The Federalist Papers
of them, either less impressed with the importance of national credit,
or because their citizens have little, if any, immediate interest in the
question, feel an indifference, if not a repugnance, to the payment of
the domestic debt at any rate. These would be inclined to magnify the
difficulties of a distribution. Others of them, a numerous body of whose
citizens are creditors to the public beyond proportion of the State
in the total amount of the national debt, would be strenuous for some
equitable and effective provision. The procrastinations of the former
would excite the resentments of the latter. The settlement of a rule
would, in the meantime, be postponed by real differences of opinion and
affected delays. The citizens of the States interested would clamour;
foreign powers would urge for the satisfaction of their just demands,
and the peace of the States would be hazarded to the double contingency
of external invasion and internal contention.
Suppose the difficulties of agreeing upon a rule surmounted, and the
apportionment made. Still there is great room to suppose that the rule
agreed upon would, upon experiment, be found to bear harder upon
some States than upon others. Those which were sufferers by it would
naturally seek for a mitigation of the burden. The others would as
naturally be disinclined to a revision, which was likely to end in an
increase of their own incumbrances. Their refusal would be too plausible
a pretext to the complaining States to withhold their contributions, not
to be embraced with avidity; and the non-compliance of these States
with their engagements would be a ground of bitter discussion and
altercation. If even the rule adopted should in practice justify the
equality of its principle, still delinquencies in payments on the part
of some of the States would result from a diversity of other causes--the
real deficiency of resources; the mismanagement of their finances;
accidental disorders in the management of the government; and, in
addition to the rest, the reluctance with which men commonly part with
money for purposes that have outlived the exigencies which produced
them, and interfere with the supply of immediate wants. Delinquencies,
from whatever causes, would be productive of complaints, recriminations,
and quarrels. There is, perhaps, nothing more likely to disturb the
tranquillity of nations than their being bound to mutual contributions
for any common object that does not yield an equal and coincident
benefit. For it is an observation, as true as it is trite, that there is
nothing men differ so readily about as the payment of money.
Laws in violation of private contracts, as they amount to aggressions
on the rights of those States whose citizens are injured by them, may
be considered as another probable source of hostility. We are not
authorized to expect that a more liberal or more equitable spirit would
preside over the legislations of the individual States hereafter, if
unrestrained by any additional checks, than we have heretofore seen in
too many instances disgracing their several codes. We have observed the
disposition to retaliation excited in Connecticut in consequence of
the enormities perpetrated by the Legislature of Rhode Island; and we
reasonably infer that, in similar cases, under other circumstances, a
war, not of PARCHMENT, but of the sword, would chastise such atrocious
breaches of moral obligation and social justice.
The probability of incompatible alliances between the different States
or confederacies and different foreign nations, and the effects of this
situation upon the peace of the whole, have been sufficiently unfolded
in some preceding papers. From the view they have exhibited of this part
of the subject, this conclusion is to be drawn, that America, if
not connected at all, or only by the feeble tie of a simple league,
offensive and defensive, would, by the operation of such jarring
alliances, be gradually entangled in all the pernicious labyrinths of
European politics and wars; and by the destructive contentions of the
parts into which she was divided, would be likely to become a prey to
the artifices and machinations of powers equally the enemies of them
all. Divide et impera(1) must be the motto of every nation that either
hates or fears us.(2)
PUBLIUS
1. Divide and command.
2. In order that the whole subject of these papers may as soon as
possible be laid before the public, it is proposed to publish them four
times a week--on Tuesday in the New York Packet and on Thursday in the
Daily Advertiser.
FEDERALIST No. 8
The Consequences of Hostilities Between the States
From the New York Packet. Tuesday, November 20, 1787.
HAMILTON
To the People of the State of New York:
ASSUMING it therefore as an established truth that the several States,
in case of disunion, or such combinations of them as might happen to be
formed out of the wreck of the general Confederacy, would be subject to
those vicissitudes of peace and war, of friendship and enmity, with
each other, which have fallen to the lot of all neighboring nations not
united under one government, let us enter into a concise detail of some
of the consequences that would attend such a situation.
War between the States, in the first period of their separate existence,
would be accompanied with much greater distresses than it commonly is
in those countries where regular military establishments have long
obtained. The disciplined armies always kept on foot on the continent
of Europe, though they bear a malignant aspect to liberty and economy,
have, notwithstanding, been productive of the signal advantage of
rendering sudden conquests impracticable, and of preventing that
rapid desolation which used to mark the progress of war prior to their
introduction. The art of fortification has contributed to the same ends.
The nations of Europe are encircled with chains of fortified places,
which mutually obstruct invasion. Campaigns are wasted in reducing two
or three frontier garrisons, to gain admittance into an enemy's country.
Similar impediments occur at every step, to exhaust the strength and
delay the progress of an invader. Formerly, an invading army would
penetrate into the heart of a neighboring country almost as soon as
intelligence of its approach could be received; but now a comparatively
small force of disciplined troops, acting on the defensive, with the aid
of posts, is able to impede, and finally to frustrate, the enterprises
of one much more considerable. The history of war, in that quarter
of the globe, is no longer a history of nations subdued and empires
overturned, but of towns taken and retaken; of battles that decide
nothing; of retreats more beneficial than victories; of much effort and
little acquisition.
In this country the scene would be altogether reversed. The jealousy
of military establishments would postpone them as long as possible.
The want of fortifications, leaving the frontiers of one state open
to another, would facilitate inroads. The populous States would, with
little difficulty, overrun their less populous neighbors. Conquests
would be as easy to be made as difficult to be retained. War, therefore,
would be desultory and predatory. PLUNDER and devastation ever march in
the train of irregulars. The calamities of individuals would make the
principal figure in the events which would characterize our military
exploits.
This picture is not too highly wrought; though, I confess, it would not
long remain a just one. Safety from external danger is the most powerful
director of national conduct. Even the ardent love of liberty will,
after a time, give way to its dictates. The violent destruction of life
and property incident to war, the continual effort and alarm attendant
on a state of continual danger, will compel nations the most attached to
liberty to resort for repose and security to institutions which have a
tendency to destroy their civil and political rights. To be more safe,
they at length become willing to run the risk of being less free.
The institutions chiefly alluded to are STANDING ARMIES and the
correspondent appendages of military establishments. Standing armies,
it is said, are not provided against in the new Constitution; and it
is therefore inferred that they may exist under it.(1) Their existence,
however, from the very terms of the proposition, is, at most,
problematical and uncertain. But standing armies, it may be replied,
must inevitably result from a dissolution of the Confederacy. Frequent
war and constant apprehension, which require a state of as constant
preparation, will infallibly produce them. The weaker States or
confederacies would first have recourse to them, to put themselves upon
an equality with their more potent neighbors. They would endeavor to
supply the inferiority of population and resources by a more regular
and effective system of defense, by disciplined troops, and by
fortifications. They would, at the same time, be necessitated to
strengthen the executive arm of government, in doing which their
constitutions would acquire a progressive direction toward monarchy. It
is of the nature of war to increase the executive at the expense of the
legislative authority.
The expedients which have been mentioned would soon give the States or
confederacies that made use of them a superiority over their neighbors.
Small states, or states of less natural strength, under vigorous
governments, and with the assistance of disciplined armies, have often
triumphed over large states, or states of greater natural strength,
which have been destitute of these advantages. Neither the pride nor the
safety of the more important States or confederacies would permit them
long to submit to this mortifying and adventitious superiority. They
would quickly resort to means similar to those by which it had been
effected, to reinstate themselves in their lost pre-eminence. Thus, we
should, in a little time, see established in every part of this country
the same engines of despotism which have been the scourge of the Old
World. This, at least, would be the natural course of things; and our
reasonings will be the more likely to be just, in proportion as they are
accommodated to this standard.
These are not vague inferences drawn from supposed or speculative
defects in a Constitution, the whole power of which is lodged in the
hands of a people, or their representatives and delegates, but they
are solid conclusions, drawn from the natural and necessary progress of
human affairs.
It may, perhaps, be asked, by way of objection to this, why did
not standing armies spring up out of the contentions which so often
distracted the ancient republics of Greece? Different answers, equally
satisfactory, may be given to this question. The industrious habits of
the people of the present day, absorbed in the pursuits of gain,
and devoted to the improvements of agriculture and commerce, are
incompatible with the condition of a nation of soldiers, which was the
true condition of the people of those republics. The means of revenue,
which have been so greatly multiplied by the increase of gold and silver
and of the arts of industry, and the science of finance, which is the
offspring of modern times, concurring with the habits of nations, have
produced an entire revolution in the system of war, and have rendered
disciplined armies, distinct from the body of the citizens, the
inseparable companions of frequent hostility.
There is a wide difference, also, between military establishments in a
country seldom exposed by its situation to internal invasions, and in
one which is often subject to them, and always apprehensive of them.
The rulers of the former can have no good pretext, if they are even so