"The Same Subject Continued
(The Idea of Restraining the Legislative Authority in Regard to
the Common Defense Considered)
From the New York Packet." [HAMILTON]
Tuesday, December 25, 1787.
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.1
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.
[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.