The Federalist Papers
manifest inconsistency in devolving upon the federal government the
care of the general defense, and leaving in the State governments the
EFFECTIVE powers by which it is to be provided for? Is not a want of
co-operation the infallible consequence of such a system? And will not
weakness, disorder, an undue distribution of the burdens and calamities
of war, an unnecessary and intolerable increase of expense, be its
natural and inevitable concomitants? Have we not had unequivocal
experience of its effects in the course of the revolution which we have
just accomplished?
Every view we may take of the subject, as candid inquirers after truth,
will serve to convince us, that it is both unwise and dangerous to deny
the federal government an unconfined authority, as to all those objects
which are intrusted to its management. It will indeed deserve the most
vigilant and careful attention of the people, to see that it be modeled
in such a manner as to admit of its being safely vested with the
requisite powers. If any plan which has been, or may be, offered to our
consideration, should not, upon a dispassionate inspection, be found
to answer this description, it ought to be rejected. A government, the
constitution of which renders it unfit to be trusted with all the powers
which a free people ought to delegate to any government, would be an
unsafe and improper depositary of the NATIONAL INTERESTS. Wherever
THESE can with propriety be confided, the coincident powers may safely
accompany them. This is the true result of all just reasoning upon the
subject. And the adversaries of the plan promulgated by the convention
ought to have confined themselves to showing, that the internal
structure of the proposed government was such as to render it unworthy
of the confidence of the people. They ought not to have wandered into
inflammatory declamations and unmeaning cavils about the extent of the
powers. The POWERS are not too extensive for the OBJECTS of federal
administration, or, in other words, for the management of our NATIONAL
INTERESTS; nor can any satisfactory argument be framed to show that
they are chargeable with such an excess. If it be true, as has been
insinuated by some of the writers on the other side, that the difficulty
arises from the nature of the thing, and that the extent of the country
will not permit us to form a government in which such ample powers can
safely be reposed, it would prove that we ought to contract our views,
and resort to the expedient of separate confederacies, which will move
within more practicable spheres. For the absurdity must continually
stare us in the face of confiding to a government the direction of the
most essential national interests, without daring to trust it to the
authorities which are indispensable to their proper and efficient
management. Let us not attempt to reconcile contradictions, but firmly
embrace a rational alternative.
I trust, however, that the impracticability of one general system cannot
be shown. I am greatly mistaken, if any thing of weight has yet been
advanced of this tendency; and I flatter myself, that the observations
which have been made in the course of these papers have served to place
the reverse of that position in as clear a light as any matter still
in the womb of time and experience can be susceptible of. This, at all
events, must be evident, that the very difficulty itself, drawn from
the extent of the country, is the strongest argument in favor of an
energetic government; for any other can certainly never preserve the
Union of so large an empire. If we embrace the tenets of those who
oppose the adoption of the proposed Constitution, as the standard of
our political creed, we cannot fail to verify the gloomy doctrines
which predict the impracticability of a national system pervading entire
limits of the present Confederacy.
PUBLIUS
FEDERALIST No. 24
The Powers Necessary to the Common Defense Further Considered
For the Independent Journal. Wednesday, December 19, 1787
HAMILTON
To the People of the State of New York:
TO THE powers proposed to be conferred upon the federal government, in
respect to the creation and direction of the national forces, I have
met with but one specific objection, which, if I understand it right, is
this, that proper provision has not been made against the existence
of standing armies in time of peace; an objection which, I shall now
endeavor to show, rests on weak and unsubstantial foundations.
It has indeed been brought forward in the most vague and general form,
supported only by bold assertions, without the appearance of argument;
without even the sanction of theoretical opinions; in contradiction to
the practice of other free nations, and to the general sense of America,
as expressed in most of the existing constitutions. The proprietary of
this remark will appear, the moment it is recollected that the objection
under consideration turns upon a supposed necessity of restraining
the LEGISLATIVE authority of the nation, in the article of military
establishments; a principle unheard of, except in one or two of our
State constitutions, and rejected in all the rest.
A stranger to our politics, who was to read our newspapers at the
present juncture, without having previously inspected the plan reported
by the convention, would be naturally led to one of two conclusions:
either that it contained a positive injunction, that standing armies
should be kept up in time of peace; or that it vested in the EXECUTIVE
the whole power of levying troops, without subjecting his discretion, in
any shape, to the control of the legislature.
If he came afterwards to peruse the plan itself, he would be surprised
to discover, that neither the one nor the other was the case; that the
whole power of raising armies was lodged in the LEGISLATURE, not in the
EXECUTIVE; that this legislature was to be a popular body, consisting of
the representatives of the people periodically elected; and that instead
of the provision he had supposed in favor of standing armies, there was
to be found, in respect to this object, an important qualification
even of the legislative discretion, in that clause which forbids the
appropriation of money for the support of an army for any longer period
than two years a precaution which, upon a nearer view of it, will appear
to be a great and real security against the keeping up of troops without
evident necessity.
Disappointed in his first surmise, the person I have supposed would be
apt to pursue his conjectures a little further. He would naturally
say to himself, it is impossible that all this vehement and pathetic
declamation can be without some colorable pretext. It must needs be that
this people, so jealous of their liberties, have, in all the preceding
models of the constitutions which they have established, inserted the
most precise and rigid precautions on this point, the omission of which,
in the new plan, has given birth to all this apprehension and clamor.
If, under this impression, he proceeded to pass in review the several
State constitutions, how great would be his disappointment to find that
TWO ONLY of them(1) contained an interdiction of standing armies in time
of peace; that the other eleven had either observed a profound silence
on the subject, or had in express terms admitted the right of the
Legislature to authorize their existence.
Still, however he would be persuaded that there must be some plausible
foundation for the cry raised on this head. He would never be able to
imagine, while any source of information remained unexplored, that it
was nothing more than an experiment upon the public credulity, dictated
either by a deliberate intention to deceive, or by the overflowings of
a zeal too intemperate to be ingenuous. It would probably occur to him,
that he would be likely to find the precautions he was in search of
in the primitive compact between the States. Here, at length, he would
expect to meet with a solution of the enigma. No doubt, he would observe
to himself, the existing Confederation must contain the most explicit
provisions against military establishments in time of peace; and a
departure from this model, in a favorite point, has occasioned the
discontent which appears to influence these political champions.
If he should now apply himself to a careful and critical survey of the
articles of Confederation, his astonishment would not only be increased,
but would acquire a mixture of indignation, at the unexpected discovery,
that these articles, instead of containing the prohibition he looked
for, and though they had, with jealous circumspection, restricted the
authority of the State legislatures in this particular, had not imposed
a single restraint on that of the United States. If he happened to be
a man of quick sensibility, or ardent temper, he could now no longer
refrain from regarding these clamors as the dishonest artifices of a
sinister and unprincipled opposition to a plan which ought at least to
receive a fair and candid examination from all sincere lovers of their
country! How else, he would say, could the authors of them have been
tempted to vent such loud censures upon that plan, about a point in
which it seems to have conformed itself to the general sense of America
as declared in its different forms of government, and in which it has
even superadded a new and powerful guard unknown to any of them? If,
on the contrary, he happened to be a man of calm and dispassionate
feelings, he would indulge a sigh for the frailty of human nature,
and would lament, that in a matter so interesting to the happiness
of millions, the true merits of the question should be perplexed
and entangled by expedients so unfriendly to an impartial and right
determination. Even such a man could hardly forbear remarking, that
a conduct of this kind has too much the appearance of an intention to
mislead the people by alarming their passions, rather than to convince
them by arguments addressed to their understandings.
But however little this objection may be countenanced, even by
precedents among ourselves, it may be satisfactory to take a nearer view
of its intrinsic merits. From a close examination it will appear that
restraints upon the discretion of the legislature in respect to military
establishments in time of peace, would be improper to be imposed, and
if imposed, from the necessities of society, would be unlikely to be
observed.
Though a wide ocean separates the United States from Europe, yet there
are various considerations that warn us against an excess of confidence
or security. On one side of us, and stretching far into our rear, are
growing settlements subject to the dominion of Britain. On the other
side, and extending to meet the British settlements, are colonies and
establishments subject to the dominion of Spain. This situation and the
vicinity of the West India Islands, belonging to these two powers create
between them, in respect to their American possessions and in relation
to us, a common interest. The savage tribes on our Western frontier
ought to be regarded as our natural enemies, their natural allies,
because they have most to fear from us, and most to hope from them.
The improvements in the art of navigation have, as to the facility of
communication, rendered distant nations, in a great measure, neighbors.
Britain and Spain are among the principal maritime powers of Europe. A
future concert of views between these nations ought not to be regarded
as improbable. The increasing remoteness of consanguinity is every day
diminishing the force of the family compact between France and Spain.
And politicians have ever with great reason considered the ties of
blood as feeble and precarious links of political connection.