The Same Subject Continued: The Idea of Restraining the
Legislative Authority in Regard to the Common Defense Considered
For the Independent
Journal.
Author: 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.
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