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