of America may engage attention.
But if one national government had not so regulated the navigation
of Britain as to make it a nursery for seamen- if one national
government had not called forth all the national means and materials
for forming fleets, their prowess and their thunder would never have
been celebrated. Let England have its navigation and fleet- let
Scotland have its navigation and fleet- let Wales have its
navigation and fleet- let Ireland have its navigation and fleet- let
those four of the constituent parts of the British empire be under
four independent governments, and it is easy to perceive how soon they
would each dwindle into comparative insignificance.
Apply these facts to our own case. Leave America divided into
thirteen or, if you please, into three or four independent
governments- what armies could they raise and pay- what fleets could
they ever hope to have? If one was attacked, would the others fly to
its succor, and spend their blood and money in its defence? Would
there be no danger of their being flattered into neutrality by its
specious promises, or seduced by a too great fondness for peace to
decline hazarding their tranquillity and present safety for the sake
of neighbors, of whom perhaps they have been jealous, and whose
importance they are content to see diminished. Although such conduct
would not be wise, it would, nevertheless, be natural. The history
of the states of Greece, and of other countries, abounds with such
instances, and it is not improbable that what has so often happened
would, under similar circumstances, happen again.
But admit that they might be willing to help the invaded State or
confederacy. How, and when, and in what proportion shall aids of men
and money be afforded? Who shall command the allied armies, and from
which of them shall he receive his orders? Who shall settle the
terms of peace, and in case of disputes what umpire shall decide
between them and compel acquiescence? Various difficulties and
inconveniences would be inseparable from such a situation; whereas one
government, watching over the general and common interests. and
combining and directing the powers and resources of the whole, would
be free from all these embarrassments, and conduce far more to the
safety of the people.
But whatever may be our situation, whether firmly united under one
national government, or split into a number of confederacies,
certain it is, that foreign nations will know and view it exactly as
it is; and they will act towards us accordingly. If they see that
our national government is efficient and well administered, our
trade prudently regulated, our militia properly organized and
disciplined, our resources and finances discreetly managed, our credit
re-established, our people free, contented, and united, they will be
much more disposed to cultivate our friendship than provoke our
resentment. If, on the other hand, they find us either destitute of an
effectual government (each State doing right or wrong, as to its
rulers may seem convenient), or split into three or four independent
and probably discordant republics or confederacies, one inclining to
Britain, another to France, and a third to Spain, and perhaps played
off against each other by the three, what a poor, pitiful figure
will America make in their eyes! How liable would she become not
only to their contempt, but to their outrage; and how soon would
dear-bought experience proclaim that when a people or family so
divide, it never fails to be against themselves.
- PUBLIUS
NO 5: The Same Subject Continued
by John Jay
-
QUEEN Anne, in her letter of the 1st July, 1706, to the Scotch
Parliament, makes some observations on the importance of the Union
then forming between England and Scotland, which merit our
attention. I shall present the public with one or two extracts from
it: "An entire and perfect union will be the solid foundation of
lasting peace: It will secure your religion, liberty, and property;
remove the animosities amongst yourselves, and the jealousies and
differences betwixt our two kingdoms. It must increase your
strength, riches, and trade; and by this union the whole island, being
joined in affection and free from all apprehensions of different
interest, will be enabled to resist all its enemies." "We most
earnestly recommend to you calmness and unanimity in this great and
weighty affair, that the union may be brought to a happy conclusion,
being the only effectual way to secure our present and future
happiness, and disappoint the designs of our and your enemies, who
will doubtless, on this occasion, use their utmost endeavors to
prevent or delay this union."
It was remarked in the preceding paper, that weakness and
divisions at home would invite dangers from abroad; and that nothing
would tend more to secure us from them than union, strength, and
good government within ourselves. This subjects is copious and
cannot easily be exhausted.
The history of Great Britain is the one with which we are in general
the best acquainted, and it gives us many useful lessons. We may
profit by their experience without paying the price which it cost
them. Although it seems obvious to common sense that the people of
such an island should be but one nation, yet we find that they were
for ages divided into three, and that those three were almost
constantly embroiled in quarrels and wars with one another.
Notwithstanding their true interest with respect to the continental
nations was really the same, yet by the arts and policy and
practices of those nations, their mutual jealousies were perpetually
kept inflamed, and for a long series of years they were far more
inconvenient and troublesome than they were useful and assisting to
each other.
Should the people of America divide themselves into three or four
nations, would not the same thing happen? Would not similar jealousies
arise, and be in like manner cherished? Instead of their being "joined
in affection" and free from all apprehension of different "interests,"
envy and jealousy would soon extinguish confidence and affection,
and the partial interests of each confederacy, instead of the
general interests of all America, would be the only objects of their
policy and pursuits. Hence, like most other bordering nations, they
would always be either involved in disputes and war, or live in the
constant apprehension of them.
The most sanguine advocates for three or four confederacies cannot
reasonably suppose that they would long remain exactly on an equal
footing in point of strength, even if it was possible to form them
so at first; but, admitting that to be practicable, yet what human
contrivance can secure the continuance of such equality? Independent
of those local circumstances which tend to beget and increase power in
one part and to impede its progress in another, we must advert to
the effects of that superior policy and good management which would
probably distinguish the government of one above the rest, and by
which their relative equality in strength and consideration would be
destroyed. For it cannot be presumed that the same degree of sound
policy, prudence, and foresight would uniformly be observed by each of
these confederacies for a long succession of years.
Whenever, and from whatever causes, it might happen, and happen it
would, that any one of these nations or confederacies should rise on
the scale of political importance much above the degree of her
neighbors, that moment would those neighbors behold her with envy
and with fear. Both those passions would lead them to countenance,
if not to promote, whatever might promise to diminish her
importance; and would also restrain them from measures calculated to
advance or even to secure her prosperity. Much time would not be
necessary to enable her to discern these unfriendly dispositions.
She would soon begin, not only to lose confidence in her neighbors,
but also to feel a disposition equally unfavorable to them. Distrust
naturally creates distrust, and by nothing is good-will and kind
conduct more speedily changed than by invidious jealousies and
uncandid imputations, whether expressed or implied.
The North is generally the region of strength, and many local
circumstances render it probable that the most Northern of the
proposed confederacies would, at a period not very distant, be
unquestionably more formidable than any of the others. No sooner would
this become evident than the Northern Hive would excite the same ideas
and sensations in the more southern parts of America which it formerly
did in the southern parts of Europe. Nor does it appear to be a rash
conjecture that its young swarms might often be tempted to gather
honey in the more blooming fields and milder air of their luxurious
and more delicate neighbors.
They who well consider the history of similar divisions and
confederacies will find abundant reason to apprehend that those in
contemplation would in no other sense be neighbors than as they
would be borderers; that they would neither love nor trust one
another, but on the contrary would be a prey to discord, jealousy, and
mutual injuries; in short, that they would place us exactly in the
situations in which some nations doubtless wish to see us, viz.,
formidable only to each other.
From these considerations it appears that those gentlemen are
greatly mistaken who suppose that alliances offensive and defensive
might be formed between these confederacies, and would produce that
combination and union of wills, of arms, and of resources, which would
be necessary to put and keep them in a formidable state of defence
against foreign enemies.
When did the independent states, into which Britain and Spain were
formerly divided, combine in such alliance, or unite their forces
against a foreign enemy? The proposed confederacies will be distinct
nations. Each of them would have its commerce with foreigners to
regulate by distinct treaties; and as their productions and
commodities are different and proper for different markets, so would
those treaties be essentially different. Different commercial concerns
must create different interests, and of course different degrees of
political attachment to and connection with different foreign nations.
Hence it might and probably would happen that the foreign nation
with whom the Southern confederacy might be at war would be the one
with whom the Northern confederacy would be the most desirous of
preserving peace and friendship. An alliance so contrary to their
immediate interest would not therefore be easy to form, nor, if
formed, would it be observed and fulfilled with perfect good faith.
Nay, it is far more probable that in America, as in Europe,
neighboring nations, acting under the impulse of opposite interests
and unfriendly passions, would frequently be found taking different
sides. Considering our distance from Europe, it would be more
natural for these confederacies to apprehend danger from one another
than from distant nations, and therefore that each of them should be
more desirous to guard against the others by the aid of foreign
alliances, than to guard against foreign dangers by alliances
between themselves. And here let us not forget how much more easy it
is to receive foreign fleets into our ports, and foreign armies into
our country, than it is to persuade or compel them to depart. How many
conquests did the Romans and others make in the characters of allies,
and what innovations did they under the same character introduce into
the governments of those whom they pretended to protect.
Let candid men judge, then, whether the division of America into any
given number of independent sovereignties would tend to secure us
against the hostilities and improper interference of foreign nations.
- PUBLIUS
NO 6: Concerning Dangers From War Between the States
by Alexander Hamilton
-
THE three last numbers of this paper have been dedicated to an
enumeration of the dangers to which we should be exposed, in a state
of disunion, from the arms and arts of foreign nations. I shall now
proceed to delineate dangers of a different and, perhaps, still more
alarming kind- those which will in all probability flow from
dissensions between the States themselves, and from domestic
factions and convulsions. These have been already in some instances
slightly anticipated; but they deserve a more particular and more full
investigation.
A man must be far gone in Utopian speculations who can seriously
doubt that, if these States should either be wholly disunited, or only
united in partial confederacies, the subdivisions into which they
might be thrown would have frequent and violent contests with each
other. To presume a want of motives for such contests as an argument
against their existence, would be to forget that men are ambitious,
vindictive, and rapacious. To look for a continuation of harmony
between a number of independent, unconnected sovereignties in the same
neighborhood, would be to disregard the uniform course of human
events, and to set at defiance the accumulated experience of ages.
The causes of hostility among nations are innumerable. There are
some which have a general and almost constant operation upon the
collective bodies of society. Of this description are the love of
power or the desire of preeminence and dominion- the jealousy of
power, or the desire of equality and safety. There are others which
have a more circumscribed though an equally operative influence within
their spheres. Such are the rivalships and competitions of commerce
between commercial nations. And there are others, not less numerous
than either of the former, which take their origin entirely in private
passions; in the attachments, enmities, interests, hopes, and fears of
leading individuals in the communities of which they are members.
Men of this class, whether the favorites of a king or of a people,
have in too many instances abused the confidence they possessed; and
assuming the pretext of some public motive, have not scrupled to
sacrifice the national tranquillity to personal advantage or
personal gratification.
The celebrated Pericles, in compliance with the resentment of a
prostitute, *002 at the expense of much of the blood and treasure of
his countrymen, attacked, vanquished, and destroyed the city of the
Samnians. The same man, stimulated by private pique against the
Megarensians, *003 another nation of Greece, or to avoid a prosecution
with which he was threatened as an accomplice in a supposed theft of
the statuary of Phidias, *004 or to get rid of the accusations
prepared to be brought against him for dissipating the funds of the
state in the purchase of popularity, *005 or from a combination of all
these causes, was the primitive author of that famous and fatal war,
distinguished in the Grecian annals by the name of the Peloponnesian
war; which, after various vicissitudes, intermissions, and renewals,
terminated in the ruin of the Athenian commonwealth.
The ambitious cardinal, who was prime minister to Henry VIII.,
permitting his vanity to aspire to the triple crown, *006 entertained
hopes of succeeding in the acquisition of that splendid prize by the
influence of the Emperor Charles V. To secure the favor and interest
of this enterprising and powerful monarch, he precipitated England
into a war with France, contrary to the plainest dictates of policy,
and at the hazard of the safety and independence, as well of the
kingdom over which he presided by his counsels, as of Europe in
general. For if there ever was a sovereign who bid fair to realize the
project of universal monarchy, it was the Emperor Charles V., of whose
intrigues Wolsey was at once the instrument and the dupe.
The influence which the bigotry of one female, *007 the petulance of
another, *008 and the cabals of a third, *009 had in the contemporary
policy, ferments, and pacifications, of a considerable part of Europe,
are to topics that have been too often descanted upon not to be
generally known.
To multiply examples of the agency of personal considerations in the
production of great national events, either foreign or domestic,
according to their direction, would be an unnecessary waste of time.
Those who have but a superficial acquaintance with the sources from
which they are to be drawn, will themselves recollect a variety of
instances; and those who have a tolerable knowledge of human nature
will not stand in need of such lights, to form their opinion either of
the reality or extent of that agency. Perhaps, however, a reference,
tending to illustrate the general principle, may with propriety be
made to a case which has lately happened among ourselves. If Shays had
not been a desperate debtor, it is much to be doubted whether
Massachusetts would have been plunged into a civil war.
But notwithstanding the concurring testimony of experience, in
this particular, there are still to be found visionary or designing
men, who stand ready to advocate the paradox of perpetual peace
between the States, though dismembered and alienated from each
other. The genius of republics (say they) is pacific; the spirit of
commerce has a tendency to soften the manners of men, and to
extinguish those inflammable humors which have so often kindled into
wars. Commercial republics, like ours, will never be disposed to waste
themselves in ruinous contentions with each other. They will be
governed by mutual interest, and will cultivate a spirit of mutual
amity and concord.
Is it not (we may ask these projectors in politics) the true
interest of all nations to cultivate the same benevolent and
philosophic spirit? If this be their true interest, have they in
fact pursued it? Has it not, on the contrary, invariably been found
that momentary passions, and immediate interests, have a more active
and imperious control over human conduct than general or remote
considerations of policy, utility, or justice? Have republics in
practice been less addicted to war than monarchies? Are not the former
administered by men as well as the latter? Are there not aversions,
predilections, rivalships, and desires of unjust acquisitions, that
affect nations as well as kings? Are not popular assemblies frequently
subject to the impulses of rage, resentment, jealousy, avarice, and of
other irregular and violent propensities? Is it not well known that
their determinations are often governed by a few individuals in whom
they place confidence, and are, of course, liable to be tinctured by
the passions and views of those individuals? Has commerce hitherto
done any thing more than change the objects of war? Is not the love of
wealth as domineering and enterprising a passion as that of power or
glory? Have there not been as many wars founded upon commercial
motives since that has become the prevailing system of nations, as
were before occasioned by the cupidity of territory or dominion? Has
not the spirit of commerce, in many instances, administered new
incentives to the appetite, both for the one and for the other? Let
experience, the least fallible guide of human opinions, be appealed to
for an answer to these inquiries.
Sparta, Athens, Rome, and Carthage were all republics; two of
them, Athens and Carthage, of the commercial kind. Yet were they as
often engaged in wars, offensive and defensive, as the neighboring
monarchies of the same times. Sparta was little better than a
well-regulated camp; and Rome was never sated of carnage and conquest.
Carthage, though a commercial republic, was the aggressor in the
very war that ended in her destruction. Hannibal had carried her
arms into the heart of Italy and to the gates of Rome, before
Scipio, in turn, gave him an overthrow in the territories of Carthage,
and made a conquest of the commonwealth.
Venice, in later times, figured more than once in wars of
ambition, till, becoming an object to the other Italian states, Pope
Julius II. found means to accomplish that formidable league, *010
which gave a deadly blow to the power and pride of this haughty
republic.
The provinces of Holland, till they were overwhelmed in debts and
taxes, took a leading and conspicuous part in the wars of Europe. They
had furious contests with England for the dominion of the sea, and
were among the most persevering and most implacable of the opponents
of Louis XIV.
In the government of Britain the representatives of the people
compose one branch of the national legislature. Commerce has been
for ages the predominant pursuit of that country. Few nations,
nevertheless, have been more frequently engaged in war; and the wars
in which that kingdom has been engaged have, in numerous instances,
proceeded from the people.
There have been, if I may so express it, almost as many popular as
royal wars. The cries of the nation and the importunities of the
representatives have, upon various occasions, dragged their monarchs
into war, or continued them in it, contrary to their inclinations, and
sometimes contrary to the real interests of the state. In that
memorable struggle for superiority between the rival houses of Austria
and Bourbon, which so long kept Europe in a flame, it is well known
that the antipathies of the English against the French, seconding
the ambition, or rather the avarice, of a favorite leader, *011
protracted the war beyond the limits marked out by sound policy, and
for a considerable time in opposition to the views of the court.
The wars of these two last-mentioned nations have in a great measure
grown out of commercial considerations,- the desire of supplanting and
the fear of being supplanted, either in particular branches of traffic
or in the general advantages of trade and navigation.
From this summary of what has taken place in other countries,
whose situations have borne the nearest resemblance to our own, what
reason can we have to confide in those reveries which would seduce
us into an expectation of peace and cordiality between the members
of the present confederacy, in a state of separation? Have we not
already seen enough of the fallacy and extravagance of those idle
theories which have amused us with promises of an exemption from the
imperfections, weaknesses, and evils incident to society in every
shape? Is it not time to awake from the deceitful dream of a golden
age, and to adopt as a practical maxim for the direction of our
political conduct that we, as well as the other inhabitants of the
globe, are yet remote from the happy empire of perfect wisdom and
perfect virtue?
Let the point of extreme depression to which our national dignity
and credit have sunk, let the inconveniences felt everywhere from a
lax and ill administration of government, let the revolt of a part
of the State of North Carolina, the late menacing disturbances in
Pennsylvania, and the actual insurrections and rebellions in
Massachusetts, declare---!
So far is the general sense of mankind from corresponding with the
tenets of those who endeavor to lull asleep our apprehensions of
discord and hostility between the States, in the event of disunion,
that it has from long observation of the progress of society become
a sort of axiom in politics, that vicinity, or nearness of
situation, constitutes nations natural enemies. An intelligent
writer expresses himself on this subject to this effect:
"NEIGHBORING NATIONS [says he] are naturally enemies of each other,
unless their common weakness forces them to league in a
CONFEDERATIVE REPUBLIC, and their constitution prevents the
differences that neighborhood occasions, extinguishing that secret
jealousy which disposes all states to aggrandize themselves at the
expense of their neighbours." *012 This passage, at the same time,
points out the EVIL and suggests the REMEDY.
- PUBLIUS
NO 7: The Subject Continued and Particular Causes Enumerated
by Alexander Hamilton
-
It is sometimes asked, with an air of seeming triumph, what
inducements could the States have, if disunited, to make war upon each
other? It would be a full answer to this question to say- precisely
the same inducements which have, at different times, deluged in
blood all the nations in the world. But, unfortunately for us, the
question admits of a more particular answer. There are causes of
differences within our immediate contemplation, of the tendency of
which, even under the restraints of a federal constitution, we have
had sufficient experience to enable us to form a judgment of what
might be expected if those restraints were removed.
Territorial disputes have at all times been found one of the most
fertile sources of hostility among nations. Perhaps the greatest
proportion of wars that have desolated the earth have sprung from this
origin. This cause would exist among us in full force. We have a
vast tract of unsettled territory within the boundaries of the
United States. There still are discordant and undecided claims between
several of them, and the dissolution of the Union would lay a
foundation for similar claims between them all. It is well known
that they have heretofore had serious and animated discussion
concerning the rights to the lands which were ungranted at the time of
the Revolution, and which usually went under the name of crown
lands. The States within the limits of whose colonial governments they
were comprised have claimed them as their property, the others have
contended that the rights of the crown in this article devolved upon
the Union; especially as to all that part of the Western territory
which, either by actual possession, or through the submission of the
Indian proprietors, was subjected to the jurisdiction of the king of
Great Britain, till it was relinquished in the treaty of peace.
This, it has been said, was at all events an acquisition to the
Confederacy by compact with a foreign power. It has been the prudent
policy of Congress to appease this controversy, by prevailing upon the
States to make cessions to the United States for the benefit of the
whole. This has been so far accomplished as, under continuation of the
Union, to afford a decided prospect of an amicable termination of
the dispute. A dismemberment of the Confederacy, however, would revive
this dispute, and would create others on the same subject. At present,
a large part of the vacant Western territory is, by cession at
least, if not by any anterior right, the common property of the Union.
If that were at an end, the States which made the cession, on a
principle of federal compromise, would be apt, when the motive of
the grant had ceased, to reclaim the lands as a reversion. The other
States would no doubt insist on a proportion, by right of
representation. Their argument would be, that a grant, once made,
could not be revoked; and that the justice of participating in
territory acquired or secured by the joint efforts of the Confederacy,
remained undiminished. If, contrary to probability, it should be
admitted by all the States, that each had a right to a share of this
common stock, there would still be a difficulty to be surmounted, as
to a proper rule of apportionment. Different principles would be set
up by different States for this purpose; and as they would affect
the opposite interests of the parties, they might not easily be
susceptible of a pacific adjustment.
In the wide field of Western territory, therefore, we perceive an
ample theatre for hostile pretensions, without any umpire or common
judge to interpose between the contending parties. To reason from
the past to the future, we shall have good ground to apprehend, that
the sword would sometimes be appealed to as the arbiter of their
differences. The circumstances of the dispute between Connecticut
and Pennsylvania, respecting the land at Wyoming, admonish us not to
be sanguine in expecting an easy accommodation of such differences.
The articles of confederation obliged the parties to submit the matter
to the decision of a federal court. The submission was made, and the
court decided in favor of Pennsylvania. But Connecticut gave strong
indications of dissatisfaction with that determination; nor did she
appear to be entirely resigned to it, till, by negotiation and
management, something like an equivalent was found for the loss she
supposed herself to have sustained. Nothing here said is intended to
convey the slightest censure on the conduct of that State. She no
doubt sincerely believed herself to have been injured by the decision;
and States, like individuals, acquiesce with great reluctance in
determinations to their disadvantage.
Those who had an opportunity of seeing the inside of the
transactions which attended the progress of the controversy between
this State and the district of Vermont, can vouch the opposition we
experienced, as well from States not interested as from those which
were interested in the claim; and can attest the danger to which the
peace of the Confederacy might have been exposed, had this State
attempted to assert its rights by force. Two motives preponderated
in that opposition: one, a jealousy entertained of our future power;
and the other, the interest of certain individuals of influence in the
neighboring States, who had obtained grants of land under the actual
government of that district. Even the States which brought forward
claims, in contradiction to ours, seemed more solicitous to
dismember this State, than to establish their own pretensions. These
were New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. New Jersey and
Rhode Island, upon all occasions, discovered a warm zeal for the
independence of Vermont; and Maryland, till alarmed by the
appearance of a connection between Canada and that State, entered
deeply into the same views. These being small States, saw with an
unfriendly eye the perspective of our growing greatness. In a review
of these transactions we may trace some of the causes which would be
likely to embroil the States with each other, if it should be their
unpropitious destiny to become disunited.
The competitions of commerce would be another fruitful source of
contention. The States less favorably circumstanced would be
desirous of escaping from the disadvantages of local situation, and of
sharing in the advantages of their more fortunate neighbors. Each
State, or separate confederacy, would pursue a system of commercial
policy peculiar to itself. This would occasion distinctions,
preferences, and exclusions, which would beget discontent. The
habits of intercourse, on the basis of equal privileges, to which we
have been accustomed since the earliest settlement of the country,
would give a keener edge to those causes of discontent than they would
naturally have independent of this circumstance. We should be ready to
denominate injuries those things which were in reality the justifiable
acts of independent sovereignties consulting a distinct interest.
The spirit of enterprise, which characterizes the commercial part of
America, has left no occasion of displaying itself unimproved. It is
not at all probable that this unbridled spirit would pay much
respect to those regulations of trade by which particular States might
endeavor to secure exclusive benefits to their own citizens. The
infractions of these regulations, on one side, the efforts to
prevent and repel them, on the other, would naturally lead to
outrages, and these to reprisals and wars.
The opportunities which some States would have of rendering others
tributary to them by commercial regulations would be impatiently
submitted to by the tributary States. The relative situation of New
York, Connecticut, and New Jersey, would afford an example of this
kind. New York, from the necessities of revenue, must lay duties on
her importations. A great part of these duties must be paid by the
inhabitants of the two other States in the capacity of consumers of
what we import. New York would neither be willing nor able to forego
this advantage. Her citizens would not consent that a duty paid by
them should be remitted in favor of the citizens of her neighbors; nor
would it be practicable, if there were not this impediment in the way,
to distinguish the customers in our own markets. Would Connecticut and
New Jersey long submit to be taxed by New York for her exclusive
benefit? Should we be long permitted to remain in the quiet and
undisturbed enjoyment of a metropolis, from the possession of which we
derived an advantage so odious to our neighbors, and, in their
opinion, so oppressive? Should we be able to preserve it against the
incumbent weight of Connecticut on the one side, and the cooperating
pressure of New Jersey on the other? These are questions that temerity
alone will answer in the affirmative.
The public debt of the Union would be a further cause of collision
between the separate States or confederacies. The apportionment, in
the first instance, and the progressive extinguishment afterwards,
would be alike productive of ill-humor and animosity. how would it
be possible to agree upon a rule of apportionment satisfactory to all?
There is scarcely any that can be proposed which is entirely free from
real objections. These, as usual, would be exaggerated by the
adverse interest of the parties. There are even dissimilar views among
the States as to the general principle of discharging the public debt.
Some of them, either less impressed with the importance of national
credit, or because their citizens have little, if any, immediate
interest in the question, feel an indifference, if not a repugnance,
to the payment of the domestic debt at any rate. These would be
inclined to magnify the difficulties of a distribution. Others of
them, a numerous body of whose citizens are creditors to the public
beyond the proportion of the State in the total amount of the national
debt, would be strenuous for some equitable and effective provision.
The procrastinations of the former would excite the resentments of the
latter. The settlement of a rule would, in the meantime, be
postponed by real differences of opinion and affected delays. The
citizens of the States interested would clamor; foreign powers would
urge for the satisfaction of their just demands, and the peace of
the States would be hazarded to the double contingency of external
invasion and internal contention.
Suppose the difficulties of agreeing upon a rule surmounted, and the
apportionment made. Still there is great room to suppose that the rule
agreed upon would, upon experiment, be found to bear harder upon
some States than upon others. Those which were sufferers by it would
naturally seek for a mitigation of the burden. The others would as
naturally be disinclined to a revision, which was likely to end in
an increase of their own incumbrances. Their refusal would be too
plausible a pretext to the complaining States to withhold their
contributions, not to be embraced with avidity; and the non-compliance
of these States with there engagements would be a ground of bitter
discussion and altercation. If even the rule adopted should in
practice justify the equality of its principle, still delinquencies in
payments on the part of some of the States would result from a
diversity of other causes- the real deficiency of resources; the
mismanagement of their finances; accidental disorders in the
management of the government; and, in addition to the rest, the
reluctance with which men commonly part with money for purposes that
have outlived the exigencies which produced them, and interfere with
the supply of immediate wants. Delinquencies, from whatever causes,
would be productive of complaints, recriminations, and quarrels. There
is, perhaps, nothing more likely to disturb the tranquillity of
nations than their being bound to mutual contributions for any
common object that does not yield an equal and coincident benefit. For
it is an observation, as true as it is trite, that there is nothing
men differ so readily about as the payment of money.
Laws in violation of private contracts, as they amount to
aggressions on the rights of those States whose citizens are injured
by them, may be considered as another probable source of hostility. We
are not authorized to expect that a more liberal or more equitable
spirit would preside over the legislations of the individual States
hereafter, if unrestrained by any additional checks, than we have
heretofore seen in too many instances disgracing their several
codes. We have observed the disposition to retaliation excited in
Connecticut, in consequence of the enormities perpetrated by the
Legislature of Rhode Island; and we reasonably infer that, in
similar cases under other circumstances, a war, not of parchment,
but of the sword, would chastise such atrocious breaches of moral
obligation and social justice.
The probability of incompatible alliances between the different
States or confederacies and different foreign nations, and the effects
of this situation upon the peace of the whole, have been
sufficiently unfolded in some preceding papers. From the view they
have exhibited of this part of the subject, this conclusion is to be
drawn, that America, if not connected at all, or only by the feeble
tie of a simple league, offensive and defensive, would by the
operation of such jarring alliances, be gradually entangled in all the
pernicious labyrinths of European politics and wars; and by the
destructive contentions of the parts into which she was divided, would
be likely to become a prey to the artifices and machinations of powers
equally the enemies of them all. Divide et impera *013 must be the
motto of every nation that either hates or fears us. *014
- PUBLIUS
NO 8: The Effects of Internal War in Producing Standing Armies
and Other Institutions Unfriendly to Liberty
by Alexander Hamilton
-
ASSUMING it therefore as an established truth that the several
States, in case of disunion, or such combinations of them as might
happen to be formed out of the wreck of the general Confederacy, would
be subject to those vicissitudes of peace and war, of friendship and
enmity with each other, which have fallen to the lot of all
neighboring nations not united under one government, let us enter into
a concise detail of some of the consequences that would attend such
a situation.
War between the States, in the first period of their separate
existence, would be accompanied with much greater distresses than it
commonly is in those countries where regular military establishments
have long obtained. The disciplined armies always kept on foot on
the continent of Europe, though they bear a malignant aspect to
liberty and economy, have, notwithstanding, been productive of the
signal advantage of rendering sudden conquests impracticable, and of
preventing that rapid desolation which used to mark the progress of
war prior to their introduction. The art of fortification has
contributed to the same ends. The nations of Europe are encircled with
chains of fortified places, which mutually obstruct invasion.
Campaigns are wasted in reducing two or three frontier garrisons, to
gain admittance into an enemy's country. Similar impediments occur
at every step, to exhaust the strength and delay the progress of an
invader. Formerly, an invading army would penetrate into the heart
of a neighboring country almost as soon as intelligence of its
approach could be received; but now a comparatively small force of
disciplined troops, acting on the defensive, with the aid of posts, is
able to impede, and finally to frustrate, the enterprises of one
much more considerable. The history of war, in that quarter of the
globe, is no longer a history of nations subdued and empires
overturned, but of towns taken and retaken; of battles that decide
nothing; of retreats more beneficial than victories; of much effort
and little acquisition.
In this country the scene would be altogether reversed. The jealousy
of military establishments would postpone them as long as possible.
The want of fortifications, leaving the frontiers of one State open to
another, would facilitate inroads. The populous States would, with
little difficulty, overrun their less populous neighbors. Conquests
would be as easy to be made as difficult to be retained. War,
therefore, would be desultory and predatory. PLUNDER and devastation
ever march in the train of irregulars. The calamities of individuals
would make the principal figure in the events which would characterize
our military exploits.
This picture is not too highly wrought; though, I confess, it
would not long remain a just one. Safety from external danger is the
most powerful director of national conduct. Even the ardent love of
liberty will after a time, give way to its dictates. The violent
destruction of life and property incident to war, the continual effort
and alarm attendant on a state of continual danger, will compel
nations the most attached to liberty to resort for repose and security
to institutions which have a tendency to destroy their civil and
political rights. To be more safe, they at length become willing to
run the risk of being less free.
The institutions chiefly alluded to are STANDING ARMIES and the
correspondent appendages of military establishments. Standing
armies, it is said, are not provided against in the new
Constitution; and it is therefore inferred that they may exist under
it. *015 Their existence, however, from the very terms of the
proposition, is, at most, problematical and uncertain. But standing
armies, it may be replied, must inevitably result from a dissolution
of the Confederacy. Frequent war and constant apprehension, which
require a state of as constant preparation, will infallibly produce
them. The weaker States or confederacies would first have recourse to
them, to put themselves upon an equality with their more potent
neighbors. They would endeavor to supply the inferiority of population
and resources by a more regular and effective system of defence, by
disciplined troops, and by fortifications. They would, at the same
time, be necessitated to strengthen the executive arm of government,
in doing which their constitutions would acquire a progressive
direction towards monarchy. It is of the nature of war to increase the
executive at the expense of the legislative authority.
The expedients which have been mentioned would soon give the
States or confederacies that made use of them a superiority over their
neighbors. Small states, or states of less natural strength, under
vigorous governments, and with the assistance of disciplined armies,
have often triumphed over large states, or states of greater natural
strength, which have been destitute of these advantages. Neither the
pride nor the safety of the more important States or confederacies
would permit them long to submit to this mortifying and adventitious
superiority. They would quickly resort to means similar to those by
which it had been effected, to reinstate themselves in their lost
preeminence. Thus we should, in a little time, see established in
every part of this country the same engines of despotism which have
been the scourge of the Old World. This, at least, would be the
natural course of things; and our reasonings will be the more likely
to be just, in proportion as they are accommodated to this standard.
These are not vague inferences drawn from supposed or speculative
defects in a Constitution, the whole power of which is lodged in the
hands of a people, or their representatives and delegates, but they
are solid conclusions, drawn from the natural and necessary progress
of human affairs.
It may, perhaps, be asked, by way of objection to this, why did
not standing armies spring up out of the contentions which so often
distracted the ancient republics of Greece? Different answers, equally
satisfactory, may be given to this question. The industrious habits of
the people of the present day, absorbed in the pursuits of gain, and
devoted to the improvements of agriculture and commerce, are
incompatible with the condition of a nation of soldiers, which was the
true condition of the people of those republics. The means of revenue,
which have been so greatly multiplied by the increase of gold and
silver and of the arts of industry, and the science of finance,
which is the offspring of modern times, concurring with the habits
of nations, have produced an entire revolution in the system of war,
and have rendered disciplined armies, distinct from the body of the
citizens, the inseparable companions of frequent hostility.
There is a wide difference, also, between military establishments in
a country seldom exposed by its situation to internal invasions, and
in one which is often subject to them, and always apprehensive of
them. The rulers of the former can have no good pretext, if they are
even so inclined, to keep on foot armies so numerous as must of
necessity be maintained in the latter. These armies being, in the
first case, rarely, if at all, called into activity for interior
defence, the people are in no danger of being broken to military
subordination. The laws are not accustomed to relaxations, in favor of
military exigencies; the civil state remains in full vigor, neither
corrupted, nor confounded with the principles or propensities of the
other state. The smallness of the army renders the natural strength of
the community an overmatch for it; and the citizens, not habituated to
look up to the military power for protection, or to submit to its
oppressions, neither love nor fear the soldiery; they view them with a
spirit of jealous acquiescence in a necessary evil, and stand ready to
resist a power which they suppose may be exerted to the prejudice of
their rights. The army under such circumstances may usefully aid the
magistrate to suppress a small faction, or an occasional mob, or
insurrection; but it will be unable to enforce encroachments against
the united efforts of the great body of the people.
In a country in the predicament last described, the contrary of
all this happens. The perpetual menacings of danger oblige the
government to be always prepared to repel it; its armies must be
numerous enough for instant defence. The continual necessity for their
services enhances the importance of the soldier, and proportionably
degrades the condition of the citizen. The military state becomes
elevated above the civil. The inhabitants of territories, often the
theatre of war, are unavoidably subjected to frequent infringements on
their rights, which serve to weaken their sense of those rights; and
by degrees the people are brought to consider the soldiery not only as
their protectors but as their superiors. The transition from this
disposition to that of considering them masters, is neither remote nor
difficult; but it is very difficult to prevail upon a people under
such impressions to make a bold or effectual resistance to usurpations
supported by the military power.
The kingdom of Great Britain falls within the first description.
An insular situation, and a powerful marine, guarding it in a great
measure against the possibility of foreign invasion, supersede the
necessity of a numerous army within the kingdom. A sufficient force to
make head against a sudden descent, till the militia could have time
to rally and embody, is all that has been deemed requisite. No
motive of national policy has demanded, nor would public opinion
have tolerated, a larger number of troops upon its domestic
establishment. There has been, for a long time past, little room for
the operation of the other causes, which have been enumerated as the
consequences of internal war. This peculiar felicity of situation has,
in a great degree, contributed to preserve the liberty which that
country to this day enjoys, in spite of the prevalent venality and
corruption. If, on the contrary, Britain had been situated on the
continent, and had been compelled, as she would have been, by that
situation, to make her military establishments at home coextensive
with those of the other great powers of Europe, she, like them,
would in all probability be, at this day, a victim to the absolute
power of a single man. 'Tis possible, though not easy, that the people
of that island may be enslaved from other causes; but it cannot be
by the prowess of an army so inconsiderable as that which has been
usually kept up within the kingdom.
If we are wise enough to preserve the Union we may for ages enjoy an
advantage similar to that of an insulated situation. Europe is at a
great distance from us. Her colonies in our vicinity will be likely to
continue too much disproportioned in strength to be able to give us
any dangerous annoyance. Extensive military establishments cannot,
in this position, be necessary to our security. But if we should be
disunited, and the integral parts should either remain separated,
or, which is most probable, should be thrown together into two or
three confederacies, we should be, in a short course of time, in the
predicament of the continental powers of Europe- our liberties would
be a prey to the means of defending ourselves against the ambition and
jealousy of each other.
This is an idea not superficial or futile, but solid and weighty. It
deserves the most serious and mature consideration of every prudent
and honest man of whatever party. If such men will make a firm and
solemn pause, and meditate dispassionately on the importance of this
interesting idea; if they will contemplate it in all its attitudes,
and trace it to all its consequences, they will not hesitate to part
with trivial objections to a Constitution, the rejection of which
would in all probability put a final period to the Union. The airy
phantoms that flit before the distempered imaginations of some of
its adversaries would quickly give place to the more substantial forms
of dangers, real, certain, and formidable.
- PUBLIUS
NO 9: The Utility of the Union as a Safeguard
Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection
by Alexander Hamilton
-
A FIRM Union will be of the utmost moment to the peace and liberty
of the States, as a barrier against domestic faction and insurrection.
It is impossible to read the history of the petty republics of
Greece and Italy without feeling sensations of horror and disgust at
the distractions with which they were continually agitated, and at the
rapid succession of revolutions by which they were kept in a state
of perpetual vibration between the extremes of tyranny and anarchy. If
they exhibit occasional calms, these only serve as short-lived
contrasts to the furious storms that are to succeed. If now and then
intervals of felicity open to view, we behold them with a mixture of
regret, arising from the reflection that the pleasing scenes before us
are soon to be overwhelmed by the tempestuous waves of sedition and
party rage. If momentary rays of glory break forth from the gloom,
while they dazzle us with a transient and fleeting brilliancy, they at
the same time admonish us to lament that the vices of government
should pervert the direction and tarnish the lustre of those bright
talents and exalted endowments for which the favored soils that
produced them have been so justly celebrated.
From the disorders that disfigure the annals of those republics
the advocates of despotism have drawn arguments, not only against
the forms of republican government, but against the very principles of
civil liberty. They have decried all free government as inconsistent
with the order of society, and have indulged themselves in malicious
exultation over its friends and partisans. Happily for mankind,
stupendous fabrics reared on the basis of liberty, which have
flourished for ages, have, in a few glorious instances, refuted
their gloomy sophisms. And, I trust, America will be the broad and
solid foundation of other edifices, not less magnificent, which will
be equally permanent monuments of their errors.
But it is not to be denied that the portraits they have sketched
of republican government were too just copies of the originals from
which they were taken. If it had been found impracticable to have
devised models of a more perfect structure, the enlightened friends to
liberty would have been obliged to abandon the cause of that species
of government as indefensible. The science of politics, however,
like most other sciences, has received great improvement. The efficacy
of various principles is now well understood, which were either not
known at all, or imperfectly known to the ancients. The regular
distribution of power into distinct departments; the introduction of
legislative balances and checks; the institution of courts composed of
judges holding their offices during good behavior; the
representation of the people in the legislature by deputies of their
own election: these are wholly new discoveries, or have made their
principal progress towards perfection in modern times. They are means,
and powerful means, by which the excellences of republican
government may be retained and its imperfections lessened or
avoided. To this catalogue of circumstances that tend to the
amelioration of popular systems of civil government, I shall
venture, however novel it may appear to some, to add one more, on a
principle which has been made the foundation of an objection to the
new Constitution; I mean the ENLARGEMENT of the ORBIT within which
such systems are to revolve, either in respect to the dimensions of
a single State, or to the consolidation of several smaller States into
one great Confederacy. The latter is that which immediately concerns
the object under consideration. It will, however, be of use to examine
the principle in it application to a single State, which shall be
attended to in another place.
The utility of a Confederacy, as well to suppress faction and to
guard the internal tranquillity of States, as to increase their
external force and security, is in reality not a new idea. It has been
practiced upon in different countries and ages, and has received the
sanction of the most approved writers on the subjects of politics. The
opponents of the plan proposed have, with great assiduity, cited and
circulated the observations of Montesquieu on the necessity of a
contracted territory for a republican government. But they seem not to
have been apprised of the sentiments of that great man expressed in
another part of his work, not to have adverted to the consequences
of the principle to which they subscribe with such ready acquiescence.
When Montesquieu recommends a small extent for republics, the
standards he had in view were of dimensions far short of the limits of
almost every one of these States. Neither Virginia, Massachusetts,
Pennsylvania, New York, North Carolina, nor Georgia can by any means
be compared with the models from which he reasoned and to which the
terms of his description apply. If we therefore take his ideas on this
point as the criterion of truth, we shall be driven to the alternative
either of taking refuge at once in the arms of monarchy, or of
splitting ourselves into an infinity of little, jealous, clashing,
tumultuous commonwealths, the wretched nurseries of unceasing discord,
and the miserable objects of universal pity or contempt. Some of the
writers who have come forward on the other side of the question seem
to have been aware of the dilemma; and have even been bold enough to
hint at the division of the larger States as a desirable thing. Such
an infatuated policy, such a desperate expedient, might, by the
multiplication of petty offices, answer the views of men who possess
not qualifications to extend their influence beyond the narrow circles
of personal intrigue, but it could never promote the greatness or
happiness of the people of America.
Referring the examination of the principle itself to another
place, as has been already mentioned, it will be sufficient to
remark here that, in the sense of the author who has been most
emphatically quoted upon the occasion, it would only dictate a
reduction of the SIZE of the more considerable MEMBERS of the Union,
but would not militate against their being all comprehended in one
confederate government. And this is the true question, in the
discussion of which we are at present interested.
So far are the suggestions of Montesquieu from standing in
opposition to a general Union of the States, that he explicitly treats
of a CONFEDERATE REPUBLIC as the expedient for extending the sphere of
popular government, and reconciling the advantages of monarchy with
those of republicanism.
"It is very probable" (says he) *016 "that mankind would have been
obliged at length to live constantly under the government of a
single person, had they not contrived a kind of constitution that
has all the internal advantages of a republican, together with the
external force of a monarchical, government. I mean a Confederate
Republic.
"This form of government is a convention by which several smaller
states agree to become members of a larger one, which they intend to
form. It is a kind of assemblage of societies that constitute a new
one, capable of increasing, by means of new associations, till they
arrive to such a degree of power as to be able to provide for the
security of the united body.
"A republic of this kind, able to withstand an external force, may
support itself without any internal corruptions. The form of this
society prevents all manner of inconveniences.
"If a single member should attempt to usurp the supreme authority,
he could not be supposed to have an equal authority and credit in
all the confederate states. Were he to have too great influence over
one, this would alarm the rest. Were he to subdue a part, that which
would still remain free might oppose him with forces independent of
those which he had usurped, and overpower him before he could be
settled in his usurpation.
"Should a popular insurrection happen in one of the confederate
states, the others are able to quell it. Should abuses creep into
one part, they are reformed by those that remain sound. The state
may be destroyed on one side, and not on the other; the confederacy
may be dissolved, and the confederates preserve their sovereignty.
"As this government is composed of small republics, it enjoys the
internal happiness of each; and with respect to its external
situation, it is possessed, by means of the association, of all the
advantages of large monarchies."
I have thought it proper to quote at length these interesting
passages, because they contain a luminous abridgment of the
principal arguments in favor of the Union, and must effectually remove
the false impressions which a misapplication of other parts of the
work was calculated to make. They have, at the same time, an
intimate connection with the more immediate design of this paper;
which is, to illustrate the tendency of the Union to repress
domestic faction and insurrection.
A distinction, more subtle than accurate, has been raised between
a confederacy and a consolidation of the States. The essential
characteristic of the first is said to be, the restriction of its
authority to the members in their collective capacities, without
reaching to the individuals of whom they are composed. It is contended
that the national council ought to have no concern with any object
of internal administration. An exact equality of suffrage between
the members has also been insisted upon as a leading feature of a
confederate government. These positions are, in the main, arbitrary;
they are supported neither by principle nor precedent. It has indeed
happened, that governments of this kind have generally operated in the
manner which the distinction, taken notice of, supposes to be inherent
in their nature; but there have been in most of them extensive
exceptions to the practice, which serve to prove, as far as example
will go, that there is no absolute rule on the subject. And it will be
clearly shown, in the course of this investigation, that as far as the
principle contended for has prevailed, it has been the cause of
incurable disorder and imbecility in the government.
The definition of a confederate republic seems simply to be "an
assemblage of societies," or an association of two or more states into
one state. The extent, modifications, and objects of the federal
authority are mere matters of discretion. So long as the separate
organization of the members be not abolished; so long as it exists, by
a constitutional necessity, for local purposes; though it should be in
perfect subordination to the general authority of the union, it
would still be, in fact and in theory, an association of states, or
a confederacy. The proposed Constitution, so far from implying an
abolition of the State governments, makes them constituent parts of
the national sovereignty, by allowing them a direct representation
in the Senate, and leaves in their possession certain exclusive and
very important portions of sovereign power. This fully corresponds, in
every rational import of the terms, with the idea of a federal
government.
In the Lycian confederacy, which consisted of twenty-three CITIES or
republics, the largest were entitled to three votes in the COMMON
COUNCIL, those of the middle class to two, and the smallest to one.
The COMMON COUNCIL had the appointment of all the judges and
magistrates of the respective CITIES. This was certainly the most
delicate species of interference in their internal administration; for
if there be any thing that seems exclusively appropriated to the local
jurisdictions, it is the appointment of their own officers. Yet
Montesquieu, speaking of this association, says: "Were I to give a
model of an excellent Confederate Republic, it would be that of
Lycia." Thus we perceive that the distinctions insisted upon were
not within the contemplation of this enlightened civilian; and we
shall be led to conclude, that they are the novel refinements of an
erroneous theory.
- PUBLIUS
NO 10: The Same Subject Continued
by James Madison
-
AMONG the numerous advantages promised by a well-constructed
Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency
to break and control the violence of faction. The friend of popular
governments never finds himself so much alarmed for their character
and fate, as when he contemplates their propensity to the dangerous
vice. He will not fail, therefore, to set a due value on any plan
which, without violating the principles to which he is attached,
provides a proper cure for it. The instability, injustice, and
confusion introduced into the public councils, have, in truth, been
the mortal diseases under which popular governments have everywhere
perished; as they continue to be the favorite and fruitful topics from
which the adversaries to liberty derive their most specious
declamations. The valuable improvements made by the American
constitutions on the popular models, both ancient and modern, cannot
certainly be too much admired; but it would be an unwarrantable
partiality, to contend that they have as effectually obviated the
danger on this side, as was wished and expected. Complaints are
everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens,
equally the friends of public and private faith, and of public and
personal liberty, that our governments are too unstable, that the
public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that
measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of
justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force
of an interested and overbearing majority. However anxiously we may
wish that these complaints had no foundation, the evidence of known
facts will not permit us to deny that they are in some degree true. It
will be found, indeed, on a candid review of our situation, that
some of the distresses under which we labor have been erroneously
charged on the operation of our governments; but it will be found,
at the same time, that other causes will not alone account for many of
our heaviest misfortunes; and, particularly, for that prevailing and
increasing distrust of public engagements, and alarm for private
rights, which are echoed from one end of the continent to the other.
These must be chiefly, if not wholly, effects of the unsteadiness
and injustice with which a factious spirit has tainted our public
administrations.
By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting
to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by
some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the
rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate
interests of the community.
There are two methods of curing the mischiefs of faction: the one,
by removing its causes; the other, by controlling its effects.
There are again two methods of removing the causes of faction: the
one, by destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence;
the other, by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same
passions, and the same interests.
It could never be more truly said than of the first remedy, that
it was worse than the disease. Liberty is to faction what air is to
fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could
not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to
political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish
the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it
imparts to fire its destructive agency.
The second expedient is as impracticable as the first would be
unwise. As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is
at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As
long as the connection subsists between his reason and his
self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal
influence on each other; and the former will be objects to which the
latter will attach themselves. The diversity in the faculties of
men, from which the rights or property originate, is not less an
insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of
these faculties is the first object of government. From the protection
of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the
possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately
results; and from the influence of these on the sentiments and views
of the respective proprietors, ensues a division of the society into
different interests and parties.
The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and
we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity,
according to the different circumstances of civil society. A zeal
for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and
many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an
attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for preeminence
and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have
been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind
into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them
much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to cooperate for
their common good. So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall
into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents
itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been
sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most
violent conflicts. But the most common and durable source of
factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property.
Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed
distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those
who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed
interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed
interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in
civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by
different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and
interfering interests forms the principal task of modern
legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the
necessary and ordinary operations of the government.
No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his
interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably,
corrupt his integrity. With equal, nay with greater reason, a body
of men are unfit to be both judges and parties at the same time; yet
what are many of the most important acts of legislation, but so many
judicial determinations, not indeed concerning the rights of single
persons, but concerning the rights of large bodies of citizens? And
what are the different classes of legislators but advocates and
parties to the causes which they determine? Is a law proposed
concerning private debts? It is a question to which the creditors
are parties on one side and the debtors on the other. Justice ought to
hold the balance between them. Yet the parties are, and must be,
themselves the judges; and the most numerous party, or, in other
words, the most powerful faction must be expected to prevail. Shall
domestic manufactures be encouraged, and in what degree, by
restrictions on foreign manufactures? are questions which would be
differently decided by the landed and the manufacturing classes, and
probably by neither with a sole regard to justice and the public good.
The apportionment of taxes on the various descriptions of property
is an act which seems to require the most exact impartiality; yet
there is, perhaps, no legislative act in which greater opportunity and
temptation are given to a predominant party to trample on the rules of
justice. Every shilling with which they overburden the inferior
number, is a shilling saved to their own pockets.
It is vain to say that enlightened statesmen will be able to
adjust these clashing interests, and render them all subservient to
the public good. Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.
Nor, in many cases, can such an adjustment be made at all without
taking into view indirect and remote considerations, which will rarely
prevail over the immediate interest which one party may find in
disregarding the rights of another or the good of the whole.
The inference to which we are brought is, that the causes of faction
cannot be removed, and that relief is only to be sought in the means
of controlling its effects.
If a faction consists of less than a majority, relief is supplied by
the republican principle, which enables the majority to defeat its
sinister views by regular vote. It may clog the administration, it may
convulse the society; but it will be unable to execute and mask its
violence under the forms of the Constitution. When a majority is
included in a faction, the form of popular government, on the other
hand, enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both
the public good and the rights of other citizens. To secure the public
good and private rights against the danger of such a faction, and at
the same time to preserve the spirit and the form of popular
government, is then the great object to which our inquiries are
directed. Let me add that it is the great desideratum by which this
form of government can be rescued from the opprobrium under which it
has so long labored, and be recommended to the esteem and adoption
of mankind.
By what means is this object attainable? Evidently by one of two
only. Either the existence of the same passion or interest in a
majority at the same time must be prevented, or the majority, having
such coexistent passion or interest, must be rendered, by their number
and local situation, unable to concert and carry into effect schemes
of oppression. If the impulse and the opportunity be suffered to
coincide, we well know that neither moral nor religious motives can be
relied on as an adequate control. They are not found to be such on the
injustice and violence of individuals, and lose their efficacy in
proportion to the number combined together, that is, in proportion
as their efficacy becomes needful.
From this view of the subject it may be concluded that a pure
democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of
citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can
admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or
interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the
whole; a communication and concert result from the form of
government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to
sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is
that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and
contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security
or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in
their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic
politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have
erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in
their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly
equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and
their passions.
A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of
representation takes place, opens a different prospect, and promises
the cure for which we are seeking. Let us examine the points in
which it varies from pure democracy, and we shall comprehend both
the nature of the cure and the efficacy which it must derive from
the Union.
The two great points of difference between a democracy and a
republic are: first, the delegation of the government, in the
latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest; secondly,
the greater number of citizens, and greater sphere of country, over
which the latter may be extended.
The effect of the first difference is, on the one hand, to refine
and enlarge the public views, by passing them through the medium of
a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true
interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice
will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial
considerations. Under such a regulation, it may well happen that the
public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be
more consonant to the public good than if pronounced by the people
themselves, convened for the purpose. On the other hand, the effect
may be inverted. Men of factious tempers, of local prejudices, or of
sinister designs, may, by intrigue, by corruption, or by other
means, first obtain the suffrages, and then betray the interests, of
the people. The question resulting is, whether small or extensive
republics are more favorable to the election of proper guardians of
the public weal; and it is clearly decided in favor of the latter by
two obvious considerations:
In the first place, it is to be remarked that, however small the
republic may be, the representatives must be raised to a certain
number, in order to guard against the cabals of a few; and that,
however large it may be, they must be limited to a certain number,
in order to guard against the confusion of a multitude. Hence, the
number of representatives in the two cases not being in proportion
to that of the two constituents, and being proportionally greater in
the small republic, it follows that, if the proportion of fit
characters be not less in the large than in the small republic, the
former will present a greater option, and consequently a greater
probability of a fit choice.
In the next place, as each representative will be chosen by a
greater number of citizens in the large than in the small republic, it
will be more difficult for unworthy candidates to practice with
success the vicious arts by which elections are too often carried; and
the suffrages of the people being more free, will be more likely to
center in men who possess the most attractive merit and the most
diffusive and established characters.
It must be confessed that in this, as in most other cases, there
is a mean, on both sides of which inconveniences will be found to lie.
By enlarging too much the number of electors, you render the
representative too little acquainted with all their local
circumstances and lesser interests; as by reducing it too much, you
render him unduly attached to these, and too little fit to
comprehend and pursue great and national objects. The federal
Constitution forms a happy combination in this respect; the great
and aggregate interests being referred to the national, the local
and particular to the State legislatures.
The other point of difference is, the greater number of citizens and
extent of territory which may be brought within the compass of
republican than of democratic government; and it is this
circumstance principally which renders factious combinations less to
be dreaded in the former than in the latter. The smaller the
society, the fewer probably will be the distinct parties and interests
composing it; the fewer the distinct parties and interests, the more
frequently will a majority be found of the same party; and the smaller
the number of individuals composing a majority, and the smaller the
compass within which they are placed, the more easily will they
concert and execute their plans of oppression. Extend the sphere and
you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it
less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive
to invade the rights of other citizens; or if such a common motive
exists, it will be more difficult for all who feel it to discover
their own strength, and to act in unison with each other. Besides
other impediments, it may be remarked that, where there is a
consciousness of unjust or dishonorable purposes, communication is
always checked by distrust in proportion to the number whose
concurrence is necessary.
Hence, it clearly appears, that the same advantage which a
republic has over a democracy, in controlling the effects of
faction, is enjoyed by a large over a small republic,- is enjoyed by
the Union over the States composing it. Does the advantage consist
in the substitution of representatives whose enlightened views and
virtuous sentiments render them superior to local prejudices and to
schemes of injustice? It will not be denied that the representation of
the Union will be most likely to possess these requisite endowments.
Does it consist in the greater security afforded by a greater
variety of parties, against the event of any one party being able to
outnumber and oppress the rest? In an equal degree does the
increased variety of parties comprised within the Union, increase this
security. Does it, in fine, consist in the greater obstacles opposed
to the concert and accomplishment of the secret wishes of an unjust
and interested majority? Here, again, the extent of the Union gives it
the most palpable advantage.
The influence of factious leaders may kindle a flame within their
particular States, but will be unable to spread a general
conflagration through the other States. A religious sect may
degenerate into a political faction in a part of the Confederacy;
but the variety of sects dispersed over the entire face of it must
secure the national councils against any danger from that source. A
rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal division
of property, or for any other improper or wicked project, will be less
apt to pervade the whole body of the Union than a particular member of
it; in the same proportion as such a malady is more likely to taint
a particular country or district, than an entire State.
In the extent and proper structure of the Union, therefore, we
behold a republican remedy for the diseases most incident to
republican government. And according to the degree of pleasure and
pride we feel in being republicans, ought to be our zeal in cherishing
the spirit and supporting the character of Federalists.
- PUBLIUS
NO 11: The Utility of the Union in Respect to Commerce and a Navy
by Alexander Hamilton
-
THE importance of the Union, in a commercial light, is one of
those points about which there is least room to entertain a difference
of opinion, and which has, in fact, commanded the most general
assent of men who have any acquaintance with the subject. This applies
as well to our intercourse with foreign countries as with each other.
There are appearances to authorize a supposition that the
adventurous spirit, which distinguishes the commercial character of
America, has already excited uneasy sensations in several of the
maritime powers of Europe. They seem to be apprehensive of our too
great interference in that carrying trade, which is the support of
their navigation and the foundation of their naval strength. Those
of them which have colonies in America look forward to what this
country is capable of becoming, with painful solicitude. They
foresee the dangers that may threaten their American dominions from
the neighborhood of States, which have all the dispositions, and would
possess all the means, requisite to the creation of a powerful marine.
Impressions of this kind will naturally indicate the policy of
fostering divisions among us, and of depriving us, as far as possible,
of an ACTIVE COMMERCE in our own bottoms. This would answer the
threefold purpose of preventing our interference in their
navigation, of monopolizing the profits of our trade, and of
clipping the wings by which we might soar to a dangerous greatness.
Did not prudence forbid the details, it would not be difficult to
trace, by facts, the workings of this policy to the cabinets of
ministers.
If we continue united, we may counteract a policy so unfriendly to
our prosperity in a variety of ways. By prohibitory regulations,
extending, at the same time, throughout the States, we may oblige
foreign countries to bid against each other, for the privileges of our
markets. This assertion will not appear chimerical to those who are
able to appreciate the importance of the markets of three millions
of people- increasing in rapid progression, for the most part
exclusively addicted to agriculture, and likely from local
circumstances to remain so- to any manufacturing nation; and the
immense difference there would be to the trade and navigation of
such a nation, between a direct communication in it own ships, and
an indirect conveyance of its products and returns, to and from
America, in the ships of another country. Suppose, for instance, we
had a government in America, capable of excluding Great Britain
(with whom we have at present no treaty of commerce) from all our
ports; what would be the probable operation of this step upon her
politics? Would it not enable us to negotiate, with the fairest
prospect of success, for commercial privileges of the most valuable
and extensive kind, in the dominions of that kingdom? When these
questions have been asked, upon other occasions, they have received
a plausible, but not a solid or satisfactory answer. It has been
said that prohibitions on our part would produce no change in the
system of Britain, because she could prosecute her trade with us
through the medium of the Dutch, who would be her immediate
customers and paymasters for those articles which were wanted for
the supply of our markets. But would not her navigation be
materially injured by the loss of the important advantage of being her
own carrier in that trade? Would not the principal part of its profits
be intercepted by the Dutch, as a compensation for their agency and
risk? Would not the mere circumstance of freight occasion a
considerable deduction? Would not so circuitous an intercourse
facilitate the competitions of other nations, by enhancing the price
of British commodities in our markets, and by transferring to other
hands the management of this interesting branch of the British
commerce?
A mature consideration of the objects suggested by these questions
will justify a belief that the real disadvantages to Britain from such
a state of things, conspiring with the prepossessions of a great
part of the nation in favor of the America trade, and with the
importunities of the West India islands, would produce a relaxation in
her present system, and would let us into the enjoyment of
privileges in the markets of those islands and elsewhere, from which
our trade would derive the most substantial benefits. Such a point
gained from the British government, and which could not be expected
without an equivalent in exemptions and immunities in our markets,
would be likely to have a correspondent effect on the conduct of other
nations, who would not be inclined to see themselves altogether
supplanted in our trade.
A further resource for influencing the conduct of European nations
towards us, in this respect, would arise from the establishment of a
federal navy. There can be no doubt that the continuance of the
Union under an efficient government, would put it in our power, at a
period not very distant, to create a navy which, if it could not vie
with those of the great maritime powers, would at least be of
respectable weight if thrown into the scale of either of two
contending parties. This would be more peculiarly the case in relation
to operations in the West Indies. A few ships of the line, sent
opportunely to the reinforcement of either side, would often be
sufficient to decide the fate of a campaign, on the event of which
interests of the greatest magnitude were suspended. Our position is,
in this respect, a most commanding one. And if to this consideration
we add that of the usefulness of supplies from this country, in the
prosecution of military operations in the West Indies, it will readily
be perceived that a situation so favorable would enable us to
bargain with great advantage for commercial privileges. A price
would be set not only upon our friendship, but upon our neutrality. By
a steady adherence to the Union, we may hope, erelong, to become the
arbiter of Europe in America, and to be able to incline the balance of
European competitions in this part of the world as our interest may
dictate.
But in the reverse of this eligible situation, we shall discover
that the rivalships of the parts would make them checks upon each
other, and would frustrate all the tempting advantages which nature
has kindly placed within our reach. In a state so insignificant our
commerce would be a prey to the wanton intermeddlings of all nations
at war with each other; who have nothing to fear from us, would with
little scruple or remorse supply their wants by depredations on our
property as often as it fell in their way. The rights of neutrality
will only be respected when they are defended by an adequate power.
A nation, despicable by its weakness, forfeits even the privilege of
being neutral.
Under a vigorous national government, the natural strength and
resources of the country, directed to a common interest, would
baffle all the combinations of European jealousy to restrain our
growth. This situation would even take away the motive to such
combinations, by inducing an impracticability of success. An active
commerce, an extensive navigation, and a flourishing marine would then
be the offspring of moral and physical necessity. We might defy the
little arts of the little politicians to control or vary the
irresistible and unchangeable course of nature.
But in a state of disunion, these combinations might exist and might
operate with success. It would be in the power of the maritime
nations, availing themselves of our universal impotence, to
prescribe the conditions of our political existence; and as they
have a common interest in being our carriers, and still more in
preventing our becoming theirs, they would in all probability
combine to embarrass our navigation in such a manner as would in
effect destroy it, and confine us to a PASSIVE COMMERCE. We should
then be compelled to content ourselves with the first price of our
commodities, and to see the profits of our trade snatched from us to
enrich our enemies and persecutors. That unequalled spirit of
enterprise, which signalizes the genius of the American merchants
and navigators, and which is in itself in inexhaustible mine of
national wealth, would be stifled and lost, and poverty and disgrace
would overspread a country which, with wisdom, might make herself
the admiration and envy of the world.
There are rights of great moment to the trade of America which are
rights of the Union- I allude to the fisheries, to the navigation of
the Western lakes, and to that of the Mississippi. The dissolution
of the Confederacy would give room for delicate questions concerning
the future existence of these rights; which the interest of more
powerful partners would hardly fail to solve to our disadvantage.
The disposition of Spain with regard to the Mississippi needs no
comment. France and Britain are concerned with us in the fisheries,
and view them as of the utmost moment to their navigation. They, of
course, would hardly remain long indifferent to that decided
mastery, of which experience has shown us to be possessed in this
valuable branch of traffic, and by which we are able to undersell
those nations in their own markets. What more natural than that they
should be disposed to exclude from the lists such dangerous
competitors?
This branch of the trade ought not to be considered as a partial
benefit. All the navigating States may , in different degrees,
advantageously participate in it, and under circumstances of a greater
extension of mercantile capital, would not be unlikely to do it. As
a nursery of seamen, it now is, or, when time shall have more nearly
assimilated the principles of navigation in the several States, will
become, a universal resource. To the establishment of a navy, it
must be indispensable.
To this great national object a NAVY, union will contribute in
various ways. Every institution will grow and flourish in proportion
to the quantity and extent of the means concentrated towards its
formation and support. A navy of the United States, as it would
embrace the resources of all, is an object far less remote than a navy
of any single State or partial confederacy, which would only embrace
the resources of a single part. It happens, indeed, that different
portions of confederated America possess each some peculiar
advantage for this essential establishment. The more southern States
furnish in greater abundance certain kinds of naval stores- tar,
pitch, and turpentine. Their wood for the construction of ships is
also of a more solid and lasting texture. The difference in the
duration of the ships of which the navy might be composed, if
chiefly constructed of Southern wood, would be of signal importance,
either in the view of naval strength or of national economy. Some of
the Southern and of the Middle States yield a greater plenty of
iron, and of better quality. Seamen must chiefly be drawn from the
Northern hive. The necessity of naval protection to external or
maritime commerce does not require a particular elucidation, no more
than the conduciveness of that species of Commerce to the prosperity
of a navy.
An unrestrained intercourse between the States themselves will
advance the trade of each by an interchange of their respective
productions, not only for the supply of reciprocal wants at home,
but for exportation to foreign markets. The veins of commerce in every
part will be replenished, and will acquire additional motion and vigor
from a free circulation of the commodities of every part. Commercial
enterprise will have much greater scope, from the diversity in the
productions of different States. When the staple of one fails from a
bad harvest or unproductive crop, it can call to its aid the staple of
another. The variety, not less than the value, of products for
exportation contributes to the activity of foreign commerce. It can be
conducted upon much better terms with a large number of materials of a
given value than with a small number of materials of the same value;
arising from the competitions of trade and from the fluctuations of
markets. Particular articles may be in great demand at certain
periods, and unsalable at others; but if there be a variety of
articles, it can scarcely happen that they should all be at one time
in the latter predicament, and on this account the operations of the
merchant would be less liable to any considerable obstruction or
stagnation. The speculative trader will at once perceive the force
of these observations, and will acknowledge that the aggregate balance
of the commerce of the United States would bid fair to be much more
favorable than that of the thirteen States without union or with
partial unions.
It may perhaps be replied to this, that whether the States are
united or disunited, there would still be an intimate intercourse
between them which would answer the same ends; but this intercourse
would be fettered, interrupted, and narrowed by a multiplicity of
causes, which in the course of these papers have been amply
detailed. A unity of commercial, as well as political, interests,
can only result from a unity of government.
There are other points of view in which this subject might be
placed, of a striking and animating kind. But they would lead us too
far into the regions of futurity, and would involve topics not
proper for a newspaper discussion. I shall briefly observe, that our
situation invites and our interests prompt us to aim at an ascendant
in the system of America affairs. The world may politically, as well
as geographically, be divided into four parts, each having a
distinct set of interests. Unhappily for the other three, Europe, by
her arms and by her negotiations, by force and by fraud, has, in
different degrees, extended her dominion over them all. Africa,
Asia, and America, have successively felt her domination. The
superiority she has long maintained has tempted her to plume herself
as the Mistress of the World, and to consider the rest of mankind as
created for her benefit. Men admired as profound philosophers have, in
direct terms, attributed to her inhabitants a physical superiority and
have gravely asserted that all animals, and with them the human
species, degenerate in America- that even dogs cease to bark after
having breathed awhile in our atmosphere. *017 Facts have too long
supported these arrogant pretensions of the Europeans. It belongs to
us to vindicate the honor of the human race, and to teach that
assuming brother, moderation. Union will enable us to do it.
Disunion will add another victim to his triumphs. Let Americans
disdain to be the instruments of European greatness! Let the
thirteen States, bound together in a strict and indissoluble Union,
concur in erecting one great American system, superior to the
control of all transatlantic force or influence, and able to dictate
the terms of the connection between the old and the new world!
- PUBLIUS
NO 12: The Utility of the Union in Respect to Revenue
by Alexander Hamilton
-
THE effects of Union upon the commercial prosperity of the States
have been sufficiently delineated. Its tendency to promote the
interests of revenue will be the subject of our present inquiry.
The prosperity of commerce is now perceived and acknowledged by
all enlightened statesmen to be the most useful as well as the most
productive source of national wealth, and has accordingly become a
primary object of their political cares. By multiplying the means of
gratification, by promoting the introduction and circulation of the
precious metals, those darling objects of human avarice and
enterprise, it serves to vivify and invigorate the channels of
industry, and to make them flow with greater activity and copiousness.
The assiduous merchant, the laborious husbandman, the active mechanic,
and the industrious manufacturer,- all orders of men, look forward
with eager expectation and growing alacrity to this pleasing reward of
their toils. The often-agitated question between agriculture and
commerce has, from indubitable experience, received a decision which
has silenced the rivalship that once subsisted between them, and has
proved, to the satisfaction of their friends, that their interests are
intimately blended and interwoven. It has been found in various
countries that, in proportion as commerce has flourished, land has
risen in value. And how could it have happened otherwise? Could that
which procures a freer vent for the products of the earth, which
furnishes new incitements to the cultivation of land, which is the
most powerful instrument in increasing the quantity of money in a
state- could that, in fine, which is the faithful handmaid of labor
and industry, in every shape, fail to augment that article, which is
the prolific parent of far the greatest part of the objects upon which
they are exerted? It is astonishing that so simple a truth should ever
have had an adversary; and it is one, among a multitude of proofs, how
apt a spirit of ill-informed jealousy, or of too great abstraction and
refinement, is to lead men astray from the plainest truths of reason
and conviction.
The ability of a country to pay taxes must always be proportioned,
in a great degree, to the quantity of money in circulation, and to the
celerity with which it circulates. Commerce, contributing to both
these objects, must of necessity render the payment of taxes easier,
and facilitate the requisite supplies to the treasury. The
hereditary dominions of the Emperor of Germany contain a great
extent of fertile, cultivated, and populous territory, a large
proportion of which is situated in mild and luxuriant climates. In
some parts of this territory are to be found the best gold and
silver mines in Europe. And yet, from the want of the fostering
influence of commerce, that monarch can boast but slender revenues. He
has several times been compelled to owe obligations to the pecuniary
succors of other nations for the preservation of his essential
interests, and is unable, upon the strength of his own resources, to
sustain a long or continued war.
But it is not in this aspect of the subject alone that Union will be
seen to conduce to the purpose of revenue. There are other points of
view, in which its influence will appear more immediate and
decisive. It is evident from the state of the country, from the habits
of the people, from the experience we have had on the point itself,
that it is impracticable to raise any very considerable sums by direct
taxation. Tax laws have in vain been multiplied; new methods to
enforce the collection have in vain been tried; the public expectation
has been uniformly disappointed, and the treasuries of the States have
remained empty. The popular system of administration inherent in the
nature of popular government, coinciding with the real scarcity of
money incident to a languid and mutilated state of trade, has hitherto
defeated every experiment for extensive collections, and has at length
taught the different legislatures the folly of attempting them.
No person acquainted with what happens in other countries will be
surprised at this circumstance. In so opulent a nation as that of
Britain, where direct taxes from superior wealth must be much more
tolerable, and, from the vigor of the government, much more
practicable, than in America, far the greatest part of the national
revenue is derived from taxes of the indirect kind, from imposts,
and from excises. Duties on imported articles form a large branch of
this latter description.
In America, it is evident that we must a long time depend for the
means of revenue chiefly on such duties. In most parts of it,
excises must be confined within a narrow compass. The genius of the
people will ill brook the inquisitive and peremptory spirit of
excise laws. The pockets of the farmers, on the other hand, will
reluctantly yield but scanty supplies, in the unwelcome shape of
impositions on their houses and lands; and personal property is too
precarious and invisible a fund to be laid hold of in any other way
than by the imperceptible agency of taxes on consumption. If these
remarks have any foundation, that state of things which will best
enable us to improve and extend so valuable a resource must be best
adapted to our political welfare. And it cannot admit of a serious
doubt, that this state of things, must rest on the basis of a
general Union. As far as this would be conducive to the interests of
commerce, so far it must tend to the extension of the revenue to be
drawn from that source. As far as it would contribute to rendering
regulations for the collection of the duties more simple and
efficacious, so far it must serve to answer the purposes of making the
same rate of duties more productive, and of putting it into the
power of the government to increase the rate without prejudice to
trade.
The relative situation of these States; the number of rivers with
which they are intersected, and of bays that wash their shores; the
facility for communication in every direction; the affinity of
language and manners; the familiar habits of intercourse;- all these
are circumstances that would conspire to render an illicit trade
between them a matter of little difficulty, and would insure
frequent evasions of the commercial regulations of each other. The
separate States or confederacies would be necessitated by mutual
jealousy to avoid the temptations to that kind of trade by the lowness
of their duties. The temper of our governments, for a long time to
come, would not permit those rigorous precautions by which the
European nations guard the avenues into their respective countries, as
well by land as by water; and which, even there, are found
insufficient obstacles to the adventurous stratagems of avarice.
In France, there is an army of patrols (as they are called)
constantly employed to secure their fiscal regulations against the
inroads of the dealers in contraband trade. Mr Neckar computes the
number of these patrols at upwards of twenty thousand. This shows
the immense difficulty in preventing that species of traffic, where
there is an inland communication, and places in a strong light the
disadvantages with which the collection of duties in this country
would be encumbered, if by disunion the States should be placed in a
situation, with respect to each other, resembling that of France
with respect to her neighbors. The arbitrary and vexatious powers with
which the patrols are necessarily armed, would be intolerable in a
free country.
If, on the contrary, there be but one government pervading all the
States, there will be, as to the principal part of our commerce, but
ONE SIDE to guard-the ATLANTIC COAST. Vessels arriving directly from
foreign countries, laden with valuable cargoes, would rarely choose to
hazard themselves to the complicated and critical perils which would
attend attempts to unload prior to their coming into port. They
would have to dread both the dangers of the coast, and of detection,
as well after as before their arrival at the places of their final
destination. An ordinary degree of vigilance would be competent to the
prevention of any material infractions upon the rights of the revenue.
A few armed vessels, judiciously stationed at the entrances of our
ports, might at a small expense be made useful sentinels of the
laws. And the government having the same interest to provide against
violations everywhere, the cooperation of its measures in each State
would have a powerful tendency to render them effectual. Here also
we should preserve, by Union, an advantage which nature holds out to
us, and which would be relinquished by separation. The United States
lie at a great distance from Europe, and at a considerable distance
from all other places with which they would have extensive connections
of foreign trade. The passage from them to us, in a few hours, or in a
single night, as between the coasts of France and Britain, and of
other neighboring nations, would be impracticable. This is a
prodigious security against a direct contraband with foreign
countries; but a circuitous contraband to one State, through the
medium of another, would be both easy and safe. The difference between
a direct importation from abroad, and an indirect importation
through the channel of a neighboring State, in small parcels,
according to time and opportunity, with the additional facilities of
inland communication, must be palpable to every man of discernment.
It is therefore evident, that one national government would be able,
at much less expense, to extend the duties on imports, beyond
comparison, further than would be practicable to the States
separately, or to any partial confederacies. Hitherto, I believe, it
may safely be asserted, that these duties have not upon an average
exceeded in any State three percent. In France they are estimated to
be about fifteen percent., and in Britain they exceed this
proportion. *018 There seems to be nothing to hinder their being
increased in this country to at least treble their present amount. The
single article of ardent spirits, under federal regulation, might be
made to furnish a considerable revenue. Upon a ratio to the
importation into this State, the whole quantity imported into the
United States may be estimated at four millions of gallons; which, at
a shilling per gallon, would produce two hundred thousand pounds. That
articlewould well bear this rate of duty; and if it should tend to
diminish the consumption of it, such an effect would be equally
favorable to the agriculture, to the economy, to the morals, and to
the health of the society. There is, perhaps, nothing so much a
subject of national extravagance as these spirits.
What will be the consequence, if we are not able to avail
ourselves of the resource in question in its full extent? A nation
cannot long exist without revenues. Destitute of this essential
support, it must resign its independence, and sink into the degraded
condition of a province. This is an extremity to which no government
will of choice accede. Revenue, therefore, must be had at all
events. In this country, if the principal part be not drawn from
commerce, it must fall with oppressive weight upon land. It has been
already intimated that excises, in their true signification, are too
little in unison with the feelings of the people, to admit of great
use being made of that mode of taxation; nor, indeed, in the States
where almost the sole employment is agriculture, are the objects
proper for excise sufficiently numerous to permit very ample
collections in that way. Personal estate (as has been before
remarked), from the difficulty in tracing it, cannot be subjected to
large contributions, by any other means than by taxes on
consumption. In populous cities, it may be enough the subject of
conjecture, to occasion the oppression of individuals, without much
aggregate benefit to the State; but beyond these circles, it must,
in a great measure, escape the eye and the hand of the tax-gatherer.
As the necessities of the State, nevertheless, must be satisfied in
some mode or other, the defect of other resources must throw the
principal weight of public burdens on the possessors of land. And
as, on the other hand, the wants of the government can never obtain an
adequate supply, unless all the sources of revenue are open to its
demands, the finances of the community, under such embarrassments,
cannot be put into a situation consistent with its respectability or
it security. Thus we shall not even have the consolations of a full
treasury, to atone for the oppression of that valuable class of the
citizens who are employed in the cultivation of the soil. But public
and private distress will keep pace with each other in gloomy concert;
and unite in deploring the infatuation of those counsels which led
to disunion.
- PUBLIUS
NO 13: The Same Subject Continued with a View to Economy
by Alexander Hamilton
-
AS CONNECTED with the subject of revenue, we may with propriety
consider that of economy. The money saved from one object may be
usefully applied to another, and there will be so much the less to
be drawn from the pockets of the people. If the States are united
under one government, there will be but one national civil list to
support; if they are divided into several confederacies, there will be
as many different national civil lists to be provided for- and each of
them, as to the principal departments, coextensive with that which
would be necessary for a government of the whole. The entire
separation of the States into thirteen unconnected sovereignties is
a project too extravagant and too replete with danger to have many
advocates. The ideas of men who speculate upon the dismemberment of
the empire seem generally turned towards three confederacies- one
consisting of the four Northern, another of the four Middle, and a
third of the five Southern States. There is little probability that
there would be a greater number. According to this distribution,
each confederacy would comprise an extent of territory larger than
that of the kingdom of Great Britain. No well-informed man will
suppose that the affairs of such a confederacy can be properly
regulated by a government less comprehensive in its organs or
institutions than that which has been proposed by the convention. When
the dimensions of a State attain to a certain magnitude, it requires
the same energy of government and the same forms of administration
which are requisite in one of much greater extent. This idea admits
not of precise demonstration, because there is no rule by which we can
measure the momentum of civil power necessary to the government of any
given number of individuals; but when we consider that the island of
Britain, nearly commensurate with each of the supposed confederacies,
contains about eight millions of people, and when we reflect upon the
degree of authority required to direct the passions of so large a
society to the public good, we shall see no reason to doubt that
the like portion of power would be sufficient to perform the same
task in a society far more numerous. Civil power, properly organized
and exerted, is capable of diffusing its force to a very great extent;
and can, in a manner, reproduce itself in every part of a great empire
by a judicious arrangement of subordinate institutions.
The supposition that each confederacy into which the States would be
likely to be divided would require a government not less comprehensive
than the one proposed, will be strengthened by another supposition,
more probable than that which presents us with three confederacies
as the alternative to a general Union. If we attend carefully to
geographical and commercial considerations, in conjunction with the
habits and prejudices of the different States, we shall be led to
conclude that in case of disunion they will most naturally league
themselves under two governments. The four Eastern States, form all
the causes that form the links of national sympathy and connection,
may with certainty be expected to unite. New York, situated as she is,
would never be unwise enough to oppose a feeble and unsupported
flank to the weight of that confederacy. There are other obvious
reasons that would facilitate her accession to it. New Jersey is too
small a State to think of being a frontier, in opposition to this
still more powerful combination; nor do there appear to be any
obstacles to her admission into it. Even Pennsylvania would have
strong inducements to join the Northern league. An active foreign
commerce, on the basis of her own navigation, is her true policy,
and coincides with the opinions and dispositions of her citizens.
The more Southern States, from various circumstances, may not think
themselves much interested in the encouragement of navigation. They
may prefer a system which would give unlimited scope to all nations to
be the carriers as well as the purchasers of their commodities.
Pennsylvania may not choose to confound her interests in a
connection so adverse to her policy. As she must at all events be a
frontier, she may deem it most consistent with her safety to have
her exposed side turned towards the weaker power of the Southern,
rather than towards the stronger power of the Northern, Confederacy.
This would give her the fairest chance to avoid being the Flanders
of America. Whatever may be the determination of Pennsylvania, if
the Northern Confederacy includes New Jersey, there is no likelihood
of more than one confederacy to the south of that State.
Nothing can be more evident than that the thirteen States will be
able to support a national government better than one half, or one
third, or any number less than the whole. This reflection must have
great weight in obviating that objection to the proposed plan, which
is founded on the principle of expense; an objection, however,
which, when we come to take a nearer view of it, will appear in
every light to stand on mistaken ground.
If, in addition to the consideration of a plurality of civil
lists, we take into view the number of persons who must necessarily be
employed to guard the inland communication between the different
confederacies against illicit trade, and who in time will infallibly
spring up our of the necessities of revenue; and if we also take
into view the military establishments which it has been shown would
unavoidably result from the jealousies and conflicts of the several
nations into which the States would be divided, we shall clearly
discover that a separation would be not less injurious to the economy,
than to the tranquillity, commerce, revenue, and liberty of every
part.
- PUBLIUS
NO 14: An Objection Drawn from the Extent of Country Answered
by James Madison
-
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.
- PUBLIUS
NO 15: Concerning the Defects of the Present Confederation
in Relation to the Principle of Legislation
for the States in Their Collective Capacities
by Alexander Hamilton
-
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. *019 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.
- PUBLIUS
NO 16: The Same Subject Continued in Relation to the Same Principle
by Alexander Hamilton
-
THE tendency of the principle of legislation for States, or
communities, in their political capacities, as it has been exemplified
by the experiment we have made of it, is equally attested by the
events which have befallen all other governments of the confederate
kind, of which we have any account, in exact proportion to its
prevalence in those systems. The confirmations of this fact will be
worthy of a distinct and particular examination. I shall content
myself with barely observing here, that of all the confederacies of
antiquity, which history has handed down to us, the Lycian and Achaean
leagues, as far as there remain vestiges of them, appear to have
been most free from the fetters of that mistaken principle, and were
accordingly those which have best deserved, and have most liberally
received, the applauding suffrages of political writers.
This exceptional principle may, as truly as emphatically, be
styled the parent of anarchy: It has been seen that delinquencies in
the members of the Union are its natural and necessary offspring;
and that whenever they happen, the only constitutional remedy is
force, and the immediate effect of the use of it, civil war.
It remains to inquire how far so odious an engine of government,
in its application to us, would even be capable of answering its
end. If there should not be a large army constantly at the disposal of
the national government it would either not be able to employ force at
all, or, when this could be done, it would amount to a war between
parents of the Confederacy concerning the infractions of a league,
in which the strongest combination would be most likely to prevail,
whether it consisted of those who supported or of those who resisted
the general authority. It would rarely happen that the delinquency
to be redressed would be confined to a single member, and if there
were more than one who had neglected their duty, similarity of
situation would induce them to unite for common defence. Independent
of this motive of sympathy, if a large and influential State should
happen to be the aggressing member, it would commonly have weight
enough with its neighbors to win over some of them as associates to
its cause. Specious arguments of danger to the common liberty could
easily be contrived; plausible excuses for the deficiencies of the
party could, without difficulty, be invented to alarm the
apprehensions, inflame the passions, and conciliate the good-will even
of those States which were not chargeable with any violation or
omission of duty. This would be the more likely to take place, as
the delinquencies of the larger members might be expected sometimes to
proceed from an ambitious premeditation in their rulers, with a view
to getting rid of all external control upon their designs of
personal aggrandizement; the better to effect which it is presumable
they would tamper beforehand with leading individuals in the
adjacent States. If associates could not be found at home, recourse
would be had to the aid of foreign powers, who would seldom be
disinclined to encouraging the dissensions of a Confederacy, from
the firm union of which they had so much to fear. When the sword is
once drawn, the passions of men observe no bounds of moderation. The
suggestions of wounded pride, the instigations of irritated
resentment, would be apt to carry the States against which the arms of
the Union were exerted, to any extremes necessary to avenge the
affront or to avoid the disgrace of submission. The first war of
this kind would probably terminate in a dissolution of the Union.
This may be considered as the violent death of the Confederacy.
Its more natural death is what we now seem to be on the point of
experiencing, if the federal system be not speedily renovated in a
more substantial form. It is not probable, considering the genius of
this country, that the complying States would often be inclined to
support the authority of the Union by engaging in a war against the
non-complying States. They would always be more ready to pursue the
milder course of putting themselves upon an equal footing with the
delinquent members by an imitation of their example. And the guilt
of all would thus become the security of all. Our past experience
has exhibited the operation of this spirit in its full light. There
would, in fact, be an insuperable difficulty in ascertaining when
force could with propriety be employed. In the article of pecuniary
contribution, which would be the most usual source of delinquency,
it would often be impossible to decide whether it had proceeded from
disinclination or inability. The pretence of the latter would always
be at hand. And the case must be very flagrant in which its fallacy
could be detected with sufficient certainty to justify the harsh
expedient of compulsion. It is easy to see that this problem alone, as
often as it should occur, would open a wide field for the exercise
of factious views, of partiality, and of oppression, in the majority
that happened to prevail in the national council.
It seems to require no pains to prove that the States ought not to
prefer a national Constitution which could only be kept in motion by
the instrumentality of a large army continually on foot to execute the
ordinary requisitions or decrees of the government. And yet this is
the plain alternative involved by those who wish to deny it the
power of extending its operations to individuals. Such a scheme, if
practicable at all, would instantly degenerate into a military
despotism; but it will be found in every light impracticable. The
resources of the Union would not be equal to the maintenance of an
army considerable enough to confine the larger States within the
limits of their duty; not would the means ever be furnished of forming
such an army in the first instance. Whoever considers the populousness
and strength of several of these States singly at the present
juncture, and looks forward to what they will become, even at the
distance of half a century, will at once dismiss as idle and visionary
any scheme which aims at regulating their movements by laws to operate
upon them in their collective capacities, and to be executed by a
coercion applicable to them in the same capacities. A project of
this kind is little less romantic than the monster-taming spirit which
is attributed to the fabulous heroes and demigods of antiquity.
Even in those confederacies which have been composed of members
smaller than many of our counties, the principle of legislation for
sovereign States, supported by military coercion, has never been found
effectual. It has rarely been attempted to be employed, but against
the weaker members; and in most instances attempts to coerce the
refractory and disobedient have been the signals of bloody wars, in
which one half of the confederacy has displayed its banners against
the other half.
The result of these observations to an intelligent mind must be
clearly this, that if it be possible at any rate to construct a
federal government capable of regulating the common concerns and
preserving the general tranquillity, it must be founded, as to the
objects committed to its care, upon the reverse of the principle
contended for by the opponents of the proposed Constitution. It must
carry its agency to the persons of the citizens. It must stand in need
of no intermediate legislation; but must itself be empowered to employ
the arm of the ordinary magistrate to execute its own resolutions. The
majesty of the national authority must be manifested through the
medium of the courts of justice. The government of the Union, like
that of each State, must be able to address itself immediately to
the hopes and fears of individuals; and to attract to its support
those passions which have the strongest influence upon the human
heart. It must, in short, possess all the means, and have a right to
resort to all the methods, of executing the powers with which it is
intrusted, that are possessed and exercised by the governments of
the particular States.
To this reasoning it may perhaps be objected, that if any State
should be disaffected to the authority of the Union, it could at any
time obstruct the execution of its laws, and bring the matter to the
same issue of force, with the necessity of which the opposite scheme
is reproached.
The plausibility of this objection will vanish the moment we
advert to the essential difference between a mere NON-COMPLIANCE and a
DIRECT and ACTIVE RESISTANCE. If the interposition of the State
legislatures be necessary to give effect to a measure of the Union,
they have only NOT TO ACT, or to ACT EVASIVELY, and the measure is
defeated. This neglect of duty may be disguised under affected but
unsubstantial provisions, so as not to appear, and of course not to
excite any alarm in the people for the safety of the Constitution. The
State leaders may even make a merit of their surreptitious invasions
of it on the ground of some temporary convenience, exemption, or
advantage.
But if the execution of the laws of the national government should
not require the intervention of the State legislatures, if they were
to pass into immediate operation upon the citizens themselves, the
particular governments could not interrupt their progress without an
open and violent exertion of an unconstitutional power. No omissions
nor evasions would answer the end. They would be obliged to act, and
in such a manner as would leave no doubt that they had encroached on
the national rights. An experiment of this nature would always be
hazardous in the face of a constitution in any degree competent to its
own defence, and of a people enlightened enough to distinguish between
a legal exercise and an illegal usurpation of authority. The success
of it would require not merely a factious majority in the legislature,
but the concurrence of the courts of justice and of the body of the
people. If the judges were not embarked in a conspiracy with the
legislature, they would pronounce the resolutions of such a majority
to be contrary to the supreme law of the land, unconstitutional, and
void. If the people were not tainted with the spirit of their State
representatives, they, as the natural guardians of the Constitution,
would throw their weight into the national scale and give it a decided
preponderancy in the contest. Attempts of this kind would not often be
made with levity or rashness, because they could seldom be made
without danger to the authors, unless in cases of a tyrannical
exercise of the federal authority.
If opposition to the national government should arise from the
disorderly conduct of refractory or seditious individuals, it could be
overcome by the same means which are daily employed against the same
evil under the State governments. The magistracy, being equally the
ministers of the law of the land, from whatever source it might
emanate, would doubtless be as ready to guard the national as the
local regulations from the inroads of private licentiousness. As to
those partial commotions and insurrections, which sometimes disquiet
society, from the intrigues of an inconsiderable faction, or from
sudden or occasional ill-humors that do not infect the great body of
the community, the general government could command more extensive
resources for the suppression of disturbances of that kind than
would be in the power of any single member. And as to those mortal
feuds which, in certain conjunctures, spread a conflagration through a
whole nation, or through a very large proportion of it, proceeding
either from weighty causes of discontent given by the government or
from the contagion of some violent popular paroxysm, they do not
fall within any ordinary rules of calculation. When they happen,
they commonly amount to revolutions and dismemberments of empire. No
form of government can always either avoid or control them. It is in
vain to hope to guard against events too mighty for human foresight or
precaution, and it would be idle to object to a government because
it could not perform impossibilities.
- PUBLIUS
NO 17: The Subject Continued and Illustrated by Examples
to Show the Tendency of Federal Governments Rather to Anarchy
Among the Members Than Tyranny in the Head
by Alexander Hamilton
-
AN OBJECTION, of a nature different from that which has been
stated and answered, in my last address, may perhaps be likewise urged
against the principle of legislation for the individual citizens of
America. It may be said that it would tend to render the government of
the Union too powerful, and to enable it to absorb those residuary
authorities, which it might be judged proper to leave with the
States for local purposes. Allowing the utmost latitude to the love of
power which any reasonable man can require, I confess I am at a loss
to discover what temptation the persons intrusted with the
administration of the general government could ever feel to divest the
States of the authorities of that description. The regulation of the
mere domestic police of a State appear to me to hold out slender
allurements to ambition. Commerce, finance, negotiation, and war
seem to comprehend all the objects which have charms for minds
governed by that passion; and all the powers necessary to those
objects ought, in the first instance, to be lodged in the national
depository. The administration of private justice between the citizens
of the same State, the supervision of agriculture and of other
concerns of a similar nature, all those things, in short, which are
proper to be provided for by local legislation, can never be desirable
cares of a general jurisdiction. It is therefore improbable that there
should exist a disposition in the federal councils to usurp the powers
with which they are connected; because the attempt to exercise those
powers would be as troublesome as it would be nugatory; and the
possession of them, for that reason, would contribute nothing to the
dignity, to the importance, or to the splendor of the national
government.
But let it be admitted, for argument's sake, that mere wantonness
and lusts of domination would be sufficient to beget that disposition;
still it may be safely affirmed, that the sense of the constituent
body of the national representatives, or, in other words, the people
of the several States, would control the indulgence of so
extravagant an appetite. It will always be far more easy for the State
