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FEDERALIST No. 25

The Same Subject Continued
(The Powers Necessary to the Common Defense Further Considered)
From the New York Packet.
Friday, December 21, 1787.

HAMILTON

To the People of the State of New York:
IT MAY perhaps be urged that the objects enumerated in the
 preceding number ought to be provided for by the State governments,
 under the direction of the Union. But this would be, in reality, an
 inversion of the primary principle of our political association, as
 it would in practice transfer the care of the common defense from
 the federal head to the individual members: a project oppressive to
 some States, dangerous to all, and baneful to the Confederacy.
The territories of Britain, Spain, and of the Indian nations in
 our neighborhood do not border on particular States, but encircle
 the Union from Maine to Georgia. The danger, though in different
 degrees, is therefore common. And the means of guarding against it
 ought, in like manner, to be the objects of common councils and of a
 common treasury. It happens that some States, from local situation,
 are more directly exposed. New York is of this class. Upon the
 plan of separate provisions, New York would have to sustain the
 whole weight of the establishments requisite to her immediate
 safety, and to the mediate or ultimate protection of her neighbors.
 This would neither be equitable as it respected New York nor safe
 as it respected the other States. Various inconveniences would
 attend such a system. The States, to whose lot it might fall to
 support the necessary establishments, would be as little able as
 willing, for a considerable time to come, to bear the burden of
 competent provisions. The security of all would thus be subjected
 to the parsimony, improvidence, or inability of a part. If the
 resources of such part becoming more abundant and extensive, its
 provisions should be proportionally enlarged, the other States would
 quickly take the alarm at seeing the whole military force of the
 Union in the hands of two or three of its members, and those
 probably amongst the most powerful. They would each choose to have
 some counterpoise, and pretenses could easily be contrived. In this
 situation, military establishments, nourished by mutual jealousy,
 would be apt to swell beyond their natural or proper size; and
 being at the separate disposal of the members, they would be engines
 for the abridgment or demolition of the national authcrity.
Reasons have been already given to induce a supposition that the
 State governments will too naturally be prone to a rivalship with
 that of the Union, the foundation of which will be the love of
 power; and that in any contest between the federal head and one of
 its members the people will be most apt to unite with their local
 government. If, in addition to this immense advantage, the ambition
 of the members should be stimulated by the separate and independent
 possession of military forces, it would afford too strong a
 temptation and too great a facility to them to make enterprises
 upon, and finally to subvert, the constitutional authority of the
 Union. On the other hand, the liberty of the people would be less
 safe in this state of things than in that which left the national
 forces in the hands of the national government. As far as an army
 may be considered as a dangerous weapon of power, it had better be
 in those hands of which the people are most likely to be jealous
 than in those of which they are least likely to be jealous. For it
 is a truth, which the experience of ages has attested, that the
 people are always most in danger when the means of injuring their
 rights are in the possession of those of whom they entertain the
 least suspicion.
The framers of the existing Confederation, fully aware of the
 danger to the Union from the separate possession of military forces
 by the States, have, in express terms, prohibited them from having
 either ships or troops, unless with the consent of Congress. The
 truth is, that the existence of a federal government and military
 establishments under State authority are not less at variance with
 each other than a due supply of the federal treasury and the system
 of quotas and requisitions.
There are other lights besides those already taken notice of, in
 which the impropriety of restraints on the discretion of the
 national legislature will be equally manifest. The design of the
 objection, which has been mentioned, is to preclude standing armies
 in time of peace, though we have never been informed how far it is
 designed the prohibition should extend; whether to raising armies
 as well as to KEEPING THEM UP in a season of tranquillity or not.
 If it be confined to the latter it will have no precise
 signification, and it will be ineffectual for the purpose intended.
 When armies are once raised what shall be denominated ``keeping
 them up,'' contrary to the sense of the Constitution? What time
 shall be requisite to ascertain the violation? Shall it be a week,
 a month, a year? Or shall we say they may be continued as long as
 the danger which occasioned their being raised continues? This
 would be to admit that they might be kept up IN TIME OF PEACE,
 against threatening or impending danger, which would be at once to
 deviate from the literal meaning of the prohibition, and to
 introduce an extensive latitude of construction. Who shall judge of
 the continuance of the danger? This must undoubtedly be submitted
 to the national government, and the matter would then be brought to
 this issue, that the national government, to provide against
 apprehended danger, might in the first instance raise troops, and
 might afterwards keep them on foot as long as they supposed the
 peace or safety of the community was in any degree of jeopardy. It
 is easy to perceive that a discretion so latitudinary as this would
 afford ample room for eluding the force of the provision.
The supposed utility of a provision of this kind can only be
 founded on the supposed probability, or at least possibility, of a
 combination between the executive and the legislative, in some
 scheme of usurpation. Should this at any time happen, how easy
 would it be to fabricate pretenses of approaching danger! Indian
 hostilities, instigated by Spain or Britain, would always be at hand.
 Provocations to produce the desired appearances might even be
 given to some foreign power, and appeased again by timely
 concessions. If we can reasonably presume such a combination to
 have been formed, and that the enterprise is warranted by a
 sufficient prospect of success, the army, when once raised, from
 whatever cause, or on whatever pretext, may be applied to the
 execution of the project.
If, to obviate this consequence, it should be resolved to extend
 the prohibition to the RAISING of armies in time of peace, the
 United States would then exhibit the most extraordinary spectacle
 which the world has yet seen, τthat of a nation incapacitated by its
 Constitution to prepare for defense, before it was actually invaded.
 As the ceremony of a formal denunciation of war has of late fallen
 into disuse, the presence of an enemy within our territories must be
 waited for, as the legal warrant to the government to begin its
 levies of men for the protection of the State. We must receive the
 blow, before we could even prepare to return it. All that kind of
 policy by which nations anticipate distant danger, and meet the
 gathering storm, must be abstained from, as contrary to the genuine
 maxims of a free government. We must expose our property and
 liberty to the mercy of foreign invaders, and invite them by our
 weakness to seize the naked and defenseless prey, because we are
 afraid that rulers, created by our choice, dependent on our will,
 might endanger that liberty, by an abuse of the means necessary to
 its preservation.
Here I expect we shall be told that the militia of the country
 is its natural bulwark, and would be at all times equal to the
 national defense. This doctrine, in substance, had like to have
 lost us our independence. It cost millions to the United States
 that might have been saved. The facts which, from our own
 experience, forbid a reliance of this kind, are too recent to permit
 us to be the dupes of such a suggestion. The steady operations of
 war against a regular and disciplined army can only be successfully
 conducted by a force of the same kind. Considerations of economy,
 not less than of stability and vigor, confirm this position. The
 American militia, in the course of the late war, have, by their
 valor on numerous occasions, erected eternal monuments to their
 fame; but the bravest of them feel and know that the liberty of
 their country could not have been established by their efforts
 alone, however great and valuable they were. War, like most other
 things, is a science to be acquired and perfected by diligence, by
 perserverance, by time, and by practice.
All violent policy, as it is contrary to the natural and
 experienced course of human affairs, defeats itself. Pennsylvania,
 at this instant, affords an example of the truth of this remark.
 The Bill of Rights of that State declares that standing armies are
 dangerous to liberty, and ought not to be kept up in time of peace.
 Pennsylvania, nevertheless, in a time of profound peace, from the
 existence of partial disorders in one or two of her counties, has
 resolved to raise a body of troops; and in all probability will
 keep them up as long as there is any appearance of danger to the
 public peace. The conduct of Massachusetts affords a lesson on the
 same subject, though on different ground. That State (without
 waiting for the sanction of Congress, as the articles of the
 Confederation require) was compelled to raise troops to quell a
 domestic insurrection, and still keeps a corps in pay to prevent a
 revival of the spirit of revolt. The particular constitution of
 Massachusetts opposed no obstacle to the measure; but the instance
 is still of use to instruct us that cases are likely to occur under
 our government, as well as under those of other nations, which will
 sometimes render a military force in time of peace essential to the
 security of the society, and that it is therefore improper in this
 respect to control the legislative discretion. It also teaches us,
 in its application to the United States, how little the rights of a
 feeble government are likely to be respected, even by its own
 constituents. And it teaches us, in addition to the rest, how
 unequal parchment provisions are to a struggle with public necessity
.
It was a fundamental maxim of the Lacedaemonian commonwealth,
 that the post of admiral should not be conferred twice on the same
 person. The Peloponnesian confederates, having suffered a severe
 defeat at sea from the Athenians, demanded Lysander, who had before
 served with success in that capacity, to command the combined fleets.
 The Lacedaemonians, to gratify their allies, and yet preserve the
 semblance of an adherence to their ancient institutions, had
 recourse to the flimsy subterfuge of investing Lysander with the
 real power of admiral, under the nominal title of vice-admiral.
 This instance is selected from among a multitude that might be
 cited to confirm the truth already advanced and illustrated by
 domestic examples; which is, that nations pay little regard to
 rules and maxims calculated in their very nature to run counter to
 the necessities of society. Wise politicians will be cautious about
 fettering the government with restrictions that cannot be observed,
 because they know that every breach of the fundamental laws, though
 dictated by necessity, impairs that sacred reverence which ought to
 be maintained in the breast of rulers towards the constitution of a
 country, and forms a precedent for other breaches where the same
 plea of necessity does not exist at all, or is less urgent and
 palpable.
PUBLIUS.