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FEDERALIST No. 41
General View of the Powers Conferred by The Constitution
For the Independent Journal.

MADISON

To the People of the State of New York:
THE Constitution proposed by the convention may be considered
under two general points of view. The FIRST relates to the sum or
quantity of power which it vests in the government, including
the restraints imposed on the States. The SECOND, to the
particular structure of the government, and the distribution of
this power among its several branches. Under the FIRST view of
the subject, two important questions arise: 1. Whether any part
of the powers transferred to the general government be
unnecessary or improper? 2. Whether the entire mass of them be
dangerous to the portion of jurisdiction left in the several
States? Is the aggregate power of the general government greater
than ought to have been vested in it? This is the FIRST
question. It cannot have escaped those who have attended with
candor to the arguments employed against the extensive powers of
the government, that the authors of them have very little
considered how far these powers were necessary means of attaining
a necessary end. They have chosen rather to dwell on the
inconveniences which must be unavoidably blended with all
political advantages; and on the possible abuses which must be
incident to every power or trust, of which a beneficial use can
be made. This method of handling the subject cannot impose on the
good sense of the people of America. It may display the subtlety
of the writer; it may open a boundless field for rhetoric and
declamation; it may inflame the passions of the unthinking, and
may confirm the prejudices of the misthinking: but cool and
candid people will at once reflect, that the purest of human
blessings must have a portion of alloy in them; that the choice
must always be made, if not of the lesser evil, at least of the
GREATER, not the PERFECT, good; and that in every political
institution, a power to advance the public happiness involves a
discretion which may be misapplied and abused. They will see,
therefore, that in all cases where power is to be conferred, the
point first to be decided is, whether such a power be necessary
to the public good; as the next will be, in case of an
affirmative decision, to guard as effectually as possible
against a perversion of the power to the public detriment. That
we may form a correct judgment on this subject, it will be proper
to review the several powers conferred on the government of the
Union; and that this may be the more conveniently done they may
be reduced into different classes as they relate to the following
different objects: 1. Security against foreign danger; 2.
Regulation of the intercourse with foreign nations; 3.
Maintenance of harmony and proper intercourse among the States;
4. Certain miscellaneous objects of general utility; 5.
Restraint of the States from certain injurious acts; 6.
Provisions for giving due efficacy to all these powers. The
powers falling within the FIRST class are those of declaring war
and granting letters of marque; of providing armies and fleets;
of regulating and calling forth the militia; of levying and
borrowing money. Security against foreign danger is one of the
primitive objects of civil society. It is an avowed and essential
object of the American Union. The powers requisite for attaining
it must be effectually confided to the federal councils. Is the
power of declaring war necessary? No man will answer this
question in the negative. It would be superfluous, therefore, to
enter into a proof of the affirmative. The existing Confederation
establishes this power in the most ample form. Is the power of
raising armies and equipping fleets necessary? This is involved
in the foregoing power. It is involved in the power of
self-defense. But was it necessary to give an INDEFINITE POWER
of raising TROOPS, as well as providing fleets; and of
maintaining both in PEACE, as well as in war? The answer to these
questions has been too far anticipated in another place to admit
an extensive discussion of them in this place. The answer indeed
seems to be so obvious and conclusive as scarcely to justify such
a discussion in any place. With what color of propriety could the
force necessary for defense be limited by those who cannot limit
the force of offense? If a federal Constitution could chain the
ambition or set bounds to the exertions of all other nations,
then indeed might it prudently chain the discretion of its own
government, and set bounds to the exertions for its own safety.
How could a readiness for war in time of peace be safely
prohibited, unless we could prohibit, in like manner, the
preparations and establishments of every hostile nation? The
means of security can only be regulated by the means and the
danger of attack. They will, in fact, be ever determined by these
rules, and by no others. It is in vain to oppose constitutional
barriers to the impulse of self-preservation. It is worse than in
vain; because it plants in the Constitution itself necessary
usurpations of power, every precedent of which is a germ of
unnecessary and multiplied repetitions. If one nation maintains
constantly a disciplined army, ready for the service of ambition
or revenge, it obliges the most pacific nations who may be within
the reach of its enterprises to take corresponding precautions.
The fifteenth century was the unhappy epoch of military
establishments in the time of peace. They were introduced by
Charles VII. of France. All Europe has followed, or been forced
into, the example. Had the example not been followed by other
nations, all Europe must long ago have worn the chains of a
universal monarch. Were every nation except France now to disband
its peace establishments, the same event might follow. The
veteran legions of Rome were an overmatch for the undisciplined
valor of all other nations and rendered her the mistress of the
world. Not the less true is it, that the liberties of Rome
proved the final victim to her military triumphs; and that the
liberties of Europe, as far as they ever existed, have, with few
exceptions, been the price of her military establishments. A
standing force, therefore, is a dangerous, at the same time that
it may be a necessary, provision. On the smallest scale it has
its inconveniences. On an extensive scale its consequences may be
fatal. On any scale it is an object of laudable circumspection
and precaution. A wise nation will combine all these
considerations; and, whilst it does not rashly preclude itself
from any resource which may become essential to its safety, will
exert all its prudence in diminishing both the necessity and the
danger of resorting to one which may be inauspicious to its
liberties. The clearest marks of this prudence are stamped on
the proposed Constitution. The Union itself, which it cements and
secures, destroys every pretext for a military establishment
which could be dangerous. America united, with a handful of
troops, or without a single soldier, exhibits a more forbidding
posture to foreign ambition than America disunited, with a
hundred thousand veterans ready for combat. It was remarked, on a
former occasion, that the want of this pretext had saved the
liberties of one nation in Europe. Being rendered by her insular
situation and her maritime resources impregnable to the armies of
her neighbors, the rulers of Great Britain have never been able,
by real or artificial dangers, to cheat the public into an
extensive peace establishment. The distance of the United States
from the powerful nations of the world gives them the same happy
security. A dangerous establishment can never be necessary or
plausible, so long as they continue a united people. But let it
never, for a moment, be forgotten that they are indebted for this
advantage to the Union alone. The moment of its dissolution will
be the date of a new order of things. The fears of the weaker, or
the ambition of the stronger States, or Confederacies, will set
the same example in the New, as Charles VII. did in the Old
World. The example will be followed here from the same motives
which produced universal imitation there. Instead of deriving
from our situation the precious advantage which Great Britain has
derived from hers, the face of America will be but a copy of that
of the continent of Europe. It will present liberty everywhere
crushed between standing armies and perpetual taxes. The fortunes
of disunited America will be even more disastrous than those of
Europe. The sources of evil in the latter are confined to her own
limits. No superior powers of another quarter of the globe
intrigue among her rival nations, inflame their mutual
animosities, and render them the instruments of foreign ambition,
jealousy, and revenge. In America the miseries springing from her
internal jealousies, contentions, and wars, would form a part
only of her lot. A plentiful addition of evils would have their
source in that relation in which Europe stands to this quarter of
the earth, and which no other quarter of the earth bears to
Europe. This picture of the consequences of disunion cannot be
too highly colored, or too often exhibited. Every man who loves
peace, every man who loves his country, every man who loves
liberty, ought to have it ever before his eyes, that he may
cherish in his heart a due attachment to the Union of America,
and be able to set a due value on the means of preserving it.
Next to the effectual establishment of the Union, the best
possible precaution against danger from standing armies is a
limitation of the term for which revenue may be appropriated to
their support. This precaution the Constitution has prudently
added. I will not repeat here the observations which I flatter
myself have placed this subject in a just and satisfactory
light. But it may not be improper to take notice of an argument
against this part of the Constitution, which has been drawn from
the policy and practice of Great Britain. It is said that the
continuance of an army in that kingdom requires an annual vote of
the legislature; whereas the American Constitution has lengthened
this critical period to two years. This is the form in which the
comparison is usually stated to the public: but is it a just
form? Is it a fair comparison? Does the British Constitution
restrain the parliamentary discretion to one year? Does the
American impose on the Congress appropriations for two years? On
the contrary, it cannot be unknown to the authors of the fallacy
themselves, that the British Constitution fixes no limit whatever
to the discretion of the legislature, and that the American ties
down the legislature to two years, as the longest admissible
term. Had the argument from the British example been truly
stated, it would have stood thus: The term for which supplies
may be appropriated to the army establishment, though unlimited
by the British Constitution, has nevertheless, in practice, been
limited by parliamentary discretion to a single year. Now, if in
Great Britain, where the House of Commons is elected for seven
years; where so great a proportion of the members are elected by
so small a proportion of the people; where the electors are so
corrupted by the representatives, and the representatives so
corrupted by the Crown, the representative body can possess a
power to make appropriations to the army for an indefinite term,
without desiring, or without daring, to extend the term beyond a
single year, ought not suspicion herself to blush, in pretending
that the representatives of the United States, elected FREELY by
the WHOLE BODY of the people, every SECOND YEAR, cannot be safely
intrusted with the discretion over such appropriations, expressly
limited to the short period of TWO YEARS? A bad cause seldom
fails to betray itself. Of this truth, the management of the
opposition to the federal government is an unvaried
exemplification. But among all the blunders which have been
committed, none is more striking than the attempt to enlist on
that side the prudent jealousy entertained by the people, of
standing armies. The attempt has awakened fully the public
attention to that important subject; and has led to
investigations which must terminate in a thorough and universal
conviction, not only that the constitution has provided the most
effectual guards against danger from that quarter, but that
nothing short of a Constitution fully adequate to the national
defense and the preservation of the Union, can save America from
as many standing armies as it may be split into States or
Confederacies, and from such a progressive augmentation, of these
establishments in each, as will render them as burdensome to the
properties and ominous to the liberties of the people, as any
establishment that can become necessary, under a united and
efficient government, must be tolerable to the former and safe to
the latter. The palpable necessity of the power to provide and
maintain a navy has protected that part of the Constitution
against a spirit of censure, which has spared few other parts. It
must, indeed, be numbered among the greatest blessings of
America, that as her Union will be the only source of her
maritime strength, so this will be a principal source of her
security against danger from abroad. In this respect our
situation bears another likeness to the insular advantage of
Great Britain. The batteries most capable of repelling foreign
enterprises on our safety, are happily such as can never be
turned by a perfidious government against our liberties. The
inhabitants of the Atlantic frontier are all of them deeply
interested in this provision for naval protection, and if they
have hitherto been suffered to sleep quietly in their beds; if
their property has remained safe against the predatory spirit of
licentious adventurers; if their maritime towns have not yet
been compelled to ransom themselves from the terrors of a
conflagration, by yielding to the exactions of daring and sudden
invaders, these instances of good fortune are not to be ascribed
to the capacity of the existing government for the protection of
those from whom it claims allegiance, but to causes that are
fugitive and fallacious. If we except perhaps Virginia and
Maryland, which are peculiarly vulnerable on their eastern
frontiers, no part of the Union ought to feel more anxiety on
this subject than New York. Her seacoast is extensive. A very
important district of the State is an island. The State itself is
penetrated by a large navigable river for more than fifty
leagues. The great emporium of its commerce, the great reservoir
of its wealth, lies every moment at the mercy of events, and may
almost be regarded as a hostage for ignominious compliances with
the dictates of a foreign enemy, or even with the rapacious
demands of pirates and barbarians. Should a war be the result of
the precarious situation of European affairs, and all the unruly
passions attending it be let loose on the ocean, our escape from
insults and depredations, not only on that element, but every
part of the other bordering on it, will be truly miraculous. In
the present condition of America, the States more immediately
exposed to these calamities have nothing to hope from the phantom
of a general government which now exists; and if their single
resources were equal to the task of fortifying themselves against
the danger, the object to be protected would be almost consumed
by the means of protecting them. The power of regulating and
calling forth the militia has been already sufficiently
vindicated and explained. The power of levying and borrowing
money, being the sinew of that which is to be exerted in the
national defense, is properly thrown into the same class with
it. This power, also, has been examined already with much
attention, and has, I trust, been clearly shown to be necessary,
both in the extent and form given to it by the Constitution. I
will address one additional reflection only to those who contend
that the power ought to have been restrained to external
taxation by which they mean, taxes on articles imported from
other countries. It cannot be doubted that this will always be a
valuable source of revenue; that for a considerable time it must
be a principal source; that at this moment it is an essential
one. But we may form very mistaken ideas on this subject, if we
do not call to mind in our calculations, that the extent of
revenue drawn from foreign commerce must vary with the
variations, both in the extent and the kind of imports; and that
these variations do not correspond with the progress of
population, which must be the general measure of the public
wants. As long as agriculture continues the sole field of labor,
the importation of manufactures must increase as the consumers
multiply. As soon as domestic manufactures are begun by the hands
not called for by agriculture, the imported manufactures will
decrease as the numbers of people increase. In a more remote
stage, the imports may consist in a considerable part of raw
materials, which will be wrought into articles for exportation,
and will, therefore, require rather the encouragement of
bounties, than to be loaded with discouraging duties. A system of
government, meant for duration, ought to contemplate these
revolutions, and be able to accommodate itself to them. Some,
who have not denied the necessity of the power of taxation, have
grounded a very fierce attack against the Constitution, on the
language in which it is defined. It has been urged and echoed,
that the power ``to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and
excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and
general welfare of the United States,'' amounts to an unlimited
commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be
necessary for the common defense or general welfare. No stronger
proof could be given of the distress under which these writers
labor for objections, than their stooping to such a
misconstruction. Had no other enumeration or definition of the
powers of the Congress been found in the Constitution, than the
general expressions just cited, the authors of the objection
might have had some color for it; though it would have been
difficult to find a reason for so awkward a form of describing an
authority to legislate in all possible cases. A power to destroy
the freedom of the press, the trial by jury, or even to regulate
the course of descents, or the forms of conveyances, must be very
singularly expressed by the terms ``to raise money for the
general welfare. ''But what color can the objection have, when a
specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms
immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause
than a semicolon? If the different parts of the same instrument
ought to be so expounded, as to give meaning to every part which
will bear it, shall one part of the same sentence be excluded
altogether from a share in the meaning; and shall the more
doubtful and indefinite terms be retained in their full extent,
and the clear and precise expressions be denied any signification
whatsoever? For what purpose could the enumeration of particular
powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be
included in the preceding general power? Nothing is more natural
nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to
explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars. But the idea
of an enumeration of particulars which neither explain nor
qualify the general meaning, and can have no other effect than to
confound and mislead, is an absurdity, which, as we are reduced
to the dilemma of charging either on the authors of the objection
or on the authors of the Constitution, we must take the liberty
of supposing, had not its origin with the latter. The objection
here is the more extraordinary, as it appears that the language
used by the convention is a copy from the articles of
Confederation. The objects of the Union among the States, as
described in article third, are ``their common defense, security
of their liberties, and mutual and general welfare. '' The terms
of article eighth are still more identical: ``All charges of war
and all other expenses that shall be incurred for the common
defense or general welfare, and allowed by the United States in
Congress, shall be defrayed out of a common treasury,'' etc. A
similar language again occurs in article ninth. Construe either
of these articles by the rules which would justify the
construction put on the new Constitution, and they vest in the
existing Congress a power to legislate in all cases whatsoever.
But what would have been thought of that assembly, if, attaching
themselves to these general expressions, and disregarding the
specifications which ascertain and limit their import, they had
exercised an unlimited power of providing for the common defense
and general welfare? I appeal to the objectors themselves,
whether they would in that case have employed the same reasoning
in justification of Congress as they now make use of against the
convention. How difficult it is for error to escape its own
condemnation! PUBLIUS.