can hardly be expected to interest the sensations of the people.' The inference is that the authority of the Union, and the affections of the citizens toward it, will be strengthened rather than weakened by its extension to what are called matters of internal concern; and will have less occasion to recur to force, in proportion to the familiarity and comprehensiveness of its agency. The more it circulates through those channels and currents in which the passions of mankind naturally flow, the less will it require the aid of the violent and perilous expedients of compulsion. One thing at all events must be evident, that a government like the one proposed would bid much fairer to avoid the necessity of using force than that species of league contended for by most of its opponents, the authority of which should only operate upon the States in their political or collective capacities. It has been See shown that in such a Confederacy there can No. 16. be no sanction for the laws but force; that frequent delinquencies in the members are the natural 1 This mental attitude furnishes the text to one of the most brilliant sections of Bagehot's "English Constitution." in which he points out that the government of England is dual, possessing a dignified part" and an efficient part "; the former being supplied by the sovereign, and the latter by the working administration. The dignified part, he maintains, commands that loyalty and reverence by which alone the larger part of the people is controlled; the lack of this he considers a great defect in Presidential government. Yet the example of Great Britain itself during the Commonwealth, if not of France and the United States, should have shown him that what truly commands the loyalty and reverence of a people is the real nationality of which, in England, the Sovereign happens to be the most obvious expression. Seeley in his "Life of Stein" draws the distinction that Napoleon was able repeatedly to conquer Italy, Germany, and Austria because there was, in those countries at that time, no true sense of nationality; but in Spain and Russia, where the contrary was true, Napoleon failed signally. Yet all these countries were equally equipped with royalty. How the sense of loyalty has grown in the United States, not through reverence for a figurehead, but through a greater and greater consciousness of actual nationality, is a most interesting study. Von Holst marvels at the outburst of "worship of the constitution" which developed almost with its adoption, and nowadays there is much satirical writing about the sentiment for "the flag"; yet each form of loyalty is but a surface expression of a far deeper feeling, corresponding exactly to what Bagehot superficially believed to be merely a reverence for the Queen.-EDITOR. Hamilton] EXECUTION OF SUPREME LAW. 173 offspring of the very frame of the government; and that as often as these happen, they can only be redressed, if at all, by war and violence. The plan reported by the convention, by extending the authority of the federal head to the individual citizens of the several States, will enable the government to employ the ordinary magistracy of each in the execution of its It is easy to perceive that this will tend to destroy, in the common apprehension, all distinction between the sources from which they might proceed; and will give the federal government the same advantage for securing a due obedience to its authority which is enjoyed by the government of each State, in addition to the influence on public opinion which will result from the important consideration of its haying power to call to its assistance and support the resources of the whole Union. It merits particular attention in this place, that the laws of the Confederacy, as to the enumerated and legitimate objects of its jurisdiction, will become the SUPREME LAW of the land, to the observance of which all officers-legislative, executive, and judicial, in each State-will be bound by the sanctity of an oath. Thus the legislatures, courts, and magistrates of the respective members will be incorporated into the operations of the national government as far as its just and constitutional authority extends, and will be rendered auxiliary to the enforcement of its laws.* Any man who will pursue by his own reflections the consequences of this situation will perceive that there is good ground to calculate upon a regular and peaceable execution of the laws of the Union, if its powers are administered with a common share of prudence. If we will arbitrarily suppose the contrary, we may deduce any inferences we please from the supposition; for it is cer tainly possible, by an injudicious exercise of the authorities of the best government that ever was, or ever can be instituted, to provoke and precipitate the people into * The sophistry which has been employed, to show that this will tend to the destruction of the State governments, will, in its proper place, be fully detected.-PUBLIUS. the wildest excesses. But though the adversaries of the proposed Constitution should presume that the national rulers would be insensible to the motives of public good or to the obligations of duty, I would still ask them how the interests of ambition or the views of encroachment can be promoted by such a conduct? Insurrections a malady inseparable from the body politic-An insurrection a danger to all government-Experience of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania—New York versus Vermont—Separate confederacies subject to same conditions as the Union--A full answer to objection is that the potser is in the hands of the representatives of the people-Certain success of popular resistance to usurpation—Advantage of large territory and of state government-Impossibility of a large standing army. 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 Hamilton] LOCAL INSURRECTION. 175 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 natural 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? Sup Let us pursue this examination in another light. pose, 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.* 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 *Its full efficacy will be examined hereafter.-PUBLIUS. In the text of the edition of 1802, or if there should be as many unconnected governments as there are States."-EDITOR. |