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- FEDERALIST No. 27
-
- The Same Subject Continued
- (The Idea of Restraining the Legislative Authority in Regard to
- the Common Defense Considered)
- From the New York Packet.
- Tuesday, December 25, 1787.
-
- HAMILTON
-
- To the People of the State of New York:
- IT HAS been urged, in different shapes, that a Constitution of
- the kind proposed by the convention cannot operate without the aid
- of a military force to execute its laws. This, however, like most
- other things that have been alleged on that side, rests on mere
- general assertion, unsupported by any precise or intelligible
- designation of the reasons upon which it is founded. As far as I
- have been able to divine the latent meaning of the objectors, it
- seems to originate in a presupposition that the people will be
- disinclined to the exercise of federal authority in any matter of an
- internal nature. Waiving any exception that might be taken to the
- inaccuracy or inexplicitness of the distinction between internal and
- external, let us inquire what ground there is to presuppose that
- disinclination in the people. Unless we presume at the same time
- that the powers of the general government will be worse administered
- than those of the State government, there seems to be no room for
- the presumption of ill-will, disaffection, or opposition in the
- people. I believe it may be laid down as a general rule that their
- confidence in and obedience to a government will commonly be
- proportioned to the goodness or badness of its administration. It
- must be admitted that there are exceptions to this rule; but these
- exceptions depend so entirely on accidental causes, that they cannot
- be considered as having any relation to the intrinsic merits or
- demerits of a constitution. These can only be judged of by general
- principles and maxims.
- Various reasons have been suggested, in the course of these
- papers, to induce a probability that the general government will be
- better administered than the particular governments; the principal
- of which reasons are that the extension of the spheres of election
- will present a greater option, or latitude of choice, to the people;
- that through the medium of the State legislatures which are select
- bodies of men, and which are to appoint the members of the national
- Senate there is reason to expect that this branch will generally be
- composed with peculiar care and judgment; that these circumstances
- promise greater knowledge and more extensive information in the
- national councils, and that they will be less apt to be tainted by
- the spirit of faction, and more out of the reach of those occasional
- ill-humors, or temporary prejudices and propensities, which, in
- smaller societies, frequently contaminate the public councils, beget
- injustice and oppression of a part of the community, and engender
- schemes which, though they gratify a momentary inclination or
- desire, terminate in general distress, dissatisfaction, and disgust.
- Several additional reasons of considerable force, to fortify that
- probability, will occur when we come to survey, with a more critical
- eye, the interior structure of the edifice which we are invited to
- erect. It will be sufficient here to remark, that until
- satisfactory reasons can be assigned to justify an opinion, that the
- federal government is likely to be administered in such a manner as
- to render it odious or contemptible to the people, there can be no
- reasonable foundation for the supposition that the laws of the Union
- will meet with any greater obstruction from them, or will stand in
- need of any other methods to enforce their execution, than the laws
- of the particular members.
- The hope of impunity is a strong incitement to sedition; the
- dread of punishment, a proportionably strong discouragement to it.
- Will not the government of the Union, which, if possessed of a due
- degree of power, can call to its aid the collective resources of the
- whole Confederacy, be more likely to repress the FORMER sentiment
- and to inspire the LATTER, than that of a single State, which can
- only command the resources within itself? A turbulent faction in a
- State may easily suppose itself able to contend with the friends to
- the government in that State; but it can hardly be so infatuated as
- to imagine itself a match for the combined efforts of the Union. If
- this reflection be just, there is less danger of resistance from
- irregular combinations of individuals to the authority of the
- Confederacy than to that of a single member.
- I will, in this place, hazard an observation, which will not be
- the less just because to some it may appear new; which is, that the
- more the operations of the national authority are intermingled in
- the ordinary exercise of government, the more the citizens are
- accustomed to meet with it in the common occurrences of their
- political life, the more it is familiarized to their sight and to
- their feelings, the further it enters into those objects which touch
- the most sensible chords and put in motion the most active springs
- of the human heart, the greater will be the probability that it will
- conciliate the respect and attachment of the community. Man is very
- much a creature of habit. A thing that rarely strikes his senses
- will generally have but little influence upon his mind. A
- government continually at a distance and out of sight 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 towards 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 channls 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 contend 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
- shown that in such a Confederacy there can be no sanction for the
- laws but force; that frequent delinquencies in the members are the
- natural 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 laws. 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 having 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.%n1%n
- 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
- certainly 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 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?
- PUBLIUS.
- FNA1@@1 The sophistry which has been employed to show that this will
- tend to the destruction of the State governments, will, in its will,
- in its proper place, be fully detected.
-
-