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FEDERALIST No. 20

The Same Subject Continued
(The Insufficiency fo the Present Confederation to Preserve the
 Union)
From the New York Packet.
Tuesday, December 11, 1787.

HAMILTON AND MADISON

To the People of the State of New York:
THE United Netherlands are a confederacy of republics, or rather
 of aristocracies of a very remarkable texture, yet confirming all
 the lessons derived from those which we have already reviewed.
The union is composed of seven coequal and sovereign states, and
 each state or province is a composition of equal and independent
 cities. In all important cases, not only the provinces but the
 cities must be unanimous.
The sovereignty of the Union is represented by the
 States-General, consisting usually of about fifty deputies appointed
 by the provinces. They hold their seats, some for life, some for
 six, three, and one years; from two provinces they continue in
 appointment during pleasure.
The States-General have authority to enter into treaties and
 alliances; to make war and peace; to raise armies and equip
 fleets; to ascertain quotas and demand contributions. In all these
 cases, however, unanimity and the sanction of their constituents are
 requisite. They have authority to appoint and receive ambassadors;
 to execute treaties and alliances already formed; to provide for
 the collection of duties on imports and exports; to regulate the
 mint, with a saving to the provincial rights; to govern as
 sovereigns the dependent territories. The provinces are restrained,
 unless with the general consent, from entering into foreign
 treaties; from establishing imposts injurious to others, or
 charging their neighbors with higher duties than their own subjects.
 A council of state, a chamber of accounts, with five colleges of
 admiralty, aid and fortify the federal administration.
The executive magistrate of the union is the stadtholder, who is
 now an hereditary prince. His principal weight and influence in the
 republic are derived from this independent title; from his great
 patrimonial estates; from his family connections with some of the
 chief potentates of Europe; and, more than all, perhaps, from his
 being stadtholder in the several provinces, as well as for the
 union; in which provincial quality he has the appointment of town
 magistrates under certain regulations, executes provincial decrees,
 presides when he pleases in the provincial tribunals, and has
 throughout the power of pardon.
As stadtholder of the union, he has, however, considerable
 prerogatives.
In his political capacity he has authority to settle disputes
 between the provinces, when other methods fail; to assist at the
 deliberations of the States-General, and at their particular
 conferences; to give audiences to foreign ambassadors, and to keep
 agents for his particular affairs at foreign courts.
In his military capacity he commands the federal troops,
 provides for garrisons, and in general regulates military affairs;
 disposes of all appointments, from colonels to ensigns, and of the
 governments and posts of fortified towns.
In his marine capacity he is admiral-general, and superintends
 and directs every thing relative to naval forces and other naval
 affairs; presides in the admiralties in person or by proxy;
 appoints lieutenant-admirals and other officers; and establishes
 councils of war, whose sentences are not executed till he approves
 them.
His revenue, exclusive of his private income, amounts to three
 hundred thousand florins. The standing army which he commands
 consists of about forty thousand men.
Such is the nature of the celebrated Belgic confederacy, as
 delineated on parchment. What are the characters which practice has
 stamped upon it? Imbecility in the government; discord among the
 provinces; foreign influence and indignities; a precarious
 existence in peace, and peculiar calamities from war.
It was long ago remarked by Grotius, that nothing but the hatred
 of his countrymen to the house of Austria kept them from being
 ruined by the vices of their constitution.
The union of Utrecht, says another respectable writer, reposes
 an authority in the States-General, seemingly sufficient to secure
 harmony, but the jealousy in each province renders the practice very
 different from the theory.
The same instrument, says another, obliges each province to levy
 certain contributions; but this article never could, and probably
 never will, be executed; because the inland provinces, who have
 little commerce, cannot pay an equal quota.
In matters of contribution, it is the practice to waive the
 articles of the constitution. The danger of delay obliges the
 consenting provinces to furnish their quotas, without waiting for
 the others; and then to obtain reimbursement from the others, by
 deputations, which are frequent, or otherwise, as they can. The
 great wealth and influence of the province of Holland enable her to
 effect both these purposes.
It has more than once happened, that the deficiencies had to be
 ultimately collected at the point of the bayonet; a thing
 practicable, though dreadful, in a confedracy where one of the
 members exceeds in force all the rest, and where several of them are
 too small to meditate resistance; but utterly impracticable in one
 composed of members, several of which are equal to each other in
 strength and resources, and equal singly to a vigorous and
 persevering defense.
Foreign ministers, says Sir William Temple, who was himself a
 foreign minister, elude matters taken ad referendum, by
 tampering with the provinces and cities. In 1726, the treaty of
 Hanover was delayed by these means a whole year. Instances of a
 like nature are numerous and notorious.
In critical emergencies, the States-General are often compelled
 to overleap their constitutional bounds. In 1688, they concluded a
 treaty of themselves at the risk of their heads. The treaty of
 Westphalia, in 1648, by which their independence was formerly and
 finally recognized, was concluded without the consent of Zealand.
 Even as recently as the last treaty of peace with Great Britain,
 the constitutional principle of unanimity was departed from. A weak
 constitution must necessarily terminate in dissolution, for want of
 proper powers, or the usurpation of powers requisite for the public
 safety. Whether the usurpation, when once begun, will stop at the
 salutary point, or go forward to the dangerous extreme, must depend
 on the contingencies of the moment. Tyranny has perhaps oftener
 grown out of the assumptions of power, called for, on pressing
 exigencies, by a defective constitution, than out of the full
 exercise of the largest constitutional authorities.
Notwithstanding the calamities produced by the stadtholdership,
 it has been supposed that without his influence in the individual
 provinces, the causes of anarchy manifest in the confederacy would
 long ago have dissolved it. ``Under such a government,'' says the
 Abbe Mably, ``the Union could never have subsisted, if the provinces
 had not a spring within themselves, capable of quickening their
 tardiness, and compelling them to the same way of thinking. This
 spring is the stadtholder.'' It is remarked by Sir William Temple,
 ``that in the intermissions of the stadtholdership, Holland, by her
 riches and her authority, which drew the others into a sort of
 dependence, supplied the place.''
These are not the only circumstances which have controlled the
 tendency to anarchy and dissolution. The surrounding powers impose
 an absolute necessity of union to a certain degree, at the same time
 that they nourish by their intrigues the constitutional vices which
 keep the republic in some degree always at their mercy.
The true patriots have long bewailed the fatal tendency of these
 vices, and have made no less than four regular experiments by
 EXTRAORDINARY ASSEMBLIES, convened for the special purpose, to apply
 a remedy. As many times has their laudable zeal found it impossible
 to UNITE THE PUBLIC COUNCILS in reforming the known, the
 acknowledged, the fatal evils of the existing constitution. Let us
 pause, my fellow-citizens, for one moment, over this melancholy and
 monitory lesson of history; and with the tear that drops for the
 calamities brought on mankind by their adverse opinions and selfish
 passions, let our gratitude mingle an ejaculation to Heaven, for the
 propitious concord which has distinguished the consultations for our
 political happiness.
A design was also conceived of establishing a general tax to be
 administered by the federal authority. This also had its
 adversaries and failed.
This unhappy people seem to be now suffering from popular
 convulsions, from dissensions among the states, and from the actual
 invasion of foreign arms, the crisis of their distiny. All nations
 have their eyes fixed on the awful spectacle. The first wish
 prompted by humanity is, that this severe trial may issue in such a
 revolution of their government as will establish their union, and
 render it the parent of tranquillity, freedom and happiness: The
 next, that the asylum under which, we trust, the enjoyment of these
 blessings will speedily be secured in this country, may receive and
 console them for the catastrophe of their own.
I make no apology for having dwelt so long on the contemplation
 of these federal precedents. Experience is the oracle of truth;
 and where its responses are unequivocal, they ought to be
 conclusive and sacred. The important truth, which it unequivocally
 pronounces in the present case, is that a sovereignty over
 sovereigns, a government over governments, a legislation for
 communities, as contradistinguished from individuals, as it is a
 solecism in theory, so in practice it is subversive of the order and
 ends of civil polity, by substituting VIOLENCE in place of LAW, or
 the destructive COERCION of the SWORD in place of the mild and
 salutary COERCION of the MAGISTRACY.
PUBLIUS.