Federalist Expanded TOC
I decided to spend the next couple of months reading one "modern language" Federalist Paper a day, and summarize a 3-min version so I can have a reference of what each of them covers and then decide which ones to focus on my next time around when I read them in the original language with an online dictionary open on my browser.
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Federalist Number 1
The Articles of Confederation have not established a workable government, so we've come up with a new Constitution. Is it possible for a society to create its own government? Now is the right time to find out.
Some politicians fear that a stronger federal government will diminish their own power in their state government. They would prefer to be split up into regions or separate confederate countries. They will try to plant fears that a united federal government will threaten your individual liberty. But don't be too quick to believe them -- even tyrants have often gained power initially by claiming that they're going to protect individual liberty.
I'm going to write a series of articles to explain why I think this new government outlined in the Constitution is in your best interests. I'll cover the way a strong union will prosper you politically in a way the Articles of Confederation never could, how this new government follows republican principles, how it's similar to your own state constitutions, and how it will protect your freedom and property. I'll also try to answer objections about it that critics bring up.
So hang onto your hats, and I'll try to give you the whole picture of how this new government is supposed to work, and hopefully convince you to ratify (approve) it.
Yours in good government,
Publius
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Federalist Number 2
Any civil society needs some kind of government, but every government comes with a sacrifice of some individual freedom. Would it be better to sacrifice some of our rights for the benefit of one strong union, or to a small sovereign state that operates like a separate country? America is blessed with various kinds of farmland, streams, and rivers to transport the crops we grow. The people who live on that fertile land are British descendants speaking one language and believing in one God, used to a certain principles and rights in government. We fought side by side for independence. The land and the people seem to be made for each other. It would be wrong for all of us to be split into separated, disjointed country-states.
Our sense of unity inspired us. Even before the war was over, we wanted to form a government that would maintain that sense of common unity. The Articles of Confederation were hastily drawn up, but now we've had a time of peace and calm to really think out what we want and plan it out more carefully over months of discussion and reflection.
Now we ask you to discuss and reflect just as carefully. Don't decide rashly, or be too quick to react when critics tell you not to trust the men who wrote the Constitution. Many of those very men helped write the Articles of Confederation and had gained wisdom and experience this time around.
America's prosperity depends on staying united. That was the whole reason for coming together to write the Constitution, so why are some critics suggesting that we should separate into several confederate countries? I think the people are right to stick to their original desire for a union, and I'll explain why in future articles.
Yours in good government,
Publius
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Federalist Number 3
A federal government's first requirement is to be strong enough to protect its people in various situations and problems. For now, let's focus on just one of those situations: foreign enemies.
There are more wars when there are more causes to provoke them, whether those causes are actual or imagined. A single united federal government will generate fewer occasions for war. Treaty violations and direct attacks are one of the most frequent reasons for wars. We have treaties with six different countries, and five of them have ships that can come across the sea and attack us. We do business with Spain and England, and they both have colonies right here in America. One united country with one set of international laws can prevent conflicts much better than separate states or confederacies with various laws of their own.
A national government can have access to the most qualified men from all across the country to protect it, using the same treaties and international laws, rather than 13 variations. The courts who decide on these things would also be national rather than local. A strong national government will be less affected by any insult than a smaller state might be. Indians will be more hesitant to attack a large unified nation, even if it's weak, than a small state. And when there is a bitter conflict in a state, the national government would be able to intervene rationally and prudently because they would be more detached and level-headed. They would be able to come in as a third party, and less roused, so they'd be more able to negotiate calmly.
Yours in safe government,
Publius
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Federalist Number 4
Safety from foreign invasion depends on not being offended or giving offense that could lead to war. Nations usually only go to war if they think they have something to gain; for example, kings often wage war for glory, revenge, or because they promised to help their allies.
In our own country, our fisheries compete with France and Britain. They would love to see our shipping fail because it would be better for their own trade. China and India once sold us goods that we now supply for ourselves. Spain would love to shut us out of the Mississippi River, and Britain would love to shut us out of the St. Lawrence River. This makes other nations nervous, and the whole situation has the potential to escalate into war. But if we were a strong union, that could motivate everyone else to be at peace with us.
One united government can call on men to fight if needed, and operate as a unity in order to protect the states. It can make one single peace treaty that benefits all of the states. It can form one military under one chain of command who all answer to the President.
Imagine if England, Scotland, and Wales were all acting like separate countries obeying their own leaders instead of as one unified force. They wouldn't be able to fight off an enemy nearly as effectively. They wouldn't have the strong navy that has trained so many able seamen if they didn't have the organization that their one combined nation makes possible.
If America is divided into separate confederacies, could they raise an army and navy? If one state was attacked, would the other states sacrifice money and lives to assist it? Greece was divided into city states, and they were usually fighting one another. Would we be any different? Even if New York was willing to help its neighbor state, how many of their own men and dollars would they be willing to contribute for another state? In such an alliance, who would be in command? Who would negotiate the peace treaty?
If we were one united country, these kinds of issues would never come up. Foreign nations would be more hesitant to threaten us, and more likely to seek our friendship if they saw us as a well-managed government with wisely regulated trade, an organized militia, properly controlled resources, and free, content people.
But what if they saw separate states doing their own thing, one allying with France, another with Britain, another with Spain? Experience shows that when any people are divided, they end up fighting against each other.
Publius
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Federalist Number 5
Queen Anne said to Scotland, 'If you unite with England it will give you peace, religious protection, liberty, and protection of property; it will decrease hostility amongst your own people, and minimize jealousy between you and England. Our union will make you stronger, richer, and more prosperous. It is the only way to guarantee your happiness both now and in the future, and discourage your enemies from attacking you. Therefore those enemies will try to prevent this union.'
Being weak and divided invites foreigners to invade. A united, strong government is the best defense. We can learn from Britain without experiencing first-hand the price they paid for their mistakes.
If we divide into three or four nations, we'll be like England, Scotland, and Wales. We'll be jealous and fearful of each other, with conflicting interests dividing the states. Like other countries that border each other, we'll always be suspicious of each other.
Separate confederacies can't be as strong as one united country. There would be no equality, and some confederacies wouldn't be run as well as others. One of them might become more important politically, so that the others would feel like second class citizens and become envious and fearful -- leading to conflict.
In America, the northern states have been stronger than the southern ones. If we divide into confederacies, there will be the kind conflict between the north and south that we've seen in Europe. The confederacies wouldn't trust each other, and their failure to ally with each other would put them in danger from foreign invasion.
These confederacies would have trade built around their state's commodities, which means they would have different special interests and be connected to different foreign countries. If the southern confederacy was at war, their enemy might be a trading buddy with the northern confederacy! Neighboring states might be on two different sides of a conflict and trust a foreigner from across the sea before trusting each other!
Yours in united government,
Publius
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Federalist Number 6
Since men are ambitious, vindictive, and prone to plundering, the different confederations would not get along peacefully. History shows that this just doesn't happen. Countries have always squabbled for power, commercial gain, and people's desire for justice and security. Some leaders let their personal desires override the public good - such as when Pericles destroyed Samos over a resentful prostitute [Aspasia] and started the Peloponnesian War. Henry VIII's prime minister started a war between France and England because of his own ambition, and Shays' rebellion started over Daniel Shays' personal debt.
Some think that the prosperity from lucrative trade will keep the states at peace as men become preoccupied with business.
But a republic is just as prone to passions and special interests as any other government. Their leaders are just as imperfect and have the same selfish interests. Even peaceful commerce is no guarantee of peace, because people are as likely to fight over wealth as for power or territory.
Sparta, Athens, Rome, and Carthage were all republics, yet they were at war frequently. Sparta wasn't much more than a well-disciplined camp, but that didn't stop Rome from trying to conquer them. Carthage was a republic and started the last Punic War, in which she was destroyed by Rome. Venice was a republic and fought wars due to ambition until Pope Junius II subdued them. Holland was involved in all kinds of European wars until they were crippled by debt. Britain has been been in numerous wars, often started by the people and their representatives, and often over commercial interests, even when it didn't help the country.
Separate confederacies will be no different. Expecting some golden era of peace is just an ideal dream; we need real guidelines for a practical government. Harmony between different states or countries isn't realistic. History shows that neighboring countries tend to be enemies, not friends.
Publius
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Federalist Number 7
Most wars are fought over territory. America has vast areas of unsettled territories and unsettled borders, and land that previously belonged to England. Without a union making us one country, those would cause conflicts. Congress has asked the individual states to let the US decide, and the large western territory has become the property of the union. But if we break up into separate confederacies, who will get that land? Who will decide, and how? We saw a recent land dispute that the Articles of Confederation decided between Pennsylvania and Connecticut, and Connecticut wasn't not fully satisfied with the result. In another dispute between New York and Vermont, jealousy of NY's power, the influential interests of New Hampshire, private citizens' land grants, and a desire for Vermont to be independent all added conflict to the decision.
What if we separated into confederacies? Financial trade and commercial policy would cause tensions between states who viewed themselves as sovereign nations. Enterprising businessmen who tried to get around individual state regulations could lead to war. In a recent case, New York tried to impose a duty on the citizens of NJ and Connecticut. If they had been all separate confederacies, this could have led to war.
And what about the national debt? However the separate confederacies decided to divide it up, there would be resentment and dissatisfaction. Nobody would think it was divided up fairly. Not even the States working together in Congress can agree on the debt. Should there be national credit? Does the debt even have to be paid off at all? States with banking interests want a provision that benefits them. It will take a while to work it all out. Meanwhile, foreign nations want their money back. Thus, there are multiple opportunities for offense and war.
When the debt is finally worked out, there will be some states who will find it more of a hardship than others and seek some kind of clause to help them, which the other states won't see a need for. So the suffering states will refuse to pay, and there will be more bickering. They say that nothing causes more quarrels than payment of money.
In cases where private contracts across states are involved, they influence the rights of individuals. Will states pass laws more generous to other states than their own? No, it's up to the union to pass laws that are fair to all states. When a Rhode Island law was unfair to Connecticut, it became bitter. That kind of situation in a divided confederacy could lead to war.
Individual states could also form alliances with foreign countries and become involved in their foreign disputes, which would cause Europe to be involved here. We cannot let ourselves become divided and taken over by every nation who hates or fears us.
Publius
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Federalist Number 8
In Europe, armies are so disciplined, communication so good, and forts so strong that wars aren't swift, decisive and destructive. They tend to go ond on without any decisive victor.
But states would prefer to put their money towards roads rather than armies, so they'd only result in making an easy way for an enemy to get in! The big states would conquer the smaller states by their sheer numbers of untrained, unmanaged men, and then they'd be taken over by an even bigger state.
Defending one's country against invasion makes drastic laws necessary. The people are even willing to sacrifice their own liberty after they've experienced enough violence and death. Soon the states that are left will need standing armies and urgent policies from the executive, and the result will be the executive taking the role of a monarch.
A state with an army in peacetime will tend to look at their army as a necessary precaution and make laws to prevent them and their government from encroaching on individual liberty. But a state with an army that's constantly attacked and always on the alert will put more importance on their army and would be in danger of their army encroaching on the rights of the people. Their army will end up ruling the state.
England is relatively safe, being an island, so its army isn't overbearing and unlikely to take over the country. If we are wise enough to stay united, we'll probably in a similar position as England, since Europe is so far away and foreign colonies are too small to be a threat. But if we divide into separate confederacies, we'll be just like Europe, with wars all over, and that would be the end of our liberty.
Publius
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Federalist Number 9
Being united will prevent insurrections and factions within the states. Greek and Italian confederacies had frequent revolutions that kept them bouncing between tyranny and anarchy. During those violent times, creativity was hampered by their political problems.
Some people today look at those histories as examples of why a republican government is a bad idea. They say free democracy and order don't go together. But there are some wonderful antique institutions that came out of free governments, and I think America will create its own permanent monuments to liberty. Political science has come a long way since ancient times, and we know more now. Now we have the concepts of power divided into separate departments, making checks and balances a part of the law of the country, allowing judges to serve as long as they exhibit good behavior, having the people elect representatives in their legislature. I will add this improvement: a republic can serve a small area like a single state, or a large area, like our united confederacy.
Many countries have found that a confederacy can suppress factions and keep peace. Many distinguished political writers endorse that arrangement. Critics like to quote Montesquieu about a republic's need to limit how large an area it governs, but his idea of a small republic is even smaller than Massachusetts! To follow his recommendation, we'd have to divide most of our states into multiple tiny republics, and they would be forever fighting among themselves. And they could still cluster themselves into large confederacies.
Montesquieu is not actually opposed to a union of the states. He says, 'If mankind hadn't created a confederate republic, we'd still be living under the government of a single person. But by several smaller states assembling together, they can make the combined body more secure by withstanding invasion, minimizing internal corruption, and preventing all kinds of inconveniences. It would be much harder for one state to take over the others. If people in one state rebel, the others can put a stop to it. If abuses start in one area, the others can help it get back to normal. Even if part of a state is destroyed, the union as a whole is still strong. Yet each state still retains its own sovereignty. Since each state is its own republic, each state can take care of its own happiness, but by being united, all can enjoy the benefits that a large monarchy can provide.'
Some say that there's a difference between a confederacy and a consolidation. They say that the authority of a confederacy is limited to the collective abilities of its members, not the individuals themselves. That the national government doesn't take care of internal matters within individual states. That each state should have one equal vote in the union. But none of these issues are actually defined in a confederacy and can be worked out by the members.
The actual definition of a confederacy is simply 'a group of societies.' Even if individual states retain their own sovereignty within their own states, they can still form a confederacy collectively. The new Constitution allows individual states to run their own affairs, but they have a direct say in choosing national Senators, and it follows the Lycian model of allowing larger states to have more representatives, which is just what Montesquieu recommends.
Publius
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Federalist Number 10
Faction is a danger to democracies, causing instability, injustice, and chaos. By faction, I mean a group united over a cause that conflicts with the rights of others or the best interests of the community. There are two ways to deal with factions: either remove what causes them, or control its effects by destroying liberty, or making everyone have the same opinions and interests. Destroying liberty would be overkill - like removing air because it feeds fire. And making everyone have the same opinions will never happen as long as man can reason. Men's varied abilities and skills will also earn them property, and that will vary their special interests.
Protecting men's various abilities and skills is the primary duty of government. It means people will own different kinds and amounts of property. It's human nature to divide into like-minded groups over religion, political ideas, etc. Sometimes those groups become hostile against each other and even break out into violence. But the most common cause of faction is unequal distribution of property; the 'haves' and the 'have nots' end up on different political sides. Controlling these conflicting interests brings partisanship and faction into the government's routine duties.
People don't judge their own court cases because they couldn't possibly be unbiased. But most legislation makes a judgment about citizens' rights, and legislators have their own special interests that may work against the very rights they're supposed to be protecting - such as laws that favor creditors over the rights of debtors, where creditors have power over the Congress. Should domestic manufacturing be encouraged by restricting foreign goods? It depends on whether you ask the traders or the manufacturers, and there's no guarantee that wise men will always be in power to decide. There will be factions as long as there are people, and the best we can do is control its effects.
In a republic, minority factions can always be out-voted. They may still hamper the workings of government, but they can't become violent. But what happens when the faction is in the majority? It can vote to override the rights of the minority. This is why pure democracies tend to be so turbulent, and unable to protect people's safety or property. Some think that if everyone is equal then they'll share their property and have the same opinions, but history proves the opposite.
But a representative republic can deal with this. In a republic, only a few elected delegates carry out the government, so a republic can govern a larger number of people and a bigger area of land than a pure democracy. The elected delegates will be wise enough to see what's best without sacrificing the country's best interest. The people's wishes will be filtered though a few wise men.
But what if corrupt men bribe or cheat their way into power? A larger republic will have enough representatives to guard against a few corrupt ones, although too many representatives will just make any meeting chaotic. If the ratio of Representatives to citizens is the same, a larger republic will offer more choices of candidates for representatives, so there's a better chance of getting good men in office.
Too many voters are impossible for a representative to keep up with their interests, while too few voters makes it too easy for the representative to be too closely connected to the local concerns of his constituents to focus much on national concerns. The proposed Constitution balances this by letting the national Congress deal with national concerns, and leaving local issues to the state governments.
A larger republic includes more people with wider concerns, which makes it that much harder for one faction to take hold and gain a majority among other interests that want to be heard. Divisive leaders of religious sects might be able to gain a following in their own state, but it would be hard for them to collect a majority from the entire country.
This shows how a republic serving a large country like ours can prevent the problems that factions can cause for pure democracies.
Publius
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Federalist Number 11
Europe is nervous about our entrepreneurial spirit and the competition it could mean for their own trade. Their colonies here are worried about us building ships. They will probably try to divide us since our union will help us commercially, and that will be bad for them.
By staying united, we can make uniform trade laws that force those other countries to compete for access to our markets. We could negotiate commercial treaties with England and other countries and their colonies. Britain could try to ships goods to us via the Dutch, but it would be more beneficial for them to negotiate with us directly.
With a union, we could have a national navy and have some ships in the West Indies. Our navy would be strong enough to help England or Spain as allies. It would make the world respect us. We could have some influence in European conflicts before they spill over to America.
But if we break up into separate confederacies, our own bickering amongst ourselves would weaken us. Europe would not respect or fear us, and they might plunder our resources. We would be too weak to even have neutrality rights.
As a united nation, Europe wouldn't be able to control our growth, commerce, or navigation. But if we separate, any stronger nation could force us to accept their limits and conditions to our political existence. They could set regulations on our trade and shipping. We would be poor and disgraced instead of reaching our potential and being admired and envied.
Fisheries, and navigation of the Western Lakes and Mississippi River cover multiple states. Separated, that could be a problem that our enemies would take advantage of, but as a united country, those things would fall under federal protection. United, we could stop Spain from blocking the Mississippi, and we could prevent England and France from profiting from our fisheries.
A navy wouldn't just benefit the coastal states. With all the states behind it, a US Navy could be a strong institution. Southern states could profit by manufacturing wood, tar, and turpentine to build ships. Middle states could sell iron. The north could furnish sailors. Free trade between states will help to make products profitable both at home and overseas. States can help each other out by selling their goods when another state is unable to -- such as during a bad harvest. Unity will keep trade between states running smoothly, since they'll all be within the same country.
The world is divided geographically into four parts: Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. Why should Europe dominate world trade? Let America give Europe a run for its money and vindicate the rest of the world. Let's teach those arrogant Europeans some humility. With a union, we can be powerful enough to do that.
Publius
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Federalist Number 12
A flourishing trade is the best way to grow a country's wealth. Rewarding hard work, encouraging investment, and keeping the money circulating will energize industry. Business hope and expect to make a profit from their effort. Agriculture and trade can work together for their mutual profit and become allies instead of rivals. Farms and businesses raise the value of the land and create new wealth.
As wealth grows, taxes are easier to collect. Germany has rich gold and silver mines, but their commerce is weak, so they can't collect much in taxes, which means they have to borrow money from other countries.
Under the Articles of Confederation, collecting direct federal and state taxes hasn't worked. The government has been too inefficient, and the economy hadn't produced enough wealth.
England has enough wealth that direct taxes are more tolerable, and the government is efficient enough to collect them. Even so, most of their revenue comes from indirect taxes -- domestic imposts and import duties. America should do the same, but it will be more difficult. Enterprising businessmen will find ways of avoiding them, and farmers will resent impositions on their houses and land. Personal property is too easy to hide from being taxed.
What kind of tax will be most efficient? It has to be federal, encourage profitable trade, and create enough wealth to generate tax money. It must make taxes easier to collect efficiently. It's too easy to avoid import taxes by smuggling. If we divide into separate confederacies, each confederacy will have to charge low rates so they don't make smuggling too tempting. Their governments wouldn't be able to watch all the ports closely enough to discourage smuggling. It takes France 20,000 soldiers to guard against smugglers. If we separated into different confederacies, could we maintain that kind of guard over all our various borders? Would our people put up with that kind of armed presence? But if we're one united country, our states would be able to trade freely among themselves. The only border we'd need to patrol would be the Atlantic coast. A few armed ships at our ports would deter other countries from even trying to smuggle goods into our country. And all of our states would have a vested interest in supporting our efforts to prevent smuggling.
Our distance from any enemies in Europe -- across an entire ocean -- is a great advantage, and by separating into different confederacies, we'd be throwing that advantage away. It would take weeks for any ship to even get here, unlike European countries whose borders touch each other. Why would we want to separate and create enemies of each other right in our midst?
Our states have set duties at not more than three percent.France has duties at fifteen percent, and England's are even more than that. If we unite, our states could triple their duties. Four million gallons of alcohol are imported through New York every year. Imagine if they charged an import tax of one shilling per gallon. Perhaps, due to the higher cost in tax, less alcohol would be consumed in our country, and that would be a tremendous benefit for our agriculture, economy, morals, and health.
If we can't take advantage of increased duties, we won't be able to bring in much revenue, and we'll lose our independence. Why should we choose such a situation?
Yours in prosperity,
Publius
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Federalist Number 13
Will the government laid out in the Constitution cost too much? Not necessarily, because there will be money saved to offset the cost. Since the states will be united under a single national government, there will just be one national budget and treasury to fund instead of multiple national governments. Most critics of the Constitution suggest separating into three confederacies - four northern, four middle, and five southern states. Each of these would be a little larger than England and require a government with just as much administration.
The varied geography of the states seems like it would naturally divide them into two confederacies -- New England would join New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, who, for security, would prefer to have a large border shared with the stronger north than the weaker south. The southern states would be inland rather than on the coast. Instead of being concerned with navigation, they would market the commodities produced in their states.
The thirteen states would be in a better position to support a single national government rather than two or three. Not only that, but there would be borders between these confederacies, and they would need to be protected against territorial invasions from the other states and smuggling. The guards patrolling the state borders would require a whole department of police and administrators who would have to be paid. Thus, separating into confederacies would cost us more money, threaten our peace, and put our liberty at risk.
Publius
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Federalist Number 14
Most people acknowledge that the Union will keep us safe from foreign threats, internal violence, and economic weakness. It can prevent military coups and factions from ruining democracies, like what's happened in Europe. There's only one more objection: can a Union manage such a large area? Critics of the proposed Constitution don't think so. But they're confusing a republic with a democracy. The difference is that in a democracy, all the people meet together to run the government, but a republic elects delegated representatives to run it on their behalf.
That means that democracies work best in small countries, but republics work in larger countries like ours.
Some critics who support monarchies try to exaggerate the problems with republics, using unstable democracies in ancient Greece and modern Italy to prove their point. But their point can't be made because no real republic exists anywhere in Europe -- we have the opportunity to be the first to try an actual republic.
A democracy works in an area as large as the farthest citizens can travel to help run the government. But a republic works in a larger area because only the representatives have to travel to the seat of government. Can they travel that far in America? Yes -- for thirteen years, our representatives have been meeting almost continually. If we compare America to European countries, our thirteen states are about the size of Germany, or Great Britain, and both of their governments meet almost every day.
There are other benefits of having a Union. The federal government would be able to deal with matters that affect all the states; local governments would handle everything else. The proposed Constitution would solidify our Union and add more states. Representatives would be able to travel more easily because a federal government could build good roads and waterways through the states. That would also help our commerce and communication. Almost every state will have at least part of their border next to a foreign nation, and a Union would be able to help protect those areas with more clout and resources than a single state.
States like Georgia that are farther away might have a harder time sending their representatives to Congress, but they will also be in the greatest need of military protection for their remote borders, so the sacrifice will be worth it for them.
Americans are united by so many bonds of affection. Why should we separate into different confederacies? Is a single union so a strange and unrealistic? It's not as strange or unrealistic as ripping us apart in order to make us more free and happy. It's silly not to try a republic in our large nation simply because it's never been done before. Future generations will bless us for the wonderful new individual freedoms and public happiness that a republic will bring. Imagine if the leaders of the Revolution hadn't broken away from England simply because it had never been done before. But instead, they succeeded in a revolution unlike any in history. They created a brilliant government unlike any that has ever been seen before. Perhaps their first attempt at the Articles of Confederation weren't perfect, but the new proposed Constitution has corrected some of its weaknesses.
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Federalist Number 15
All agree that our current Articles of Confederation has some flaws, and we need to do something to prevent to prevent anarchy. Truly, we've experienced every kind of crisis that can damage a country.
We have debts and no way to repay them. Foreigners control territories that should be ours. We don't have enough troops, money, or government to resist a foreign attack, or even to object with dignity. Spain controls parts of our Mississippi River. We have no credit now when we need it most. Our trade is weak. Europe doesn't respect us or our ambassadors. No one has enough confidence in our economy to invest in property or loan money.
How did we get into this position? Because those who complain that our federal government is too weak don't want to give it the power it needs! They're afraid of relegating any of the states' authority to the federal government and prefer to continue using the Articles of Confederation. But those Articles have weaknesses.
Their biggest flaw is dealing with the states as composite bodies rather than as individual citizens. The nation is allowed to request men and money, but only by going through the state governments, and the states can refuse. Yet some fault the new Constitution for fixing this very flaw.
If we separate into various confederacies, what guarantee is there that we'll all be allies? European countries have had cooperative treaties, but they're always going to war, forming and then changing alliances. If we follow that model of becoming multiple little countries, that will happen to us, and foreign countries will play us against each other.
We must refuse that kind of arrangement and adopt a central federal government -- but it will mean allowing the government to deal with individual citizens without having to go through state governments. A federal government must be able to make federal laws and apply them to individuals. It must be allowed to enforce those laws and punish individuals who violate them either through a federal court system, or with the use of force if necessary. Courts would only apply to individuals. Force would apply to political bodies. After all, no rebellious state government is going to honor a federal court sentence! A community in that kind of rebellion has pretty much declared war on the federal government.
Some think that states will comply with Constitutional laws out of their sense of common interest, but that's just wishful thinking. Human nature requires that force must be used before people will do what's right -- they don't behave merely out of a sense of integrity or fairness. And groups of men are no different. In fact, groups are more apt to have less restraint because blame can be shared. A mob acting together is more easily led into faction than an individual. Small groups tend to split off and resist rather than cooperate because they love their own sense of power. Thus, state governments may tend to resist the central federal government. If the federal government isn't given the authority to make states comply with the Constitution, there might as well not be a Constitution. States will just refuse to obey the parts they don't like, regardless of the implications to the country as a whole. They'll only consider what's best for their own local political situation. Every state will end up doing its own thing.
The current Articles of Confederation require unanimous agreement of all thirteen states to decide anything. It just takes one state to refuse, which means that nothing is ever done. It's gotten to a point where the government is powerless because all thirteen states never agree on anything! This all started because some states felt like they weren't given as many representatives. Human selfishness made them feel slighted and uncooperative, until we're at a point where our central government is non-functional and we're about to be ruined.
Publius
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Federalist Number 16
Most confederacies make laws for their state or region rather than for their people. Then those states or regions start to ignore or even violate national laws, and the people resist so that the end result is civil war. That means the confederacy has to maintain a large army to be ready to quell any uprisings.
Usually this neglect of the national law is done by a few states jointly, or others are drawn into the struggle by being bullied or scared about some supposed danger. Sometimes foreign nations are brought in, and they take advantage of the instability by playing one side against the other. This kind of war would destroy our Union.
Actually the union seems to be withering on its own, unless we do something quickly to bring it back to life. Even the states who support the union are not likely to go to all out war against other states who are opposed to union. They'd be more likely to try to stay neutral, so it would be difficult to use force to make a state submit to being part of the union. A state is more likely to refuse to give tax money to the federal government than to resist the government by taking up arms, and before the government applied force to make them pay, it would be necessary to know for sure whether the state was rebelling or genuinely unable to pay. Even making that determination would be a controversial situation.
We should not ratify a Constitution that has to be enforced by a large army. But that's exactly what will happen if the federal government isn't given the right to deal directly with individuals [if the federal government has to go through state governments]. It would result in military tyranny, and even then, we couldn't afford an army big enough to control the larger states. Even in confederacies that are tinier than some of our counties, military force has never worked to coerce obedience. It ends in a bloody civil war.
It should be clear that if a federal government is going to be effective at dealing with national matters and preserving domestic peace, it has to be able to deal directly with individuals. It can't be required to go through state governments. It must have the authority to make its own decisions and enforce them. It must be able to rely on to a national court system. It must have as much direct access to its citizens as state governments do. It should be allowed to use the same powers that state governments are allowed to use.
What if a state decides it doesn't like being under the authority of the Union? It could obstruct the federal government, or refuse to ratify a federal measure. [The Articles of Confederation required all states to agree on any measure before it could be enacted, so one troublemaking state could incapacitate the entire nation.] But if national laws didn't require unanimous approval from every state, a dissenting state would have to resort to blatant violence to oppose a national law. But that wouldn't go over well with a population that knew the difference between a legal action and a violation of constitutional authority. A decision to rise up against the federal government would take a majority of a state legislature voting for it, and their state court and citizens going along with it. Their courts would have to declare such an act unconstitutional unless they were involved in a conspiracy with the state legislature.
If there was some kind of uprising within a state, that state would benefit from having the help of the entire federal government to help control it rather than depending only the resources from their own state. What about violent dissent that affects the whole nation? That can happen to any country, and no government is strong enough to fix everything.
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Federalist Number 17
Some people are afraid that allowing the federal government to have authority directly over individual citizens without having to go through the state governments would give the federal government way too much power that should belong to the states. But the federal government will be too busy dealing with trade, budget, treaties, and war to want to usurp additional state authority. Making sure there's justice between citizens, managing agriculture -- these are local concerns that are rightly left to the states. Why would the federal government waste their time and money interfering into those kinds of things?
In fact, it would be easier for the states to encroach on powers that belong to the federal government than the other way around, because states are more directly involved with the citizens. This tends to be a weakness of all federal governments. The federal government is spread too thin over too wide a variety of matters that feel vague and remote to most people, while the states are more closely involved with citizens on issues they consider more urgent. People tend not to focus on matters that don't seem immediately relevant to them. People are more interested in what's going in their local community than in the nation at large. The state government is also more intimately connected with the citizens because it handles more of the court cases that dispense justice and enforcement to the people. It's the local officials who guard and protect lives and property, which are the most personal matters to the people. That makes the people more attached to their state government than to the federal government. National governments operate out of view of the people, so they don't affect the people directly with feelings of obligation or attachment.
In the old days, feudal systems were somewhat like confederacies. There was one sovereign authority over everyone, and lesser feudal lords controlling their own plots of land, and lots of serfs who farmed the land. There were frequent battles when feudal lords violated the sovereign authority, but the sovereign authority wasn't strong enough to keep peace or to protect the people from their oppressive feudal lords. In fact, this period of time is often called 'the times of feudal anarchy'!
Ambitious warlike sovereigns with greater talent were able to earn respect and influence, which granted them more power. But usually, the lesser feudal lords defeated them. Even when the sovereign won, he won only because the tyranny and cruelty of the lesser feudal lords failed to win the loyalty of their serfs. If the lords had treated their serfs better, the serfs might have been more devoted and helped them win.
Our state governments are like beneficial feudal lords, and the central government is like a vulnerable sovereign authority. The states have it within their ability to win the people's trust and goodwill. The states could defeat the central government, like the feudal lords who could defeat their sovereign authority, because the states deal with the individual citizens, while the central government only deals with the states.
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Federalist Number 18
The religious Amphictyonic League in Greece was somewhat like our current Articles of Confederation. Its city-states were sovereign entities with equal votes in the central government. They had authority to propose actions for Greece; declare war, judge disputes between members, punish those who disobeyed, allow new members to join.
They managed the Delphos Temple and those who came to consult the oracle. As part of their federal pact, they swore to defend member city-states, punish any city-state who was disloyal to the League, and be avenged on anyone who desecrated the temple. Reasonable enough, but they overstepped the authority specified in their articles of confederation. Their exploitation of the superstitions of the time became a powerful political tool. Sometimes they abused their authority to deal with member city-states who didn't fall in line with the League.
Their powers, as in our current Articles of Confederation, were in the hands of representatives from each city-state. But powerful city-states like Athens tyrannized the others, and this weakened the League and finally destroyed it. Member city-states never worked together, even during wars. They were often deceived or bribed by the enemy. During peace, there were hardships and violence at home. After the war with Xerxes, Sparta tried to kick some member city-states out for being unfaithful, but the Athenians put a stop to that when they realized it would increase the Spartans' power in the League. Jealousy from the strongest members of this kind of confederacy became a threat to weaker members.
Greece should have seen the need for a closer union, and worked to strengthen that union during their times of peace. Instead, Athens and Sparta continued to bicker all the way to the Peloponnesian War, which was the end of Athens.
Weak governments tend to be preoccupied with internal conflict during times of peace, which invites foreigners to come in and attack. For example, the Phocons violated the temple of Apollo, so the Amphictyonic League fined them. The Phocians allied with Athens and Sparta and refused to pay the fine. The Thebans allied with others, including Philip of Macedon, to force them to pay. It was Philip who ended up conquering the entire League. If Greece had been united with a strong central government, Macedon could never have taken them over.
Another Greek confederacy, the Achaean League, had a much stronger union. They were able to govern efficiently and enjoy equality for 130 years. Their senate made treaties, negotiated alliances, and appointed an executive leader. This executive had command of the army. He governed the nation with the advice and consent of ten senators. The city-states had the same laws, customs, and currency. When Sparta was forced into the League after the Laconian Wars, they adopted the Achaean institutions.
The Achaean government was more fair and less violent than city-states that were not in the League. The unrest caused by pure democracies everywhere else never affected the Achaean republic because of their strong central government. During the Amphictyonic League, the smaller city-states in the Achaean League were left alone, and even after the Amphictyonic League was conquered by Macedon, those little city-states were left alone. But later leaders tried to divide them by getting them focused on their various special interests, and the union ended up being dissolved. Some were taken over Macedon, and others by their own tyrants.
But they remembered the liberty they had lost, so they reunited with former city-states and broke away from their tyrants. They formed their confederacy again and spread their fair government to most of Peloponnesus. All of Greece caught the spirit of liberty and almost united into one confederacy, until Athens put a stop to it, and the Achaeans had to choose between Sparta or Macedon. They chose Macedon, and Macedonia defeated the Spartan Cleomenes. Unfortunately, their helper turned into their dictator, so they allied with the Romans to throw off Macedon and ended up as slaves to Rome.
Thus it's not central government that is to be feared; confederate city-states tend to fall because of jealousy amongst themselves.
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Federalist Number 19
Germany was once made up of seven different nations. Charlemagne made Germany part of his own nation, the Franks. But he left the local chiefs and their legislatures behind as his vassals. Germany evolved so that the land passed down to the chiefs' descendants and they grew more powerful. By the eleventh century, they overthrew the Franks and became independent. But in the fifteenth century, they fought each other and ruined their imperial authority.
This feudal system was similar to a confederacy. The federal system that makes up Germany grew out of this. Its powers are entrusted in a diet [legislature] representing the member states, an emperor who can veto the diet, and judiciary tribunals.
The diet makes laws, declares war, forms alliances, pays troops, builds forts, regulates coinage, admits new members, and disciplines members who compromise the empire. Diet members can be judged by the emperor, the diet, or the judiciary. The emperor can propose initiatives, veto the diet's resolutions, appoint ambassadors, grant titles, fill vacant electorate positions, establish universities, grant reasonable privileges, collect public money and put it to use, and defend public safety. He doesn't get to own land, or receive a salary, although he already has wealth and property. His list of constitutional authority is typical for European confederacies. They all are structured so that the empire is a group of sovereigns and the diet represents and makes laws for the sovereigns. That makes the empire unable to manage the individual states and puts them at risk from outside attacks and domestic unrest.
Germany's history is full of wars between the emperor and the states, offenses and oppressions against the weak, foreign invasions, abuse of men and money, confusion, and misery. Germany spent 30 years at war with Sweden until the Peace of Westphalia, which was negotiated and enforced by foreigners! Organizing for the sake of war isn't what strengthens a union. Military preparations are so involved that the enemy may be on the way before the preparations are ready. The army a country keeps in peacetime isn't sufficient to fight an enemy. To maintain order and justice, the treaty divided Germany into districts, each with its own government and with a military to enforce its regulations. Each individual district was like a miniature oppressive empire. Districts were either unable to enforce order, or ended up in civil war. The offenses of the district leaders were worse than the original problem. At one point, the Duke of Bavaria had to restore order with 10,000 troops in one of the German states! And then he usurped power.
Why do the German confederacies even stay together? They're not willing to rely on the help of foreigners, their chief leaders are weaker than the nations around them, and the emperor has too much influence due to his inherited dominions and noble family connections. The flawed confederacy continues to become more entrenched, preventing any improved union that could bring reform. And their foreign neighbors prefer them not to reform because that would make Germany stronger.
Swiss cantons have a similar relationship. There is no national treasury, army, currency, or judiciary. The only thing that keeps them together is their geographical location, the lack of resources to fight over, and their need to band together against any powerful foreign enemy. The only thing the US has in common with Switzerland is that neither has used their collective power to settle important differences. Switzerland has had violent conflicts over religious differences on three separate occasions, and currently they have separate diets for Protestants and Catholics, so that there isn't much for the general Swiss diet to do.
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Federalist Number 20
The Netherlands is a confederacy with seven provinces made up of equal, independent cities. Decisions on any important political matter have to be unanimous. They have about fifty deputies who are appointed by the provinces. Their assembly is called a 'States-General.' Some of their officers retain their office for life, others for up to six years, and two hold their positions 'during pleasure.' The States-General has the power to make treaties and alliances, declare war, raise armies, determine quotas and collect taxes, appoint and receive ambassadors, collect import and export duties, manage the mint, and govern the territories that are dependent on them. The provinces are not allowed to enter foreign treaties, or charge duties to other provinces that are higher than their own citizens pay. A council of state supports the central government.
The chief executive of the confederacy is the stadholder. The position is held by a prince who inherits the title, family estates, connections with other European leaders, and his role as leader of his province. He can appoint town magistrates, put decrees into place, lead tribunals in his province, and pardon those who broke the law.
The stadtholder of the confederacy is allowed to settle disputes between different provinces, help in States-General cases and conferences, receive foreign ambassadors, and be represented at courts in other countries. He has command of an army of 40,000 men and he appoints military officers. He also commands the navy.
This is how it's supposed to work, but in practice, the officials make all kinds of blunders, the provinces bicker, they are abused by foreign countries, their peace is unstable, and they suffer from the kinds of hardships that result from war.
Grotius once said that it was only his country's hatred of Austria that kept their constitution from completely ruining them. Another writer said that the union of Utrecht gave the States-General enough power to secure harmony, but the jealousies of the province cancelled it out! Someone else said that the union of Utrecht forced each province to collect certain taxes, but that couldn't be done because the provinces inland had very little trade, so they couldn't pay their quotas. So the provinces that could pay had to make up the difference and then try to get the inland provinces to pay them back-- sometimes with military force. Sir William Temple, who was once a foreign minister, said that foreign ministers used to undermine referendums they didn't like by tampering with the provinces and cities. In this way, they delayed the treaty of Hanover for a whole year in 1726. There are many similar examples.
During times of emergencies, States-General sometimes have to overstep their constitutional authority -- such as finalizing the treaty of Westphalia in 1648 which made them independent, but without the approval of their legislature.
A weak constitution can't succeed. It lacks enough power, or is forced to usurp powers to secure public safety. When a defective constitution forces a government to deal with an emergency by assuming unconstitutional power, the situation is ripe for tyranny. Even a constitution that is too generous with the authority it gives government is less likely to end in tyranny.
Even with the flaws of the stadtholder system, its influence in the province has probably prevented anarchy and rebellions that might have destroyed it. The Netherlands has powerful neighbors, so union is necessary. Patriots have warned the people about their dangerous neighbors and tried to reform their constitution four times to try to make them more secure.
The United States has a similarly flawed Articles of Confederation, and we are at risk of suffering the same things. The world is watching and hoping that a true union will bring us peace, liberty, and happiness so that they can follow our example and put an end to their own political disasters.
Experience tells us what is true. The truth is that one sovereign over other sovereigns, or one government over other governments, and a legislature for communities rather than for individuals, undermines civil discussion by substituting violence for law.
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Federalist Number 21
One glaring flaw in the Articles of Confederation is that the central government has no power to enforce its laws. This is crazy! With no provisions to penalize anyone who violates federal laws, the main benefit of uniting is lost: states can't be made to help states experiencing internal dangers. Any state could have someone seize power and destroy liberty, and the federal government has no means of compelling the other states to intervene. The most they could do is to express indignation. What if the recent rebellion in Massachusetts had been skillfully led by someone like Caesar or Cromwell, instead of the farmer Daniel Shays? What if he had succeeded and usurped power over Massachusetts? His tyranny might have affected New Hampshire, Rhode Island, or Connecticut and destroyed their liberties.
Would constitutional provisions to compel obedience give stronger states the means to bully weaker states? No; the majority of citizens in any state could still legally and peacefully reform their constitution. The federal government would only have the right to punish violence. When all the governmental power is in the hands of the people, a state has fewer reasons to use violence against its citizens because if the people are unhappy, they can vote in new leaders. A federal government with legal authority to punish would be one more incentive to prevent anyone from usurping power in any state.
Another flaw of the Articles of Confederation is that states have different tax quotas [taxes were set in proportion to population and land value.] This violates the concept of state equality. Comparing the wealth of different states is like comparing the wealth of United Netherlands to Russia or Germany. There is no standard; there are too many variables and no common denominator. A state's revenue has little to do with its size or population. Even counties within states vary in wealth, and a county's size may not indicate its prosperity. Geography, climate, businesses, education, access to information, culture, are just some of the factors at play. With no standard of measurement, there's no way to assess how much any individual state can pay. Any attempt to dictate quotas is unfair and oppressive. Poor States could just refuse to pay.
The only fair thing to do is to allow the federal government to decide how to raise its own revenue. Customs, tariffs, and duties can be adapted as needed. Individuals can determine how much tax they pay by buying more or less. The rich can buy more, the poor can buy less. Across all the states, it will balance out and there will be equilibrium.
A benefit of taxes based on consumption is that they prevent excessive mandatory taxes. They have a built-in limit that can't be exceeded without defeating their purpose: if they're set too high, people simply stop buying and no taxes are paid. The problem with taxes based on property value is that assessing land value is difficult enough, but in a growing country like ours, land value is always changing as populations settle new areas. Establishing a definite method of setting taxes that will accomplish the purpose will be better than leaving it open to be decided by the people.
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Federalist Number 22
Another flaw of the Articles of Confederation is that it doesn't give the federal government any authority to manage trade between different states, and with foreign countries. That causes conflict between states and prevents us from making profitable trade agreements with other nations. Who would want to sign any treaty with us when he knows that any state can violate that treaty? Germany's trade is stifled by all the different regulations of her various territories. The conflicting regulations of our own states could make them start treating each other as foreigners.
Under the Articles of Confederation, the authority to raise an army amounts to merely a recruitment quota for the states. During the Revolution, this meant that states tried to entice men to join the army with promises of financial rewards, and men held out, hoping for a better deal. So, when we needed men the most, our army was weak, and we spent too much time and money recruiting instead of training. States near the battleground tried to send more than their quota, and states farther away weren't as eager to meet their quota. Recruiting an army or collecting taxes through quotas and requests is inefficient and unfair.
The Articles of Confederation also gives every state, big or small, equal votes in Congress. How can that be right in a republic where majority rules? Nine small, sparsely populated states could outvote a couple of large states, so that a minority of people were able to outvote the majority, and the larger states might simply refuse to obey laws passed by the minority. It's not equal representation, and would eventually destroy our union. As more states are be added, this scenario will be even more likely. This system allows a couple of tiny states to have the power to stop any law from being passed, especially when unanimous consent is required. What happens during a national emergency if one state decides to be stubborn? The entire nation will have to submit to what the smallest state wants, even though they only have a tiny fraction of the union's population. This keeps the government inactive and weak - and risks anarchy. That could invite foreign intervention and domestic faction, not majority rule. A two-thirds vote where each state has the same number of votes may prevent improper actions, but it also gives a minority the ability to hinder any necessary action. It means fewer people have to be corrupted to sway a vote. Foreigners could meddle and get the smaller states to make a trade deal that squeezes out their competitor.
A general weakness of republics is that they tend to encourage foreign corruption. A ruling body taken of Representatives from the masses is more likely to be bribed and corruption than a monarch whose very glory is in his country. This happened in Sweden when France and England corrupted their officials.
The lack of a national judiciary is another flaw. It means laws can be interpreted in as many ways as there are states. Even states have seen the necessity for one superior state court because men's opinions can be so diverse; why wouldn't the nation need the same thing? Having no national judiciary allows the states to prefer their own laws above even federal law. How can foreign nations respect such a union? How can our own citizens have confidence in that?
The Articles of Confederation have so many flaws that what's needed is a whole new system. If we don't ratify the new Constitution, the union will either slowly dissolve, or situations will gradually lead us to add more and more powers to the federal government until it becomes a tyrant.
The Articles of Confederation, in fact, were never properly ratified, so their authority is often challenged. Since a few state legislatures agreed to them, it gives those state legislatures the authority to repeal them! We need a stronger government that can't be repealed by a few designated state legislators. We need a government based on a stronger foundation: on the consent of the people themselves.
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Federalist Number 23
The new Constitution was written to defend the country against foreign invasion and domestic violence, manage trade between states and with other nations, and oversee political and financial relationships with foreign countries.
That means the US needs to be able to raise armies, build ships, regulate them, and finance them. The US needs unlimited authority for those things because of the dangers confronting us. This ought to be obvious to anyone with common sense because 'the means to do a thing should be in proportion to the thing being done' and 'those who need to complete a task must have what they need to complete it.'
Perhaps the very question of whether a federal government should be trusted to defend all of us is debatable. If it should defend us, then the government must have whatever authority is needed for the task. Threats and dangers don't come with predetermined limits, so the government's ability to deal with those dangers must also be unlimited. The Articles of Confederation doesn't meet this need, and its writers knew this. They allowed Congress to request men and money, manage the army and navy, and pay for them, and the states had to supply those men and finances. So the intent was for the federal government to have the power it needed for our defense. But in practice, that hasn't worked out. The federal government shouldn't have to go through state legislatures to get what they need. Quotas and requisitions don't work. We need a new system. The government should be able to collect what is needed directly.
If we can agree that a republic is best, then we need to decide how to spread power between the different levels of government. Should the federal government be the one responsible to guard the country's safety? If so, would it need supplies such as ships, men, and money to do that? If the answer is yes, then the federal government should be given the authority it needs for national defense, trade between states, and everything else it has to do.
States are the ones to administer justice between two citizens within their own state, so they are entitled to whatever resources are needed to do that. It's incompetent to give someone authority to do a thing, but not the authority to obtain what they need to do it.
We need to decide which level of government, local or federal, is best suited to handle national defense. Whoever it is needs access to centralized information so they can assess the situation, they must be able to represent the entire country, be able to expend the effort that's needed, and establish defense measures uniformly. How can these things be done by the federal government while giving individual states the job of providing the men and resources to carry them out? Lack of cooperation, disorganization, weakness, and unfair division of funding come from this system, as we saw with the Revolution.
It is unwise and risky to restrict the federal government's ability to protect the country. It was irresponsible for critics to alarm the public with vague fears about giving the federal government too much power. The branches of government were designed to prevent them from gaining too much power, but they must have enough power to protect our national interests. Some fear giving the federal government too much power because of the size of the nation and prefer separating into multiple confederacies, but I think that the size of the nation is safer with a strong federal government defending it.
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Federalist Number 24
Some criticize the new Constitution because it allows the federal government to maintain an army even in times of peace, but that's actually a good idea. Those critics haven't specified why that would be a problem, but most free countries do have an army. Their real concern is the federal government having so much management of the military. Our newspapers make it sound like the Constitution requires a standing army in peacetime, and that the executive [<em>president</em>] is allowed to raise an army without the approval of Congress.
But that's not what the Constitution says. It's the elected Congress who is authorized to raise an army, not the president, and the Constitution doesn't allow the army to be budgeted for more than two years at a time. And America is so concerned about liberty that all state constitutions specify precautions to protect freedom -- surely the federal Constitution specifies precautions, too, to be sure our army doesn't threaten our freedoms.
Only two state constitution ban standing armies. The rest either allow it or say nothing about it. What do the Articles of Confederation say about it? They don't list any restraints on a standing army. The critics are merely being dishonest because they don't want the new Constitution ratified.
Forbidding the legislature from maintaining a peacetime army wouldn't be right, and even if the Constitution did forbid keeping an army, that would probably be ignored out of necessity. Even though Europe is across the ocean, they are still a threat, and one of our borders has British settlements next to Spanish colonies. The Indians in the west are also our enemies, and allied with the British. France and Spain are less connected by family ties [so Spain could turn against France's ally?]
We have had to guard our western border for years, mostly from Indians, and that's not going to change any time soon. A guard requires soldiers. We couldn't ask civilians to leave their families to serve as a militia for guard duty during peacetime. Rotating that kind of militia would also be costly, not just because of their pay, but because their work back home would suffer.
As we grow in strength, England and Spain will both increase their military presence here, and we'll want our own army to protect us from their encroachments.
If we want to trade with other countries and protect our eastern coast, we'll also need a navy with dockyards, and garrisons will be necessary to protect the dockyards until the ships can protect them. But until our navy is strong enough to defend itself, an army is needed to man the garrisons.
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Federalist Number 25
Should the states be in charge of national defense, under the direction of the federal government? That seems backwards. We are surrounded by British and Spanish territories, so we share a common threat and we need a defense in common. Some states, like New York, are directly in harm's way, so they would bear the burden of protecting their coasts and keeping the whole US safe. Is that fair? Those states aren't financially able to do that, yet if they fail, the entire nation could fall. And even if they are able to maintain an army to protect their coast on behalf of the whole US, would the other states feel safe if the largest and richest state also had the country's only army? No, they would muster up their own armies to defend themselves against that state and there would be civil war.
States with their own militaries might also subvert the federal government, and their priority would not be individual liberty. If an army is going to gain power, it's much better if they represent the entire country rather than one state. For one thing, the people distrust a large centralized government and will more likely be on their guard against that.
Even the Articles of Confederation didn't allow individual states to have their own ships or army. Putting the national military under state control makes no sense.
Are critics concerned about raising up armies in peacetime, or maintaining already existing armies? Who defines what constitutes maintaining existing armies? For how long? A week? A year? Until some danger is past? Wouldn't that technically be maintaining an army during peace? Who gets to decide what counts as danger?
If ever the executive and the legislature conspired to usurp the government, it would be easy to fabricate some danger involving Indians working with Spain or England. That would give them an excuse to raise a peacetime army.
To prevent that kind of conspiracy, should we ban armies in peacetime? If we did, it would make it impossible for the US to defend itself, even if an invasion was on its way. We'd have to wait until the enemy was at our borders before we could even collect men to join the army. We wouldn't be able to prevent an attack before it got here. We would put our lives and property at risk because we're afraid that our elected leaders might threaten our liberty if we give them authority to maintain an army.
Some might think that the militia is our army, protecting us from any danger. But depending on the militia nearly lost us the Revolutionary War and cost millions of lives. We need a real professional army. Our militia did some brave deeds, but even the most heroic of them realizes that we only won because we had allies. Winning a war takes a trained, disciplined army.
Any extreme policy goes against the natural course of human affairs and doesn't work, as Pennsylvania's ban against any standing army in peacetime proves. They ended up needing an armed force when violence broke out in some of its counties. Massachusetts, though its constitution doesn't ban standing armies, also needed troops to deal with internal violence. The US will undoubtedly have similar situations needing an armed force to keep the peace, so our Constitution needs to have a provision for maintaining an army. A weak government is not respected; the US needs a strong government backed by a strong defense.
When the Peloponnesans needed Lysander to lead their forces during a national emergency but couldn't because their constitution didn't allow him to lead a second term, they made him vice-admiral in name with the understanding that he was the one who was really in charge. Governments will find ways of getting around limitations when there's a national emergency. Wise politicians shouldn't write limitations into the Constitution that the US will have to work around in a crisis.
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Federalist Number 26
Pennsylvania and North Carolina fear that giving the legislature too much power over the military could threaten our liberty, although other states realize that protecting the nation is worth the risk. Critics of the new Constitution seem to want to lead us into plans that are more risky than the Constitution. If they have their way, we won't have any government at all, just anarchy.
Banning a standing army in peacetime is a holdover from Britain, when the king was all-powerful and the barons sought to limit him. The barons were finally successful in 1688, when William of Orange was king, and their Bill of Rights banned him from keeping a standing army in peacetime. It wasn't the army they feared, but a king with an army. Our patriots who won the Revolution realized that an army would need to stand guard even in peacetime, so they wrote that into the Constitution for the country's protection. We still retain the fear that standing armies will threaten our liberty, and the Revolution made us hyper-aware of the need to protect our rights, although the only two states that actually banned armies in their state constitutions gave other extra powers to their legislators! Other states say that an army can only be maintained with the consent of the state legislature, but it's only the state legislature who has the authority to maintain an army! That seems redundant.
The two states that don't allow standing armies even softened their language: instead of prohibiting it, they merely say the state "should not" maintain an army. In an actual emergency, the state would undoubtedly go ahead and raise an army and not feel like they were violating their constitution.
The new Constitution recognizes the reality of protecting the nation, so it wisely allows a standing army. Every two years, Congress can re-assess the need for maintaining an army. They are not allowed to give the president permanent funds to maintain the army. Supporting an army will always be an issue for politicians to debate. If the federal government appears to be encroaching on individual liberty, the states can limit the federal government's ability to maintain an army.
Any plan to destroy the people's freedoms won't happen overnight. Building up an army strong enough to be a threat takes time, so there would have to be a plot between the legislature and the executive going on for a long time -- which isn't likely, since they all have to be re-elected regularly. It would require the president and Congress betraying the people, without even one honest politician warning the people. Such a plot would be hard to hide. A growing army in peacetime would be a dead give-away, and the people would be alarmed and vote out the treacherous politicians.
Could the president get around the two-year limit on a standing army? Not likely, as a growing army would alarm the legislature.
Everyone admits that an army is needed to put down rebellion and defend against invasions. Certainly an army large enough to defend the country could theoretically be a threat to the people. But it will be more dangerous if we're split into multiple confederacies. A large army that threatened our liberties would have the civilian militia to contend with, but if we're divided into confederacies, that kind of threat would be unavoidable.
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Federalist Number 27
Some say the new Constitution will need to have a military to carry out its laws. But this is not so. Our people don't need to be coerced to recognize their federal government. It's not as if the federal government is going to be more abusive than the state governments. If the people feel that the federal government is working towards their best interests, they will comply with it with few exceptions. In these articles, we've given some reasons why the federal government will be managed even more efficiently than the state governments. One reason is that it will offer more political choices. The Senate will be chosen by the elected state legislatures, who are likely to make careful choices in choosing Senators, which will result in Senators who are more informed, less divisive, and more unbiased. That means those Senators will be more likely to legislate without the conflict that leads to injustice, oppression, and general distress. Until we have reason to think that the federal government will govern badly, we should assume that it will do its job at least as well as the state governments.
Fear of punishment discourages people from violent uprisings, and a strong federal government with authority to punish will be more effective at preventing sedition than a small state government. The more the federal government is involved in the daily lives of citizens, the more loyalty and respect it will earn from its citizens. We are creatures of habit, more liable to become attached to a government we're familiar with than one that's remote and distant. The more attached we are to our government, the less likely we'll be to rise up against it, and the less likely that the government will have to use force against us. The government outlined in the new Constitution is less likely to need to resort to force than a confederacy whose authority rests in the States. If States don't comply, then the result is civil war. But this new plan puts authority into the hands of individual citizens, and they can comply with the federal government directly. Their state government won't be placed in a role between the individual and the federal government.
Federal law will supercede state law, and state officials will have to comply with federal laws. Thus, they will all be helping to enforce the Union's laws routinely and peacefully. It's possible that corrupt leaders will provoke citizens to rebel, but the Constitution is written to prevent the government from encroaching on the rights of the people (and thus the people have the right to fight back if their leaders are corrupt?)
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Federalist Number 28
Idealism aside, the reality is that there will be times when military force will need to be used to put down rebels. If a small rebellion happens in a local area, citizens themselves will stand with federal law and order to help put down the rebellion -- even more so if their federal government is working for the people's general welfare.
Massachusetts and Pennsylvania had to raise their own state forces when their civilian militia rebelled. Likewise, the federal government will sometimes need to step in, which is better than the kind of endless revolts and uprisings that happen in small foreign republics.
Imagine if we separate into a few separate confederacies instead of a single Union. Each of those confederacies would have to deal with the same issue, and would end up needing its own army when its own civilian militia wasn't enough.
This is a good reason not to ban the federal government from having a standing army in peacetime: All of the power of the new government will be placed in the hands of politicians representing the people. That is the only thing protecting the privileges and rights of the citizens. But if the representatives betray the citizens, then the citizens still have the right to defend themselves -- a right which is necessary for any good government, and that is going to be more effective than relying on the state governments to defend the rights of the people. If the state, which is smaller, oversteps its authority, the towns have no militaries to resist. It would be up to the people [the civilian militia] to fight back. In such cases, the states have the appearance of official authority on their side and can usually nip resistance in the bud.
The larger the state or government, the easier it is for the people to fight back-- as long as they understand their rights and are willing to defend them. A large population can be an effective defense against government tyranny.
In a confederacy, the people can side with the power of their state to resist federal overreach, or they can side with the Union to resist state overreach. The state, which has better monitoring systems than individuals, will be on the watch for federal overreach. States also work more closely with their local people, so the people are quicker to come to their aid, and states can work together to resist federal overreach. The Union is so big that farther away states can bring fresh troops to aid states fighting against federal overreach, as well as keeping the federal army distracted and engaged in multiple battlefields.
It will be awhile before the US has a large enough population to have an army big enough to threaten the entire country, especially when the separate states have citizens willing to fight federal tyranny.
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Federalist Number 29
It doesn't take a military expert to recognize that a nation needs to have authority over its civilian militia for national defense. The federal government needs to be able to assemble the militia and train them to be an effective army. Thus, the federal government needs to have authority over the militia for national security.
Critics who fear that a standing army that could be used to threaten individual freedom should be glad to promote this system of putting the government over the militia instead of maintaining a permanent army. But they complain that the new Constitution doesn't give the federal government the authority of "posse comitatus" -- the ability to grant civilians an official military title, so that the federal government is only allowed to use a standing army to fight invasions and domestic violence. They fear that the federal government will have too much power and become a tyrant, but at the same time, they fear that the federal government won't have enough authority to promote civilians to positions of military leadership! They are inconsistent. They complain that the government will use the civilian militia as a trained special force in tyranny against its own citizens.
But if the new Constitution is ratified, the federal government won't be able to turn the entire militia into a trained military force -- there are too many civilians for that to be logistically possible. The best they could do would be to arm them and assemble them once or twice a year for training -- hardly a professional army! But they will need to maintain some of them as a moderately-sized force with basic military skills. By doing this, the federal government won't need a professional army in peacetime, and if ever they do raise an army to threaten the people, the moderately-sized trained and armed militia will be able to protect the citizens' rights against government tyranny. A civilian militia with basic training and weapons is the best defense against a federal army that threatens individual liberty.
Will the militia threaten individual liberty? Our own freedom-loving fathers, sons, brothers would be unlikely to do that to their fellow citizens. And the federal government doesn't have the right to commission them, only the states have that right, so they won't have the kind of loyaly to the federal government that would induce them to turn against their local community.
Critics give fearful scenarios in which the federal government will be able to ship the civilian militia to serve in other states, or to be given to other countries instead of money to pay foreign debts(!) Which is it? Will the civilian militia be used by the federal government against U.S. citizens to tyrannize them, or will they be sent overseas to serve far away? Both can't be true. Think about it. If the federal government had an army to use to set up a dictatorship, they wouldn't need a civilian militia. And if they tried to send the civilian militia far away, those civilians wouldn't put up with it. That would only turn the militia against the government. That's hardly the way to to set up a dictatorship.
In a national emergency, of course the civilian militia will step up to help, even if the emergency is in another state. We saw this happen in the Revolution. With the militia under federal control, they will be able to put that militia where it's needed in any crisis. A state in need won't have to be at the mercy of another state's hesitation to get involved.
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Federalist Number 30
Those of us who framed the new Constitution think that the government should be able to use the national treasury to pay its expenses, which means that the government needs to have the authority to collect federal taxes. A government needs money to do its job -- it can't can't run on nothing!
In the Ottoman empire, the sultan isn't allowed to create new taxes, so he lets the district governors plunder the people, and then he takes money from the governors. Similarly, under the Articles of Confederation, our federal government isn't allowed to tax the people directly; they have to go to the state governments for money, but states don't always comply. They don't always have the money to comply.
Setting state quotas and requesting money from the states isn't working. We need to authorize the federal government to tax the people directly. Critics partially agree, but they say states should be able to directly tax the people internally, and the federal government should only be allowed to collect duties on imported goods from external countries. But duties couldn't amount to enough to run a federal government, so the federal government would still be dependent on the states for funding. In other words, the internal/external system won't be sufficient. Quotas weaken the harmony between the Union and the states, and between the states themselves. How can a government that's always in need of money do its job of keeping the country safe, prosperous, and respected? How can it take care of the general welfare of the people?
What happens if we end up in a war? Even if import duties are enough to keep the government running in peacetime, how are they going to pay for national defense? Since quotas never worked before, the government would need to funnel money for its normal operations towards the war effoprt, and borrow from other nations. But who would loan us money when we have no way of obtaining the money through taxation to pay it back?
If the federal government is allowed to tax the people directly, they could borrow the rest and other countries would be confident that we could pay it back. They will never loan money to a country that's at the mercy of thirteen different states to pay it back. Looking at it realistically, we need to allow the federal government to have the means to obtain the resources that will be necessary to do defend the nation.
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Federalist Number 1
The Articles of Confederation have not established a workable government, so we've come up with a new Constitution. Is it possible for a society to create its own government? Now is the right time to find out.
Some politicians fear that a stronger federal government will diminish their own power in their state government. They would prefer to be split up into regions or separate confederate countries. They will try to plant fears that a united federal government will threaten your individual liberty. But don't be too quick to believe them -- even tyrants have often gained power initially by claiming that they're going to protect individual liberty.
I'm going to write a series of articles to explain why I think this new government outlined in the Constitution is in your best interests. I'll cover the way a strong union will prosper you politically in a way the Articles of Confederation never could, how this new government follows republican principles, how it's similar to your own state constitutions, and how it will protect your freedom and property. I'll also try to answer objections about it that critics bring up.
So hang onto your hats, and I'll try to give you the whole picture of how this new government is supposed to work, and hopefully convince you to ratify (approve) it.
Yours in good government,
Publius
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Federalist Number 2
Any civil society needs some kind of government, but every government comes with a sacrifice of some individual freedom. Would it be better to sacrifice some of our rights for the benefit of one strong union, or to a small sovereign state that operates like a separate country? America is blessed with various kinds of farmland, streams, and rivers to transport the crops we grow. The people who live on that fertile land are British descendants speaking one language and believing in one God, used to a certain principles and rights in government. We fought side by side for independence. The land and the people seem to be made for each other. It would be wrong for all of us to be split into separated, disjointed country-states.
Our sense of unity inspired us. Even before the war was over, we wanted to form a government that would maintain that sense of common unity. The Articles of Confederation were hastily drawn up, but now we've had a time of peace and calm to really think out what we want and plan it out more carefully over months of discussion and reflection.
Now we ask you to discuss and reflect just as carefully. Don't decide rashly, or be too quick to react when critics tell you not to trust the men who wrote the Constitution. Many of those very men helped write the Articles of Confederation and had gained wisdom and experience this time around.
America's prosperity depends on staying united. That was the whole reason for coming together to write the Constitution, so why are some critics suggesting that we should separate into several confederate countries? I think the people are right to stick to their original desire for a union, and I'll explain why in future articles.
Yours in good government,
Publius
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Federalist Number 3
A federal government's first requirement is to be strong enough to protect its people in various situations and problems. For now, let's focus on just one of those situations: foreign enemies.
There are more wars when there are more causes to provoke them, whether those causes are actual or imagined. A single united federal government will generate fewer occasions for war. Treaty violations and direct attacks are one of the most frequent reasons for wars. We have treaties with six different countries, and five of them have ships that can come across the sea and attack us. We do business with Spain and England, and they both have colonies right here in America. One united country with one set of international laws can prevent conflicts much better than separate states or confederacies with various laws of their own.
A national government can have access to the most qualified men from all across the country to protect it, using the same treaties and international laws, rather than 13 variations. The courts who decide on these things would also be national rather than local. A strong national government will be less affected by any insult than a smaller state might be. Indians will be more hesitant to attack a large unified nation, even if it's weak, than a small state. And when there is a bitter conflict in a state, the national government would be able to intervene rationally and prudently because they would be more detached and level-headed. They would be able to come in as a third party, and less roused, so they'd be more able to negotiate calmly.
Yours in safe government,
Publius
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Federalist Number 4
Safety from foreign invasion depends on not being offended or giving offense that could lead to war. Nations usually only go to war if they think they have something to gain; for example, kings often wage war for glory, revenge, or because they promised to help their allies.
In our own country, our fisheries compete with France and Britain. They would love to see our shipping fail because it would be better for their own trade. China and India once sold us goods that we now supply for ourselves. Spain would love to shut us out of the Mississippi River, and Britain would love to shut us out of the St. Lawrence River. This makes other nations nervous, and the whole situation has the potential to escalate into war. But if we were a strong union, that could motivate everyone else to be at peace with us.
One united government can call on men to fight if needed, and operate as a unity in order to protect the states. It can make one single peace treaty that benefits all of the states. It can form one military under one chain of command who all answer to the President.
Imagine if England, Scotland, and Wales were all acting like separate countries obeying their own leaders instead of as one unified force. They wouldn't be able to fight off an enemy nearly as effectively. They wouldn't have the strong navy that has trained so many able seamen if they didn't have the organization that their one combined nation makes possible.
If America is divided into separate confederacies, could they raise an army and navy? If one state was attacked, would the other states sacrifice money and lives to assist it? Greece was divided into city states, and they were usually fighting one another. Would we be any different? Even if New York was willing to help its neighbor state, how many of their own men and dollars would they be willing to contribute for another state? In such an alliance, who would be in command? Who would negotiate the peace treaty?
If we were one united country, these kinds of issues would never come up. Foreign nations would be more hesitant to threaten us, and more likely to seek our friendship if they saw us as a well-managed government with wisely regulated trade, an organized militia, properly controlled resources, and free, content people.
But what if they saw separate states doing their own thing, one allying with France, another with Britain, another with Spain? Experience shows that when any people are divided, they end up fighting against each other.
Publius
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Federalist Number 5
Queen Anne said to Scotland, 'If you unite with England it will give you peace, religious protection, liberty, and protection of property; it will decrease hostility amongst your own people, and minimize jealousy between you and England. Our union will make you stronger, richer, and more prosperous. It is the only way to guarantee your happiness both now and in the future, and discourage your enemies from attacking you. Therefore those enemies will try to prevent this union.'
Being weak and divided invites foreigners to invade. A united, strong government is the best defense. We can learn from Britain without experiencing first-hand the price they paid for their mistakes.
If we divide into three or four nations, we'll be like England, Scotland, and Wales. We'll be jealous and fearful of each other, with conflicting interests dividing the states. Like other countries that border each other, we'll always be suspicious of each other.
Separate confederacies can't be as strong as one united country. There would be no equality, and some confederacies wouldn't be run as well as others. One of them might become more important politically, so that the others would feel like second class citizens and become envious and fearful -- leading to conflict.
In America, the northern states have been stronger than the southern ones. If we divide into confederacies, there will be the kind conflict between the north and south that we've seen in Europe. The confederacies wouldn't trust each other, and their failure to ally with each other would put them in danger from foreign invasion.
These confederacies would have trade built around their state's commodities, which means they would have different special interests and be connected to different foreign countries. If the southern confederacy was at war, their enemy might be a trading buddy with the northern confederacy! Neighboring states might be on two different sides of a conflict and trust a foreigner from across the sea before trusting each other!
Yours in united government,
Publius
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Federalist Number 6
Since men are ambitious, vindictive, and prone to plundering, the different confederations would not get along peacefully. History shows that this just doesn't happen. Countries have always squabbled for power, commercial gain, and people's desire for justice and security. Some leaders let their personal desires override the public good - such as when Pericles destroyed Samos over a resentful prostitute [Aspasia] and started the Peloponnesian War. Henry VIII's prime minister started a war between France and England because of his own ambition, and Shays' rebellion started over Daniel Shays' personal debt.
Some think that the prosperity from lucrative trade will keep the states at peace as men become preoccupied with business.
But a republic is just as prone to passions and special interests as any other government. Their leaders are just as imperfect and have the same selfish interests. Even peaceful commerce is no guarantee of peace, because people are as likely to fight over wealth as for power or territory.
Sparta, Athens, Rome, and Carthage were all republics, yet they were at war frequently. Sparta wasn't much more than a well-disciplined camp, but that didn't stop Rome from trying to conquer them. Carthage was a republic and started the last Punic War, in which she was destroyed by Rome. Venice was a republic and fought wars due to ambition until Pope Junius II subdued them. Holland was involved in all kinds of European wars until they were crippled by debt. Britain has been been in numerous wars, often started by the people and their representatives, and often over commercial interests, even when it didn't help the country.
Separate confederacies will be no different. Expecting some golden era of peace is just an ideal dream; we need real guidelines for a practical government. Harmony between different states or countries isn't realistic. History shows that neighboring countries tend to be enemies, not friends.
Publius
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Federalist Number 7
Most wars are fought over territory. America has vast areas of unsettled territories and unsettled borders, and land that previously belonged to England. Without a union making us one country, those would cause conflicts. Congress has asked the individual states to let the US decide, and the large western territory has become the property of the union. But if we break up into separate confederacies, who will get that land? Who will decide, and how? We saw a recent land dispute that the Articles of Confederation decided between Pennsylvania and Connecticut, and Connecticut wasn't not fully satisfied with the result. In another dispute between New York and Vermont, jealousy of NY's power, the influential interests of New Hampshire, private citizens' land grants, and a desire for Vermont to be independent all added conflict to the decision.
What if we separated into confederacies? Financial trade and commercial policy would cause tensions between states who viewed themselves as sovereign nations. Enterprising businessmen who tried to get around individual state regulations could lead to war. In a recent case, New York tried to impose a duty on the citizens of NJ and Connecticut. If they had been all separate confederacies, this could have led to war.
And what about the national debt? However the separate confederacies decided to divide it up, there would be resentment and dissatisfaction. Nobody would think it was divided up fairly. Not even the States working together in Congress can agree on the debt. Should there be national credit? Does the debt even have to be paid off at all? States with banking interests want a provision that benefits them. It will take a while to work it all out. Meanwhile, foreign nations want their money back. Thus, there are multiple opportunities for offense and war.
When the debt is finally worked out, there will be some states who will find it more of a hardship than others and seek some kind of clause to help them, which the other states won't see a need for. So the suffering states will refuse to pay, and there will be more bickering. They say that nothing causes more quarrels than payment of money.
In cases where private contracts across states are involved, they influence the rights of individuals. Will states pass laws more generous to other states than their own? No, it's up to the union to pass laws that are fair to all states. When a Rhode Island law was unfair to Connecticut, it became bitter. That kind of situation in a divided confederacy could lead to war.
Individual states could also form alliances with foreign countries and become involved in their foreign disputes, which would cause Europe to be involved here. We cannot let ourselves become divided and taken over by every nation who hates or fears us.
Publius
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Federalist Number 8
In Europe, armies are so disciplined, communication so good, and forts so strong that wars aren't swift, decisive and destructive. They tend to go ond on without any decisive victor.
But states would prefer to put their money towards roads rather than armies, so they'd only result in making an easy way for an enemy to get in! The big states would conquer the smaller states by their sheer numbers of untrained, unmanaged men, and then they'd be taken over by an even bigger state.
Defending one's country against invasion makes drastic laws necessary. The people are even willing to sacrifice their own liberty after they've experienced enough violence and death. Soon the states that are left will need standing armies and urgent policies from the executive, and the result will be the executive taking the role of a monarch.
A state with an army in peacetime will tend to look at their army as a necessary precaution and make laws to prevent them and their government from encroaching on individual liberty. But a state with an army that's constantly attacked and always on the alert will put more importance on their army and would be in danger of their army encroaching on the rights of the people. Their army will end up ruling the state.
England is relatively safe, being an island, so its army isn't overbearing and unlikely to take over the country. If we are wise enough to stay united, we'll probably in a similar position as England, since Europe is so far away and foreign colonies are too small to be a threat. But if we divide into separate confederacies, we'll be just like Europe, with wars all over, and that would be the end of our liberty.
Publius
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Federalist Number 9
Being united will prevent insurrections and factions within the states. Greek and Italian confederacies had frequent revolutions that kept them bouncing between tyranny and anarchy. During those violent times, creativity was hampered by their political problems.
Some people today look at those histories as examples of why a republican government is a bad idea. They say free democracy and order don't go together. But there are some wonderful antique institutions that came out of free governments, and I think America will create its own permanent monuments to liberty. Political science has come a long way since ancient times, and we know more now. Now we have the concepts of power divided into separate departments, making checks and balances a part of the law of the country, allowing judges to serve as long as they exhibit good behavior, having the people elect representatives in their legislature. I will add this improvement: a republic can serve a small area like a single state, or a large area, like our united confederacy.
Many countries have found that a confederacy can suppress factions and keep peace. Many distinguished political writers endorse that arrangement. Critics like to quote Montesquieu about a republic's need to limit how large an area it governs, but his idea of a small republic is even smaller than Massachusetts! To follow his recommendation, we'd have to divide most of our states into multiple tiny republics, and they would be forever fighting among themselves. And they could still cluster themselves into large confederacies.
Montesquieu is not actually opposed to a union of the states. He says, 'If mankind hadn't created a confederate republic, we'd still be living under the government of a single person. But by several smaller states assembling together, they can make the combined body more secure by withstanding invasion, minimizing internal corruption, and preventing all kinds of inconveniences. It would be much harder for one state to take over the others. If people in one state rebel, the others can put a stop to it. If abuses start in one area, the others can help it get back to normal. Even if part of a state is destroyed, the union as a whole is still strong. Yet each state still retains its own sovereignty. Since each state is its own republic, each state can take care of its own happiness, but by being united, all can enjoy the benefits that a large monarchy can provide.'
Some say that there's a difference between a confederacy and a consolidation. They say that the authority of a confederacy is limited to the collective abilities of its members, not the individuals themselves. That the national government doesn't take care of internal matters within individual states. That each state should have one equal vote in the union. But none of these issues are actually defined in a confederacy and can be worked out by the members.
The actual definition of a confederacy is simply 'a group of societies.' Even if individual states retain their own sovereignty within their own states, they can still form a confederacy collectively. The new Constitution allows individual states to run their own affairs, but they have a direct say in choosing national Senators, and it follows the Lycian model of allowing larger states to have more representatives, which is just what Montesquieu recommends.
Publius
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Federalist Number 10
Faction is a danger to democracies, causing instability, injustice, and chaos. By faction, I mean a group united over a cause that conflicts with the rights of others or the best interests of the community. There are two ways to deal with factions: either remove what causes them, or control its effects by destroying liberty, or making everyone have the same opinions and interests. Destroying liberty would be overkill - like removing air because it feeds fire. And making everyone have the same opinions will never happen as long as man can reason. Men's varied abilities and skills will also earn them property, and that will vary their special interests.
Protecting men's various abilities and skills is the primary duty of government. It means people will own different kinds and amounts of property. It's human nature to divide into like-minded groups over religion, political ideas, etc. Sometimes those groups become hostile against each other and even break out into violence. But the most common cause of faction is unequal distribution of property; the 'haves' and the 'have nots' end up on different political sides. Controlling these conflicting interests brings partisanship and faction into the government's routine duties.
People don't judge their own court cases because they couldn't possibly be unbiased. But most legislation makes a judgment about citizens' rights, and legislators have their own special interests that may work against the very rights they're supposed to be protecting - such as laws that favor creditors over the rights of debtors, where creditors have power over the Congress. Should domestic manufacturing be encouraged by restricting foreign goods? It depends on whether you ask the traders or the manufacturers, and there's no guarantee that wise men will always be in power to decide. There will be factions as long as there are people, and the best we can do is control its effects.
In a republic, minority factions can always be out-voted. They may still hamper the workings of government, but they can't become violent. But what happens when the faction is in the majority? It can vote to override the rights of the minority. This is why pure democracies tend to be so turbulent, and unable to protect people's safety or property. Some think that if everyone is equal then they'll share their property and have the same opinions, but history proves the opposite.
But a representative republic can deal with this. In a republic, only a few elected delegates carry out the government, so a republic can govern a larger number of people and a bigger area of land than a pure democracy. The elected delegates will be wise enough to see what's best without sacrificing the country's best interest. The people's wishes will be filtered though a few wise men.
But what if corrupt men bribe or cheat their way into power? A larger republic will have enough representatives to guard against a few corrupt ones, although too many representatives will just make any meeting chaotic. If the ratio of Representatives to citizens is the same, a larger republic will offer more choices of candidates for representatives, so there's a better chance of getting good men in office.
Too many voters are impossible for a representative to keep up with their interests, while too few voters makes it too easy for the representative to be too closely connected to the local concerns of his constituents to focus much on national concerns. The proposed Constitution balances this by letting the national Congress deal with national concerns, and leaving local issues to the state governments.
A larger republic includes more people with wider concerns, which makes it that much harder for one faction to take hold and gain a majority among other interests that want to be heard. Divisive leaders of religious sects might be able to gain a following in their own state, but it would be hard for them to collect a majority from the entire country.
This shows how a republic serving a large country like ours can prevent the problems that factions can cause for pure democracies.
Publius
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Federalist Number 11
Europe is nervous about our entrepreneurial spirit and the competition it could mean for their own trade. Their colonies here are worried about us building ships. They will probably try to divide us since our union will help us commercially, and that will be bad for them.
By staying united, we can make uniform trade laws that force those other countries to compete for access to our markets. We could negotiate commercial treaties with England and other countries and their colonies. Britain could try to ships goods to us via the Dutch, but it would be more beneficial for them to negotiate with us directly.
With a union, we could have a national navy and have some ships in the West Indies. Our navy would be strong enough to help England or Spain as allies. It would make the world respect us. We could have some influence in European conflicts before they spill over to America.
But if we break up into separate confederacies, our own bickering amongst ourselves would weaken us. Europe would not respect or fear us, and they might plunder our resources. We would be too weak to even have neutrality rights.
As a united nation, Europe wouldn't be able to control our growth, commerce, or navigation. But if we separate, any stronger nation could force us to accept their limits and conditions to our political existence. They could set regulations on our trade and shipping. We would be poor and disgraced instead of reaching our potential and being admired and envied.
Fisheries, and navigation of the Western Lakes and Mississippi River cover multiple states. Separated, that could be a problem that our enemies would take advantage of, but as a united country, those things would fall under federal protection. United, we could stop Spain from blocking the Mississippi, and we could prevent England and France from profiting from our fisheries.
A navy wouldn't just benefit the coastal states. With all the states behind it, a US Navy could be a strong institution. Southern states could profit by manufacturing wood, tar, and turpentine to build ships. Middle states could sell iron. The north could furnish sailors. Free trade between states will help to make products profitable both at home and overseas. States can help each other out by selling their goods when another state is unable to -- such as during a bad harvest. Unity will keep trade between states running smoothly, since they'll all be within the same country.
The world is divided geographically into four parts: Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. Why should Europe dominate world trade? Let America give Europe a run for its money and vindicate the rest of the world. Let's teach those arrogant Europeans some humility. With a union, we can be powerful enough to do that.
Publius
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Federalist Number 12
A flourishing trade is the best way to grow a country's wealth. Rewarding hard work, encouraging investment, and keeping the money circulating will energize industry. Business hope and expect to make a profit from their effort. Agriculture and trade can work together for their mutual profit and become allies instead of rivals. Farms and businesses raise the value of the land and create new wealth.
As wealth grows, taxes are easier to collect. Germany has rich gold and silver mines, but their commerce is weak, so they can't collect much in taxes, which means they have to borrow money from other countries.
Under the Articles of Confederation, collecting direct federal and state taxes hasn't worked. The government has been too inefficient, and the economy hadn't produced enough wealth.
England has enough wealth that direct taxes are more tolerable, and the government is efficient enough to collect them. Even so, most of their revenue comes from indirect taxes -- domestic imposts and import duties. America should do the same, but it will be more difficult. Enterprising businessmen will find ways of avoiding them, and farmers will resent impositions on their houses and land. Personal property is too easy to hide from being taxed.
What kind of tax will be most efficient? It has to be federal, encourage profitable trade, and create enough wealth to generate tax money. It must make taxes easier to collect efficiently. It's too easy to avoid import taxes by smuggling. If we divide into separate confederacies, each confederacy will have to charge low rates so they don't make smuggling too tempting. Their governments wouldn't be able to watch all the ports closely enough to discourage smuggling. It takes France 20,000 soldiers to guard against smugglers. If we separated into different confederacies, could we maintain that kind of guard over all our various borders? Would our people put up with that kind of armed presence? But if we're one united country, our states would be able to trade freely among themselves. The only border we'd need to patrol would be the Atlantic coast. A few armed ships at our ports would deter other countries from even trying to smuggle goods into our country. And all of our states would have a vested interest in supporting our efforts to prevent smuggling.
Our distance from any enemies in Europe -- across an entire ocean -- is a great advantage, and by separating into different confederacies, we'd be throwing that advantage away. It would take weeks for any ship to even get here, unlike European countries whose borders touch each other. Why would we want to separate and create enemies of each other right in our midst?
Our states have set duties at not more than three percent.France has duties at fifteen percent, and England's are even more than that. If we unite, our states could triple their duties. Four million gallons of alcohol are imported through New York every year. Imagine if they charged an import tax of one shilling per gallon. Perhaps, due to the higher cost in tax, less alcohol would be consumed in our country, and that would be a tremendous benefit for our agriculture, economy, morals, and health.
If we can't take advantage of increased duties, we won't be able to bring in much revenue, and we'll lose our independence. Why should we choose such a situation?
Yours in prosperity,
Publius
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Federalist Number 13
Will the government laid out in the Constitution cost too much? Not necessarily, because there will be money saved to offset the cost. Since the states will be united under a single national government, there will just be one national budget and treasury to fund instead of multiple national governments. Most critics of the Constitution suggest separating into three confederacies - four northern, four middle, and five southern states. Each of these would be a little larger than England and require a government with just as much administration.
The varied geography of the states seems like it would naturally divide them into two confederacies -- New England would join New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, who, for security, would prefer to have a large border shared with the stronger north than the weaker south. The southern states would be inland rather than on the coast. Instead of being concerned with navigation, they would market the commodities produced in their states.
The thirteen states would be in a better position to support a single national government rather than two or three. Not only that, but there would be borders between these confederacies, and they would need to be protected against territorial invasions from the other states and smuggling. The guards patrolling the state borders would require a whole department of police and administrators who would have to be paid. Thus, separating into confederacies would cost us more money, threaten our peace, and put our liberty at risk.
Publius
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Federalist Number 14
Most people acknowledge that the Union will keep us safe from foreign threats, internal violence, and economic weakness. It can prevent military coups and factions from ruining democracies, like what's happened in Europe. There's only one more objection: can a Union manage such a large area? Critics of the proposed Constitution don't think so. But they're confusing a republic with a democracy. The difference is that in a democracy, all the people meet together to run the government, but a republic elects delegated representatives to run it on their behalf.
That means that democracies work best in small countries, but republics work in larger countries like ours.
Some critics who support monarchies try to exaggerate the problems with republics, using unstable democracies in ancient Greece and modern Italy to prove their point. But their point can't be made because no real republic exists anywhere in Europe -- we have the opportunity to be the first to try an actual republic.
A democracy works in an area as large as the farthest citizens can travel to help run the government. But a republic works in a larger area because only the representatives have to travel to the seat of government. Can they travel that far in America? Yes -- for thirteen years, our representatives have been meeting almost continually. If we compare America to European countries, our thirteen states are about the size of Germany, or Great Britain, and both of their governments meet almost every day.
There are other benefits of having a Union. The federal government would be able to deal with matters that affect all the states; local governments would handle everything else. The proposed Constitution would solidify our Union and add more states. Representatives would be able to travel more easily because a federal government could build good roads and waterways through the states. That would also help our commerce and communication. Almost every state will have at least part of their border next to a foreign nation, and a Union would be able to help protect those areas with more clout and resources than a single state.
States like Georgia that are farther away might have a harder time sending their representatives to Congress, but they will also be in the greatest need of military protection for their remote borders, so the sacrifice will be worth it for them.
Americans are united by so many bonds of affection. Why should we separate into different confederacies? Is a single union so a strange and unrealistic? It's not as strange or unrealistic as ripping us apart in order to make us more free and happy. It's silly not to try a republic in our large nation simply because it's never been done before. Future generations will bless us for the wonderful new individual freedoms and public happiness that a republic will bring. Imagine if the leaders of the Revolution hadn't broken away from England simply because it had never been done before. But instead, they succeeded in a revolution unlike any in history. They created a brilliant government unlike any that has ever been seen before. Perhaps their first attempt at the Articles of Confederation weren't perfect, but the new proposed Constitution has corrected some of its weaknesses.
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Federalist Number 15
All agree that our current Articles of Confederation has some flaws, and we need to do something to prevent to prevent anarchy. Truly, we've experienced every kind of crisis that can damage a country.
We have debts and no way to repay them. Foreigners control territories that should be ours. We don't have enough troops, money, or government to resist a foreign attack, or even to object with dignity. Spain controls parts of our Mississippi River. We have no credit now when we need it most. Our trade is weak. Europe doesn't respect us or our ambassadors. No one has enough confidence in our economy to invest in property or loan money.
How did we get into this position? Because those who complain that our federal government is too weak don't want to give it the power it needs! They're afraid of relegating any of the states' authority to the federal government and prefer to continue using the Articles of Confederation. But those Articles have weaknesses.
Their biggest flaw is dealing with the states as composite bodies rather than as individual citizens. The nation is allowed to request men and money, but only by going through the state governments, and the states can refuse. Yet some fault the new Constitution for fixing this very flaw.
If we separate into various confederacies, what guarantee is there that we'll all be allies? European countries have had cooperative treaties, but they're always going to war, forming and then changing alliances. If we follow that model of becoming multiple little countries, that will happen to us, and foreign countries will play us against each other.
We must refuse that kind of arrangement and adopt a central federal government -- but it will mean allowing the government to deal with individual citizens without having to go through state governments. A federal government must be able to make federal laws and apply them to individuals. It must be allowed to enforce those laws and punish individuals who violate them either through a federal court system, or with the use of force if necessary. Courts would only apply to individuals. Force would apply to political bodies. After all, no rebellious state government is going to honor a federal court sentence! A community in that kind of rebellion has pretty much declared war on the federal government.
Some think that states will comply with Constitutional laws out of their sense of common interest, but that's just wishful thinking. Human nature requires that force must be used before people will do what's right -- they don't behave merely out of a sense of integrity or fairness. And groups of men are no different. In fact, groups are more apt to have less restraint because blame can be shared. A mob acting together is more easily led into faction than an individual. Small groups tend to split off and resist rather than cooperate because they love their own sense of power. Thus, state governments may tend to resist the central federal government. If the federal government isn't given the authority to make states comply with the Constitution, there might as well not be a Constitution. States will just refuse to obey the parts they don't like, regardless of the implications to the country as a whole. They'll only consider what's best for their own local political situation. Every state will end up doing its own thing.
The current Articles of Confederation require unanimous agreement of all thirteen states to decide anything. It just takes one state to refuse, which means that nothing is ever done. It's gotten to a point where the government is powerless because all thirteen states never agree on anything! This all started because some states felt like they weren't given as many representatives. Human selfishness made them feel slighted and uncooperative, until we're at a point where our central government is non-functional and we're about to be ruined.
Publius
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Federalist Number 16
Most confederacies make laws for their state or region rather than for their people. Then those states or regions start to ignore or even violate national laws, and the people resist so that the end result is civil war. That means the confederacy has to maintain a large army to be ready to quell any uprisings.
Usually this neglect of the national law is done by a few states jointly, or others are drawn into the struggle by being bullied or scared about some supposed danger. Sometimes foreign nations are brought in, and they take advantage of the instability by playing one side against the other. This kind of war would destroy our Union.
Actually the union seems to be withering on its own, unless we do something quickly to bring it back to life. Even the states who support the union are not likely to go to all out war against other states who are opposed to union. They'd be more likely to try to stay neutral, so it would be difficult to use force to make a state submit to being part of the union. A state is more likely to refuse to give tax money to the federal government than to resist the government by taking up arms, and before the government applied force to make them pay, it would be necessary to know for sure whether the state was rebelling or genuinely unable to pay. Even making that determination would be a controversial situation.
We should not ratify a Constitution that has to be enforced by a large army. But that's exactly what will happen if the federal government isn't given the right to deal directly with individuals [if the federal government has to go through state governments]. It would result in military tyranny, and even then, we couldn't afford an army big enough to control the larger states. Even in confederacies that are tinier than some of our counties, military force has never worked to coerce obedience. It ends in a bloody civil war.
It should be clear that if a federal government is going to be effective at dealing with national matters and preserving domestic peace, it has to be able to deal directly with individuals. It can't be required to go through state governments. It must have the authority to make its own decisions and enforce them. It must be able to rely on to a national court system. It must have as much direct access to its citizens as state governments do. It should be allowed to use the same powers that state governments are allowed to use.
What if a state decides it doesn't like being under the authority of the Union? It could obstruct the federal government, or refuse to ratify a federal measure. [The Articles of Confederation required all states to agree on any measure before it could be enacted, so one troublemaking state could incapacitate the entire nation.] But if national laws didn't require unanimous approval from every state, a dissenting state would have to resort to blatant violence to oppose a national law. But that wouldn't go over well with a population that knew the difference between a legal action and a violation of constitutional authority. A decision to rise up against the federal government would take a majority of a state legislature voting for it, and their state court and citizens going along with it. Their courts would have to declare such an act unconstitutional unless they were involved in a conspiracy with the state legislature.
If there was some kind of uprising within a state, that state would benefit from having the help of the entire federal government to help control it rather than depending only the resources from their own state. What about violent dissent that affects the whole nation? That can happen to any country, and no government is strong enough to fix everything.
Publius
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Federalist Number 17
Some people are afraid that allowing the federal government to have authority directly over individual citizens without having to go through the state governments would give the federal government way too much power that should belong to the states. But the federal government will be too busy dealing with trade, budget, treaties, and war to want to usurp additional state authority. Making sure there's justice between citizens, managing agriculture -- these are local concerns that are rightly left to the states. Why would the federal government waste their time and money interfering into those kinds of things?
In fact, it would be easier for the states to encroach on powers that belong to the federal government than the other way around, because states are more directly involved with the citizens. This tends to be a weakness of all federal governments. The federal government is spread too thin over too wide a variety of matters that feel vague and remote to most people, while the states are more closely involved with citizens on issues they consider more urgent. People tend not to focus on matters that don't seem immediately relevant to them. People are more interested in what's going in their local community than in the nation at large. The state government is also more intimately connected with the citizens because it handles more of the court cases that dispense justice and enforcement to the people. It's the local officials who guard and protect lives and property, which are the most personal matters to the people. That makes the people more attached to their state government than to the federal government. National governments operate out of view of the people, so they don't affect the people directly with feelings of obligation or attachment.
In the old days, feudal systems were somewhat like confederacies. There was one sovereign authority over everyone, and lesser feudal lords controlling their own plots of land, and lots of serfs who farmed the land. There were frequent battles when feudal lords violated the sovereign authority, but the sovereign authority wasn't strong enough to keep peace or to protect the people from their oppressive feudal lords. In fact, this period of time is often called 'the times of feudal anarchy'!
Ambitious warlike sovereigns with greater talent were able to earn respect and influence, which granted them more power. But usually, the lesser feudal lords defeated them. Even when the sovereign won, he won only because the tyranny and cruelty of the lesser feudal lords failed to win the loyalty of their serfs. If the lords had treated their serfs better, the serfs might have been more devoted and helped them win.
Our state governments are like beneficial feudal lords, and the central government is like a vulnerable sovereign authority. The states have it within their ability to win the people's trust and goodwill. The states could defeat the central government, like the feudal lords who could defeat their sovereign authority, because the states deal with the individual citizens, while the central government only deals with the states.
Publius
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Federalist Number 18
The religious Amphictyonic League in Greece was somewhat like our current Articles of Confederation. Its city-states were sovereign entities with equal votes in the central government. They had authority to propose actions for Greece; declare war, judge disputes between members, punish those who disobeyed, allow new members to join.
They managed the Delphos Temple and those who came to consult the oracle. As part of their federal pact, they swore to defend member city-states, punish any city-state who was disloyal to the League, and be avenged on anyone who desecrated the temple. Reasonable enough, but they overstepped the authority specified in their articles of confederation. Their exploitation of the superstitions of the time became a powerful political tool. Sometimes they abused their authority to deal with member city-states who didn't fall in line with the League.
Their powers, as in our current Articles of Confederation, were in the hands of representatives from each city-state. But powerful city-states like Athens tyrannized the others, and this weakened the League and finally destroyed it. Member city-states never worked together, even during wars. They were often deceived or bribed by the enemy. During peace, there were hardships and violence at home. After the war with Xerxes, Sparta tried to kick some member city-states out for being unfaithful, but the Athenians put a stop to that when they realized it would increase the Spartans' power in the League. Jealousy from the strongest members of this kind of confederacy became a threat to weaker members.
Greece should have seen the need for a closer union, and worked to strengthen that union during their times of peace. Instead, Athens and Sparta continued to bicker all the way to the Peloponnesian War, which was the end of Athens.
Weak governments tend to be preoccupied with internal conflict during times of peace, which invites foreigners to come in and attack. For example, the Phocons violated the temple of Apollo, so the Amphictyonic League fined them. The Phocians allied with Athens and Sparta and refused to pay the fine. The Thebans allied with others, including Philip of Macedon, to force them to pay. It was Philip who ended up conquering the entire League. If Greece had been united with a strong central government, Macedon could never have taken them over.
Another Greek confederacy, the Achaean League, had a much stronger union. They were able to govern efficiently and enjoy equality for 130 years. Their senate made treaties, negotiated alliances, and appointed an executive leader. This executive had command of the army. He governed the nation with the advice and consent of ten senators. The city-states had the same laws, customs, and currency. When Sparta was forced into the League after the Laconian Wars, they adopted the Achaean institutions.
The Achaean government was more fair and less violent than city-states that were not in the League. The unrest caused by pure democracies everywhere else never affected the Achaean republic because of their strong central government. During the Amphictyonic League, the smaller city-states in the Achaean League were left alone, and even after the Amphictyonic League was conquered by Macedon, those little city-states were left alone. But later leaders tried to divide them by getting them focused on their various special interests, and the union ended up being dissolved. Some were taken over Macedon, and others by their own tyrants.
But they remembered the liberty they had lost, so they reunited with former city-states and broke away from their tyrants. They formed their confederacy again and spread their fair government to most of Peloponnesus. All of Greece caught the spirit of liberty and almost united into one confederacy, until Athens put a stop to it, and the Achaeans had to choose between Sparta or Macedon. They chose Macedon, and Macedonia defeated the Spartan Cleomenes. Unfortunately, their helper turned into their dictator, so they allied with the Romans to throw off Macedon and ended up as slaves to Rome.
Thus it's not central government that is to be feared; confederate city-states tend to fall because of jealousy amongst themselves.
Publius
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Federalist Number 19
Germany was once made up of seven different nations. Charlemagne made Germany part of his own nation, the Franks. But he left the local chiefs and their legislatures behind as his vassals. Germany evolved so that the land passed down to the chiefs' descendants and they grew more powerful. By the eleventh century, they overthrew the Franks and became independent. But in the fifteenth century, they fought each other and ruined their imperial authority.
This feudal system was similar to a confederacy. The federal system that makes up Germany grew out of this. Its powers are entrusted in a diet [legislature] representing the member states, an emperor who can veto the diet, and judiciary tribunals.
The diet makes laws, declares war, forms alliances, pays troops, builds forts, regulates coinage, admits new members, and disciplines members who compromise the empire. Diet members can be judged by the emperor, the diet, or the judiciary. The emperor can propose initiatives, veto the diet's resolutions, appoint ambassadors, grant titles, fill vacant electorate positions, establish universities, grant reasonable privileges, collect public money and put it to use, and defend public safety. He doesn't get to own land, or receive a salary, although he already has wealth and property. His list of constitutional authority is typical for European confederacies. They all are structured so that the empire is a group of sovereigns and the diet represents and makes laws for the sovereigns. That makes the empire unable to manage the individual states and puts them at risk from outside attacks and domestic unrest.
Germany's history is full of wars between the emperor and the states, offenses and oppressions against the weak, foreign invasions, abuse of men and money, confusion, and misery. Germany spent 30 years at war with Sweden until the Peace of Westphalia, which was negotiated and enforced by foreigners! Organizing for the sake of war isn't what strengthens a union. Military preparations are so involved that the enemy may be on the way before the preparations are ready. The army a country keeps in peacetime isn't sufficient to fight an enemy. To maintain order and justice, the treaty divided Germany into districts, each with its own government and with a military to enforce its regulations. Each individual district was like a miniature oppressive empire. Districts were either unable to enforce order, or ended up in civil war. The offenses of the district leaders were worse than the original problem. At one point, the Duke of Bavaria had to restore order with 10,000 troops in one of the German states! And then he usurped power.
Why do the German confederacies even stay together? They're not willing to rely on the help of foreigners, their chief leaders are weaker than the nations around them, and the emperor has too much influence due to his inherited dominions and noble family connections. The flawed confederacy continues to become more entrenched, preventing any improved union that could bring reform. And their foreign neighbors prefer them not to reform because that would make Germany stronger.
Swiss cantons have a similar relationship. There is no national treasury, army, currency, or judiciary. The only thing that keeps them together is their geographical location, the lack of resources to fight over, and their need to band together against any powerful foreign enemy. The only thing the US has in common with Switzerland is that neither has used their collective power to settle important differences. Switzerland has had violent conflicts over religious differences on three separate occasions, and currently they have separate diets for Protestants and Catholics, so that there isn't much for the general Swiss diet to do.
Publius
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Federalist Number 20
The Netherlands is a confederacy with seven provinces made up of equal, independent cities. Decisions on any important political matter have to be unanimous. They have about fifty deputies who are appointed by the provinces. Their assembly is called a 'States-General.' Some of their officers retain their office for life, others for up to six years, and two hold their positions 'during pleasure.' The States-General has the power to make treaties and alliances, declare war, raise armies, determine quotas and collect taxes, appoint and receive ambassadors, collect import and export duties, manage the mint, and govern the territories that are dependent on them. The provinces are not allowed to enter foreign treaties, or charge duties to other provinces that are higher than their own citizens pay. A council of state supports the central government.
The chief executive of the confederacy is the stadholder. The position is held by a prince who inherits the title, family estates, connections with other European leaders, and his role as leader of his province. He can appoint town magistrates, put decrees into place, lead tribunals in his province, and pardon those who broke the law.
The stadtholder of the confederacy is allowed to settle disputes between different provinces, help in States-General cases and conferences, receive foreign ambassadors, and be represented at courts in other countries. He has command of an army of 40,000 men and he appoints military officers. He also commands the navy.
This is how it's supposed to work, but in practice, the officials make all kinds of blunders, the provinces bicker, they are abused by foreign countries, their peace is unstable, and they suffer from the kinds of hardships that result from war.
Grotius once said that it was only his country's hatred of Austria that kept their constitution from completely ruining them. Another writer said that the union of Utrecht gave the States-General enough power to secure harmony, but the jealousies of the province cancelled it out! Someone else said that the union of Utrecht forced each province to collect certain taxes, but that couldn't be done because the provinces inland had very little trade, so they couldn't pay their quotas. So the provinces that could pay had to make up the difference and then try to get the inland provinces to pay them back-- sometimes with military force. Sir William Temple, who was once a foreign minister, said that foreign ministers used to undermine referendums they didn't like by tampering with the provinces and cities. In this way, they delayed the treaty of Hanover for a whole year in 1726. There are many similar examples.
During times of emergencies, States-General sometimes have to overstep their constitutional authority -- such as finalizing the treaty of Westphalia in 1648 which made them independent, but without the approval of their legislature.
A weak constitution can't succeed. It lacks enough power, or is forced to usurp powers to secure public safety. When a defective constitution forces a government to deal with an emergency by assuming unconstitutional power, the situation is ripe for tyranny. Even a constitution that is too generous with the authority it gives government is less likely to end in tyranny.
Even with the flaws of the stadtholder system, its influence in the province has probably prevented anarchy and rebellions that might have destroyed it. The Netherlands has powerful neighbors, so union is necessary. Patriots have warned the people about their dangerous neighbors and tried to reform their constitution four times to try to make them more secure.
The United States has a similarly flawed Articles of Confederation, and we are at risk of suffering the same things. The world is watching and hoping that a true union will bring us peace, liberty, and happiness so that they can follow our example and put an end to their own political disasters.
Experience tells us what is true. The truth is that one sovereign over other sovereigns, or one government over other governments, and a legislature for communities rather than for individuals, undermines civil discussion by substituting violence for law.
Publius
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Federalist Number 21
One glaring flaw in the Articles of Confederation is that the central government has no power to enforce its laws. This is crazy! With no provisions to penalize anyone who violates federal laws, the main benefit of uniting is lost: states can't be made to help states experiencing internal dangers. Any state could have someone seize power and destroy liberty, and the federal government has no means of compelling the other states to intervene. The most they could do is to express indignation. What if the recent rebellion in Massachusetts had been skillfully led by someone like Caesar or Cromwell, instead of the farmer Daniel Shays? What if he had succeeded and usurped power over Massachusetts? His tyranny might have affected New Hampshire, Rhode Island, or Connecticut and destroyed their liberties.
Would constitutional provisions to compel obedience give stronger states the means to bully weaker states? No; the majority of citizens in any state could still legally and peacefully reform their constitution. The federal government would only have the right to punish violence. When all the governmental power is in the hands of the people, a state has fewer reasons to use violence against its citizens because if the people are unhappy, they can vote in new leaders. A federal government with legal authority to punish would be one more incentive to prevent anyone from usurping power in any state.
Another flaw of the Articles of Confederation is that states have different tax quotas [taxes were set in proportion to population and land value.] This violates the concept of state equality. Comparing the wealth of different states is like comparing the wealth of United Netherlands to Russia or Germany. There is no standard; there are too many variables and no common denominator. A state's revenue has little to do with its size or population. Even counties within states vary in wealth, and a county's size may not indicate its prosperity. Geography, climate, businesses, education, access to information, culture, are just some of the factors at play. With no standard of measurement, there's no way to assess how much any individual state can pay. Any attempt to dictate quotas is unfair and oppressive. Poor States could just refuse to pay.
The only fair thing to do is to allow the federal government to decide how to raise its own revenue. Customs, tariffs, and duties can be adapted as needed. Individuals can determine how much tax they pay by buying more or less. The rich can buy more, the poor can buy less. Across all the states, it will balance out and there will be equilibrium.
A benefit of taxes based on consumption is that they prevent excessive mandatory taxes. They have a built-in limit that can't be exceeded without defeating their purpose: if they're set too high, people simply stop buying and no taxes are paid. The problem with taxes based on property value is that assessing land value is difficult enough, but in a growing country like ours, land value is always changing as populations settle new areas. Establishing a definite method of setting taxes that will accomplish the purpose will be better than leaving it open to be decided by the people.
Publius
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Federalist Number 22
Another flaw of the Articles of Confederation is that it doesn't give the federal government any authority to manage trade between different states, and with foreign countries. That causes conflict between states and prevents us from making profitable trade agreements with other nations. Who would want to sign any treaty with us when he knows that any state can violate that treaty? Germany's trade is stifled by all the different regulations of her various territories. The conflicting regulations of our own states could make them start treating each other as foreigners.
Under the Articles of Confederation, the authority to raise an army amounts to merely a recruitment quota for the states. During the Revolution, this meant that states tried to entice men to join the army with promises of financial rewards, and men held out, hoping for a better deal. So, when we needed men the most, our army was weak, and we spent too much time and money recruiting instead of training. States near the battleground tried to send more than their quota, and states farther away weren't as eager to meet their quota. Recruiting an army or collecting taxes through quotas and requests is inefficient and unfair.
The Articles of Confederation also gives every state, big or small, equal votes in Congress. How can that be right in a republic where majority rules? Nine small, sparsely populated states could outvote a couple of large states, so that a minority of people were able to outvote the majority, and the larger states might simply refuse to obey laws passed by the minority. It's not equal representation, and would eventually destroy our union. As more states are be added, this scenario will be even more likely. This system allows a couple of tiny states to have the power to stop any law from being passed, especially when unanimous consent is required. What happens during a national emergency if one state decides to be stubborn? The entire nation will have to submit to what the smallest state wants, even though they only have a tiny fraction of the union's population. This keeps the government inactive and weak - and risks anarchy. That could invite foreign intervention and domestic faction, not majority rule. A two-thirds vote where each state has the same number of votes may prevent improper actions, but it also gives a minority the ability to hinder any necessary action. It means fewer people have to be corrupted to sway a vote. Foreigners could meddle and get the smaller states to make a trade deal that squeezes out their competitor.
A general weakness of republics is that they tend to encourage foreign corruption. A ruling body taken of Representatives from the masses is more likely to be bribed and corruption than a monarch whose very glory is in his country. This happened in Sweden when France and England corrupted their officials.
The lack of a national judiciary is another flaw. It means laws can be interpreted in as many ways as there are states. Even states have seen the necessity for one superior state court because men's opinions can be so diverse; why wouldn't the nation need the same thing? Having no national judiciary allows the states to prefer their own laws above even federal law. How can foreign nations respect such a union? How can our own citizens have confidence in that?
The Articles of Confederation have so many flaws that what's needed is a whole new system. If we don't ratify the new Constitution, the union will either slowly dissolve, or situations will gradually lead us to add more and more powers to the federal government until it becomes a tyrant.
The Articles of Confederation, in fact, were never properly ratified, so their authority is often challenged. Since a few state legislatures agreed to them, it gives those state legislatures the authority to repeal them! We need a stronger government that can't be repealed by a few designated state legislators. We need a government based on a stronger foundation: on the consent of the people themselves.
Publius
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Federalist Number 23
The new Constitution was written to defend the country against foreign invasion and domestic violence, manage trade between states and with other nations, and oversee political and financial relationships with foreign countries.
That means the US needs to be able to raise armies, build ships, regulate them, and finance them. The US needs unlimited authority for those things because of the dangers confronting us. This ought to be obvious to anyone with common sense because 'the means to do a thing should be in proportion to the thing being done' and 'those who need to complete a task must have what they need to complete it.'
Perhaps the very question of whether a federal government should be trusted to defend all of us is debatable. If it should defend us, then the government must have whatever authority is needed for the task. Threats and dangers don't come with predetermined limits, so the government's ability to deal with those dangers must also be unlimited. The Articles of Confederation doesn't meet this need, and its writers knew this. They allowed Congress to request men and money, manage the army and navy, and pay for them, and the states had to supply those men and finances. So the intent was for the federal government to have the power it needed for our defense. But in practice, that hasn't worked out. The federal government shouldn't have to go through state legislatures to get what they need. Quotas and requisitions don't work. We need a new system. The government should be able to collect what is needed directly.
If we can agree that a republic is best, then we need to decide how to spread power between the different levels of government. Should the federal government be the one responsible to guard the country's safety? If so, would it need supplies such as ships, men, and money to do that? If the answer is yes, then the federal government should be given the authority it needs for national defense, trade between states, and everything else it has to do.
States are the ones to administer justice between two citizens within their own state, so they are entitled to whatever resources are needed to do that. It's incompetent to give someone authority to do a thing, but not the authority to obtain what they need to do it.
We need to decide which level of government, local or federal, is best suited to handle national defense. Whoever it is needs access to centralized information so they can assess the situation, they must be able to represent the entire country, be able to expend the effort that's needed, and establish defense measures uniformly. How can these things be done by the federal government while giving individual states the job of providing the men and resources to carry them out? Lack of cooperation, disorganization, weakness, and unfair division of funding come from this system, as we saw with the Revolution.
It is unwise and risky to restrict the federal government's ability to protect the country. It was irresponsible for critics to alarm the public with vague fears about giving the federal government too much power. The branches of government were designed to prevent them from gaining too much power, but they must have enough power to protect our national interests. Some fear giving the federal government too much power because of the size of the nation and prefer separating into multiple confederacies, but I think that the size of the nation is safer with a strong federal government defending it.
Publius
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Federalist Number 24
Some criticize the new Constitution because it allows the federal government to maintain an army even in times of peace, but that's actually a good idea. Those critics haven't specified why that would be a problem, but most free countries do have an army. Their real concern is the federal government having so much management of the military. Our newspapers make it sound like the Constitution requires a standing army in peacetime, and that the executive [<em>president</em>] is allowed to raise an army without the approval of Congress.
But that's not what the Constitution says. It's the elected Congress who is authorized to raise an army, not the president, and the Constitution doesn't allow the army to be budgeted for more than two years at a time. And America is so concerned about liberty that all state constitutions specify precautions to protect freedom -- surely the federal Constitution specifies precautions, too, to be sure our army doesn't threaten our freedoms.
Only two state constitution ban standing armies. The rest either allow it or say nothing about it. What do the Articles of Confederation say about it? They don't list any restraints on a standing army. The critics are merely being dishonest because they don't want the new Constitution ratified.
Forbidding the legislature from maintaining a peacetime army wouldn't be right, and even if the Constitution did forbid keeping an army, that would probably be ignored out of necessity. Even though Europe is across the ocean, they are still a threat, and one of our borders has British settlements next to Spanish colonies. The Indians in the west are also our enemies, and allied with the British. France and Spain are less connected by family ties [so Spain could turn against France's ally?]
We have had to guard our western border for years, mostly from Indians, and that's not going to change any time soon. A guard requires soldiers. We couldn't ask civilians to leave their families to serve as a militia for guard duty during peacetime. Rotating that kind of militia would also be costly, not just because of their pay, but because their work back home would suffer.
As we grow in strength, England and Spain will both increase their military presence here, and we'll want our own army to protect us from their encroachments.
If we want to trade with other countries and protect our eastern coast, we'll also need a navy with dockyards, and garrisons will be necessary to protect the dockyards until the ships can protect them. But until our navy is strong enough to defend itself, an army is needed to man the garrisons.
Publius
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Federalist Number 25
Should the states be in charge of national defense, under the direction of the federal government? That seems backwards. We are surrounded by British and Spanish territories, so we share a common threat and we need a defense in common. Some states, like New York, are directly in harm's way, so they would bear the burden of protecting their coasts and keeping the whole US safe. Is that fair? Those states aren't financially able to do that, yet if they fail, the entire nation could fall. And even if they are able to maintain an army to protect their coast on behalf of the whole US, would the other states feel safe if the largest and richest state also had the country's only army? No, they would muster up their own armies to defend themselves against that state and there would be civil war.
States with their own militaries might also subvert the federal government, and their priority would not be individual liberty. If an army is going to gain power, it's much better if they represent the entire country rather than one state. For one thing, the people distrust a large centralized government and will more likely be on their guard against that.
Even the Articles of Confederation didn't allow individual states to have their own ships or army. Putting the national military under state control makes no sense.
Are critics concerned about raising up armies in peacetime, or maintaining already existing armies? Who defines what constitutes maintaining existing armies? For how long? A week? A year? Until some danger is past? Wouldn't that technically be maintaining an army during peace? Who gets to decide what counts as danger?
If ever the executive and the legislature conspired to usurp the government, it would be easy to fabricate some danger involving Indians working with Spain or England. That would give them an excuse to raise a peacetime army.
To prevent that kind of conspiracy, should we ban armies in peacetime? If we did, it would make it impossible for the US to defend itself, even if an invasion was on its way. We'd have to wait until the enemy was at our borders before we could even collect men to join the army. We wouldn't be able to prevent an attack before it got here. We would put our lives and property at risk because we're afraid that our elected leaders might threaten our liberty if we give them authority to maintain an army.
Some might think that the militia is our army, protecting us from any danger. But depending on the militia nearly lost us the Revolutionary War and cost millions of lives. We need a real professional army. Our militia did some brave deeds, but even the most heroic of them realizes that we only won because we had allies. Winning a war takes a trained, disciplined army.
Any extreme policy goes against the natural course of human affairs and doesn't work, as Pennsylvania's ban against any standing army in peacetime proves. They ended up needing an armed force when violence broke out in some of its counties. Massachusetts, though its constitution doesn't ban standing armies, also needed troops to deal with internal violence. The US will undoubtedly have similar situations needing an armed force to keep the peace, so our Constitution needs to have a provision for maintaining an army. A weak government is not respected; the US needs a strong government backed by a strong defense.
When the Peloponnesans needed Lysander to lead their forces during a national emergency but couldn't because their constitution didn't allow him to lead a second term, they made him vice-admiral in name with the understanding that he was the one who was really in charge. Governments will find ways of getting around limitations when there's a national emergency. Wise politicians shouldn't write limitations into the Constitution that the US will have to work around in a crisis.
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Federalist Number 26
Pennsylvania and North Carolina fear that giving the legislature too much power over the military could threaten our liberty, although other states realize that protecting the nation is worth the risk. Critics of the new Constitution seem to want to lead us into plans that are more risky than the Constitution. If they have their way, we won't have any government at all, just anarchy.
Banning a standing army in peacetime is a holdover from Britain, when the king was all-powerful and the barons sought to limit him. The barons were finally successful in 1688, when William of Orange was king, and their Bill of Rights banned him from keeping a standing army in peacetime. It wasn't the army they feared, but a king with an army. Our patriots who won the Revolution realized that an army would need to stand guard even in peacetime, so they wrote that into the Constitution for the country's protection. We still retain the fear that standing armies will threaten our liberty, and the Revolution made us hyper-aware of the need to protect our rights, although the only two states that actually banned armies in their state constitutions gave other extra powers to their legislators! Other states say that an army can only be maintained with the consent of the state legislature, but it's only the state legislature who has the authority to maintain an army! That seems redundant.
The two states that don't allow standing armies even softened their language: instead of prohibiting it, they merely say the state "should not" maintain an army. In an actual emergency, the state would undoubtedly go ahead and raise an army and not feel like they were violating their constitution.
The new Constitution recognizes the reality of protecting the nation, so it wisely allows a standing army. Every two years, Congress can re-assess the need for maintaining an army. They are not allowed to give the president permanent funds to maintain the army. Supporting an army will always be an issue for politicians to debate. If the federal government appears to be encroaching on individual liberty, the states can limit the federal government's ability to maintain an army.
Any plan to destroy the people's freedoms won't happen overnight. Building up an army strong enough to be a threat takes time, so there would have to be a plot between the legislature and the executive going on for a long time -- which isn't likely, since they all have to be re-elected regularly. It would require the president and Congress betraying the people, without even one honest politician warning the people. Such a plot would be hard to hide. A growing army in peacetime would be a dead give-away, and the people would be alarmed and vote out the treacherous politicians.
Could the president get around the two-year limit on a standing army? Not likely, as a growing army would alarm the legislature.
Everyone admits that an army is needed to put down rebellion and defend against invasions. Certainly an army large enough to defend the country could theoretically be a threat to the people. But it will be more dangerous if we're split into multiple confederacies. A large army that threatened our liberties would have the civilian militia to contend with, but if we're divided into confederacies, that kind of threat would be unavoidable.
Publius
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Federalist Number 27
Some say the new Constitution will need to have a military to carry out its laws. But this is not so. Our people don't need to be coerced to recognize their federal government. It's not as if the federal government is going to be more abusive than the state governments. If the people feel that the federal government is working towards their best interests, they will comply with it with few exceptions. In these articles, we've given some reasons why the federal government will be managed even more efficiently than the state governments. One reason is that it will offer more political choices. The Senate will be chosen by the elected state legislatures, who are likely to make careful choices in choosing Senators, which will result in Senators who are more informed, less divisive, and more unbiased. That means those Senators will be more likely to legislate without the conflict that leads to injustice, oppression, and general distress. Until we have reason to think that the federal government will govern badly, we should assume that it will do its job at least as well as the state governments.
Fear of punishment discourages people from violent uprisings, and a strong federal government with authority to punish will be more effective at preventing sedition than a small state government. The more the federal government is involved in the daily lives of citizens, the more loyalty and respect it will earn from its citizens. We are creatures of habit, more liable to become attached to a government we're familiar with than one that's remote and distant. The more attached we are to our government, the less likely we'll be to rise up against it, and the less likely that the government will have to use force against us. The government outlined in the new Constitution is less likely to need to resort to force than a confederacy whose authority rests in the States. If States don't comply, then the result is civil war. But this new plan puts authority into the hands of individual citizens, and they can comply with the federal government directly. Their state government won't be placed in a role between the individual and the federal government.
Federal law will supercede state law, and state officials will have to comply with federal laws. Thus, they will all be helping to enforce the Union's laws routinely and peacefully. It's possible that corrupt leaders will provoke citizens to rebel, but the Constitution is written to prevent the government from encroaching on the rights of the people (and thus the people have the right to fight back if their leaders are corrupt?)
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Federalist Number 28
Idealism aside, the reality is that there will be times when military force will need to be used to put down rebels. If a small rebellion happens in a local area, citizens themselves will stand with federal law and order to help put down the rebellion -- even more so if their federal government is working for the people's general welfare.
Massachusetts and Pennsylvania had to raise their own state forces when their civilian militia rebelled. Likewise, the federal government will sometimes need to step in, which is better than the kind of endless revolts and uprisings that happen in small foreign republics.
Imagine if we separate into a few separate confederacies instead of a single Union. Each of those confederacies would have to deal with the same issue, and would end up needing its own army when its own civilian militia wasn't enough.
This is a good reason not to ban the federal government from having a standing army in peacetime: All of the power of the new government will be placed in the hands of politicians representing the people. That is the only thing protecting the privileges and rights of the citizens. But if the representatives betray the citizens, then the citizens still have the right to defend themselves -- a right which is necessary for any good government, and that is going to be more effective than relying on the state governments to defend the rights of the people. If the state, which is smaller, oversteps its authority, the towns have no militaries to resist. It would be up to the people [the civilian militia] to fight back. In such cases, the states have the appearance of official authority on their side and can usually nip resistance in the bud.
The larger the state or government, the easier it is for the people to fight back-- as long as they understand their rights and are willing to defend them. A large population can be an effective defense against government tyranny.
In a confederacy, the people can side with the power of their state to resist federal overreach, or they can side with the Union to resist state overreach. The state, which has better monitoring systems than individuals, will be on the watch for federal overreach. States also work more closely with their local people, so the people are quicker to come to their aid, and states can work together to resist federal overreach. The Union is so big that farther away states can bring fresh troops to aid states fighting against federal overreach, as well as keeping the federal army distracted and engaged in multiple battlefields.
It will be awhile before the US has a large enough population to have an army big enough to threaten the entire country, especially when the separate states have citizens willing to fight federal tyranny.
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Federalist Number 29
It doesn't take a military expert to recognize that a nation needs to have authority over its civilian militia for national defense. The federal government needs to be able to assemble the militia and train them to be an effective army. Thus, the federal government needs to have authority over the militia for national security.
Critics who fear that a standing army that could be used to threaten individual freedom should be glad to promote this system of putting the government over the militia instead of maintaining a permanent army. But they complain that the new Constitution doesn't give the federal government the authority of "posse comitatus" -- the ability to grant civilians an official military title, so that the federal government is only allowed to use a standing army to fight invasions and domestic violence. They fear that the federal government will have too much power and become a tyrant, but at the same time, they fear that the federal government won't have enough authority to promote civilians to positions of military leadership! They are inconsistent. They complain that the government will use the civilian militia as a trained special force in tyranny against its own citizens.
But if the new Constitution is ratified, the federal government won't be able to turn the entire militia into a trained military force -- there are too many civilians for that to be logistically possible. The best they could do would be to arm them and assemble them once or twice a year for training -- hardly a professional army! But they will need to maintain some of them as a moderately-sized force with basic military skills. By doing this, the federal government won't need a professional army in peacetime, and if ever they do raise an army to threaten the people, the moderately-sized trained and armed militia will be able to protect the citizens' rights against government tyranny. A civilian militia with basic training and weapons is the best defense against a federal army that threatens individual liberty.
Will the militia threaten individual liberty? Our own freedom-loving fathers, sons, brothers would be unlikely to do that to their fellow citizens. And the federal government doesn't have the right to commission them, only the states have that right, so they won't have the kind of loyaly to the federal government that would induce them to turn against their local community.
Critics give fearful scenarios in which the federal government will be able to ship the civilian militia to serve in other states, or to be given to other countries instead of money to pay foreign debts(!) Which is it? Will the civilian militia be used by the federal government against U.S. citizens to tyrannize them, or will they be sent overseas to serve far away? Both can't be true. Think about it. If the federal government had an army to use to set up a dictatorship, they wouldn't need a civilian militia. And if they tried to send the civilian militia far away, those civilians wouldn't put up with it. That would only turn the militia against the government. That's hardly the way to to set up a dictatorship.
In a national emergency, of course the civilian militia will step up to help, even if the emergency is in another state. We saw this happen in the Revolution. With the militia under federal control, they will be able to put that militia where it's needed in any crisis. A state in need won't have to be at the mercy of another state's hesitation to get involved.
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Federalist Number 30
Those of us who framed the new Constitution think that the government should be able to use the national treasury to pay its expenses, which means that the government needs to have the authority to collect federal taxes. A government needs money to do its job -- it can't can't run on nothing!
In the Ottoman empire, the sultan isn't allowed to create new taxes, so he lets the district governors plunder the people, and then he takes money from the governors. Similarly, under the Articles of Confederation, our federal government isn't allowed to tax the people directly; they have to go to the state governments for money, but states don't always comply. They don't always have the money to comply.
Setting state quotas and requesting money from the states isn't working. We need to authorize the federal government to tax the people directly. Critics partially agree, but they say states should be able to directly tax the people internally, and the federal government should only be allowed to collect duties on imported goods from external countries. But duties couldn't amount to enough to run a federal government, so the federal government would still be dependent on the states for funding. In other words, the internal/external system won't be sufficient. Quotas weaken the harmony between the Union and the states, and between the states themselves. How can a government that's always in need of money do its job of keeping the country safe, prosperous, and respected? How can it take care of the general welfare of the people?
What happens if we end up in a war? Even if import duties are enough to keep the government running in peacetime, how are they going to pay for national defense? Since quotas never worked before, the government would need to funnel money for its normal operations towards the war effoprt, and borrow from other nations. But who would loan us money when we have no way of obtaining the money through taxation to pay it back?
If the federal government is allowed to tax the people directly, they could borrow the rest and other countries would be confident that we could pay it back. They will never loan money to a country that's at the mercy of thirteen different states to pay it back. Looking at it realistically, we need to allow the federal government to have the means to obtain the resources that will be necessary to do defend the nation.
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