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FEDERALIST. No. 7

The Same Subject Continued
(Concerning Dangers from Dissensions Between the States)
For the Independent Journal.

HAMILTON

To the People of the State of New York:
IT IS sometimes asked, with an air of seeming triumph, what
 inducements could the States have, if disunited, to make war upon
 each other? It would be a full answer to this question to
 say--precisely the same inducements which have, at different times,
 deluged in blood all the nations in the world. But, unfortunately
 for us, the question admits of a more particular answer. There are
 causes of differences within our immediate contemplation, of the
 tendency of which, even under the restraints of a federal
 constitution, we have had sufficient experience to enable us to form
 a judgment of what might be expected if those restraints were
 removed.
Territorial disputes have at all times been found one of the
 most fertile sources of hostility among nations. Perhaps the
 greatest proportion of wars that have desolated the earth have
 sprung from this origin. This cause would exist among us in full
 force. We have a vast tract of unsettled territory within the
 boundaries of the United States. There still are discordant and
 undecided claims between several of them, and the dissolution of the
 Union would lay a foundation for similar claims between them all.
 It is well known that they have heretofore had serious and animated
 discussion concerning the rights to the lands which were ungranted
 at the time of the Revolution, and which usually went under the name
 of crown lands. The States within the limits of whose colonial
 governments they were comprised have claimed them as their property,
 the others have contended that the rights of the crown in this
 article devolved upon the Union; especially as to all that part of
 the Western territory which, either by actual possession, or through
 the submission of the Indian proprietors, was subjected to the
 jurisdiction of the king of Great Britain, till it was relinquished
 in the treaty of peace. This, it has been said, was at all events
 an acquisition to the Confederacy by compact with a foreign power.
 It has been the prudent policy of Congress to appease this
 controversy, by prevailing upon the States to make cessions to the
 United States for the benefit of the whole. This has been so far
 accomplished as, under a continuation of the Union, to afford a
 decided prospect of an amicable termination of the dispute. A
 dismemberment of the Confederacy, however, would revive this
 dispute, and would create others on the same subject. At present, a
 large part of the vacant Western territory is, by cession at least,
 if not by any anterior right, the common property of the Union. If
 that were at an end, the States which made the cession, on a
 principle of federal compromise, would be apt when the motive of the
 grant had ceased, to reclaim the lands as a reversion. The other
 States would no doubt insist on a proportion, by right of
 representation. Their argument would be, that a grant, once made,
 could not be revoked; and that the justice of participating in
 territory acquired or secured by the joint efforts of the
 Confederacy, remained undiminished. If, contrary to probability, it
 should be admitted by all the States, that each had a right to a
 share of this common stock, there would still be a difficulty to be
 surmounted, as to a proper rule of apportionment. Different
 principles would be set up by different States for this purpose;
 and as they would affect the opposite interests of the parties,
 they might not easily be susceptible of a pacific adjustment.
In the wide field of Western territory, therefore, we perceive
 an ample theatre for hostile pretensions, without any umpire or
 common judge to interpose between the contending parties. To reason
 from the past to the future, we shall have good ground to apprehend,
 that the sword would sometimes be appealed to as the arbiter of
 their differences. The circumstances of the dispute between
 Connecticut and Pennsylvania, respecting the land at Wyoming,
 admonish us not to be sanguine in expecting an easy accommodation of
 such differences. The articles of confederation obliged the parties
 to submit the matter to the decision of a federal court. The
 submission was made, and the court decided in favor of Pennsylvania.
 But Connecticut gave strong indications of dissatisfaction with
 that determination; nor did she appear to be entirely resigned to
 it, till, by negotiation and management, something like an
 equivalent was found for the loss she supposed herself to have
 sustained. Nothing here said is intended to convey the slightest
 censure on the conduct of that State. She no doubt sincerely
 believed herself to have been injured by the decision; and States,
 like individuals, acquiesce with great reluctance in determinations
 to their disadvantage.
Those who had an opportunity of seeing the inside of the
 transactions which attended the progress of the controversy between
 this State and the district of Vermont, can vouch the opposition we
 experienced, as well from States not interested as from those which
 were interested in the claim; and can attest the danger to which
 the peace of the Confederacy might have been exposed, had this State
 attempted to assert its rights by force. Two motives preponderated
 in that opposition: one, a jealousy entertained of our future
 power; and the other, the interest of certain individuals of
 influence in the neighboring States, who had obtained grants of
 lands under the actual government of that district. Even the States
 which brought forward claims, in contradiction to ours, seemed more
 solicitous to dismember this State, than to establish their own
 pretensions. These were New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and
 Connecticut. New Jersey and Rhode Island, upon all occasions,
 discovered a warm zeal for the independence of Vermont; and
 Maryland, till alarmed by the appearance of a connection between
 Canada and that State, entered deeply into the same views. These
 being small States, saw with an unfriendly eye the perspective of
 our growing greatness. In a review of these transactions we may
 trace some of the causes which would be likely to embroil the States
 with each other, if it should be their unpropitious destiny to
 become disunited.
The competitions of commerce would be another fruitful source of
 contention. The States less favorably circumstanced would be
 desirous of escaping from the disadvantages of local situation, and
 of sharing in the advantages of their more fortunate neighbors.
 Each State, or separate confederacy, would pursue a system of
 commercial policy peculiar to itself. This would occasion
 distinctions, preferences, and exclusions, which would beget
 discontent. The habits of intercourse, on the basis of equal
 privileges, to which we have been accustomed since the earliest
 settlement of the country, would give a keener edge to those causes
 of discontent than they would naturally have independent of this
 circumstance. WE SHOULD BE READY TO DENOMINATE INJURIES THOSE
 THINGS WHICH WERE IN REALITY THE JUSTIFIABLE ACTS OF INDEPENDENT
 SOVEREIGNTIES CONSULTING A DISTINCT INTEREST. The spirit of
 enterprise, which characterizes the commercial part of America, has
 left no occasion of displaying itself unimproved. It is not at all
 probable that this unbridled spirit would pay much respect to those
 regulations of trade by which particular States might endeavor to
 secure exclusive benefits to their own citizens. The infractions of
 these regulations, on one side, the efforts to prevent and repel
 them, on the other, would naturally lead to outrages, and these to
 reprisals and wars.
The opportunities which some States would have of rendering
 others tributary to them by commercial regulations would be
 impatiently submitted to by the tributary States. The relative
 situation of New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey would afford an
 example of this kind. New York, from the necessities of revenue,
 must lay duties on her importations. A great part of these duties
 must be paid by the inhabitants of the two other States in the
 capacity of consumers of what we import. New York would neither be
 willing nor able to forego this advantage. Her citizens would not
 consent that a duty paid by them should be remitted in favor of the
 citizens of her neighbors; nor would it be practicable, if there
 were not this impediment in the way, to distinguish the customers in
 our own markets. Would Connecticut and New Jersey long submit to be
 taxed by New York for her exclusive benefit? Should we be long
 permitted to remain in the quiet and undisturbed enjoyment of a
 metropolis, from the possession of which we derived an advantage so
 odious to our neighbors, and, in their opinion, so oppressive?
 Should we be able to preserve it against the incumbent weight of
 Connecticut on the one side, and the co-operating pressure of New
 Jersey on the other? These are questions that temerity alone will
 answer in the affirmative.
The public debt of the Union would be a further cause of
 collision between the separate States or confederacies. The
 apportionment, in the first instance, and the progressive
 extinguishment afterward, would be alike productive of ill-humor and
 animosity. How would it be possible to agree upon a rule of
 apportionment satisfactory to all? There is scarcely any that can
 be proposed which is entirely free from real objections. These, as
 usual, would be exaggerated by the adverse interest of the parties.
 There are even dissimilar views among the States as to the general
 principle of discharging the public debt. Some of them, either less
 impressed with the importance of national credit, or because their
 citizens have little, if any, immediate interest in the question,
 feel an indifference, if not a repugnance, to the payment of the
 domestic debt at any rate. These would be inclined to magnify the
 difficulties of a distribution. Others of them, a numerous body of
 whose citizens are creditors to the public beyond proportion of the
 State in the total amount of the national debt, would be strenuous
 for some equitable and effective provision. The procrastinations of
 the former would excite the resentments of the latter. The
 settlement of a rule would, in the meantime, be postponed by real
 differences of opinion and affected delays. The citizens of the
 States interested would clamour; foreign powers would urge for the
 satisfaction of their just demands, and the peace of the States
 would be hazarded to the double contingency of external invasion and
 internal contention.
Suppose the difficulties of agreeing upon a rule surmounted, and
 the apportionment made. Still there is great room to suppose that
 the rule agreed upon would, upon experiment, be found to bear harder
 upon some States than upon others. Those which were sufferers by it
 would naturally seek for a mitigation of the burden. The others
 would as naturally be disinclined to a revision, which was likely to
 end in an increase of their own incumbrances. Their refusal would
 be too plausible a pretext to the complaining States to withhold
 their contributions, not to be embraced with avidity; and the
 non-compliance of these States with their engagements would be a
 ground of bitter discussion and altercation. If even the rule
 adopted should in practice justify the equality of its principle,
 still delinquencies in payments on the part of some of the States
 would result from a diversity of other causes--the real deficiency of
 resources; the mismanagement of their finances; accidental
 disorders in the management of the government; and, in addition to
 the rest, the reluctance with which men commonly part with money for
 purposes that have outlived the exigencies which produced them, and
 interfere with the supply of immediate wants. Delinquencies, from
 whatever causes, would be productive of complaints, recriminations,
 and quarrels. There is, perhaps, nothing more likely to disturb the
 tranquillity of nations than their being bound to mutual
 contributions for any common object that does not yield an equal and
 coincident benefit. For it is an observation, as true as it is
 trite, that there is nothing men differ so readily about as the
 payment of money.
Laws in violation of private contracts, as they amount to
 aggressions on the rights of those States whose citizens are injured
 by them, may be considered as another probable source of hostility.
 We are not authorized to expect that a more liberal or more
 equitable spirit would preside over the legislations of the
 individual States hereafter, if unrestrained by any additional
 checks, than we have heretofore seen in too many instances
 disgracing their several codes. We have observed the disposition to
 retaliation excited in Connecticut in consequence of the enormities
 perpetrated by the Legislature of Rhode Island; and we reasonably
 infer that, in similar cases, under other circumstances, a war, not
 of PARCHMENT, but of the sword, would chastise such atrocious
 breaches of moral obligation and social justice.
The probability of incompatible alliances between the different
 States or confederacies and different foreign nations, and the
 effects of this situation upon the peace of the whole, have been
 sufficiently unfolded in some preceding papers. From the view they
 have exhibited of this part of the subject, this conclusion is to be
 drawn, that America, if not connected at all, or only by the feeble
 tie of a simple league, offensive and defensive, would, by the
 operation of such jarring alliances, be gradually entangled in all
 the pernicious labyrinths of European politics and wars; and by the
 destructive contentions of the parts into which she was divided,
 would be likely to become a prey to the artifices and machinations
 of powers equally the enemies of them all. Divide et
 impera1 must be the motto of every nation that either hates or
 fears us.2 PUBLIUS.
1 Divide and command.
2 In order that the whole subject of these papers may as soon as
 possible be laid before the public, it is proposed to publish them
 four times a week--on Tuesday in the New York Packet and on
 Thursday in the Daily Advertiser.