The Necessity of a Government as Energetic as the One Proposed to the

Preservation of the Union



From the New York Packet.



Tuesday, December 18, 1787.



HAMILTON





To the People of the State of New York:



The necessity of a Constitution, at least equally energetic with the

one proposed, to the preservation of the Union, is the point at the

examination of which we are now arrived.



This inquiry will naturally divide itself into three branches the

objects to be provided for by the federal government, the quantity of

power necessary to the accomplishment of those objects, the persons

upon whom that power ought to operate. Its distribution and

organization will more properly claim our attention under the

succeeding head.



The principal purposes to be answered by union are these the common

defense of the members; the preservation of the public peace as well

against internal convulsions as external attacks; the regulation of

commerce with other nations and between the States; the superintendence

of our intercourse, political and commercial, with foreign countries.



The authorities essential to the common defense are these: to raise

armies; to build and equip fleets; to prescribe rules for the

government of both; to direct their operations; to provide for their

support. These powers ought to exist without limitation, BECAUSE IT IS

IMPOSSIBLE TO FORESEE OR DEFINE THE EXTENT AND VARIETY OF NATIONAL

EXIGENCIES, OR THE CORRESPONDENT EXTENT AND VARIETY OF THE MEANS WHICH

MAY BE NECESSARY TO SATISFY THEM. The circumstances that endanger the

safety of nations are infinite, and for this reason no constitutional

shackles can wisely be imposed on the power to which the care of it is

committed. This power ought to be coextensive with all the possible

combinations of such circumstances; and ought to be under the direction

of the same councils which are appointed to preside over the common

defense.



This is one of those truths which, to a correct and unprejudiced mind,

carries its own evidence along with it; and may be obscured, but cannot

be made plainer by argument or reasoning. It rests upon axioms as

simple as they are universal; the MEANS ought to be proportioned to the

END; the persons, from whose agency the attainment of any END is

expected, ought to possess the MEANS by which it is to be attained.



Whether there ought to be a federal government intrusted with the care

of the common defense, is a question in the first instance, open for

discussion; but the moment it is decided in the affirmative, it will

follow, that that government ought to be clothed with all the powers

requisite to complete execution of its trust. And unless it can be

shown that the circumstances which may affect the public safety are

reducible within certain determinate limits; unless the contrary of

this position can be fairly and rationally disputed, it must be

admitted, as a necessary consequence, that there can be no limitation

of that authority which is to provide for the defense and protection of

the community, in any matter essential to its efficacy that is, in any

matter essential to the FORMATION, DIRECTION, or SUPPORT of the

NATIONAL FORCES.



Defective as the present Confederation has been proved to be, this

principle appears to have been fully recognized by the framers of it;

though they have not made proper or adequate provision for its

exercise. Congress have an unlimited discretion to make requisitions of

men and money; to govern the army and navy; to direct their operations.

As their requisitions are made constitutionally binding upon the

States, who are in fact under the most solemn obligations to furnish

the supplies required of them, the intention evidently was that the

United States should command whatever resources were by them judged

requisite to the “common defense and general welfare.” It was presumed

that a sense of their true interests, and a regard to the dictates of

good faith, would be found sufficient pledges for the punctual

performance of the duty of the members to the federal head.



The experiment has, however, demonstrated that this expectation was

ill-founded and illusory; and the observations, made under the last

head, will, I imagine, have sufficed to convince the impartial and

discerning, that there is an absolute necessity for an entire change in

the first principles of the system; that if we are in earnest about

giving the Union energy and duration, we must abandon the vain project

of legislating upon the States in their collective capacities; we must

extend the laws of the federal government to the individual citizens of

America; we must discard the fallacious scheme of quotas and

requisitions, as equally impracticable and unjust. The result from all

this is that the Union ought to be invested with full power to levy

troops; to build and equip fleets; and to raise the revenues which will

be required for the formation and support of an army and navy, in the

customary and ordinary modes practiced in other governments.



If the circumstances of our country are such as to demand a compound

instead of a simple, a confederate instead of a sole, government, the

essential point which will remain to be adjusted will be to

discriminate the OBJECTS, as far as it can be done, which shall

appertain to the different provinces or departments of power; allowing

to each the most ample authority for fulfilling the objects committed

to its charge. Shall the Union be constituted the guardian of the

common safety? Are fleets and armies and revenues necessary to this

purpose? The government of the Union must be empowered to pass all

laws, and to make all regulations which have relation to them. The same

must be the case in respect to commerce, and to every other matter to

which its jurisdiction is permitted to extend. Is the administration of

justice between the citizens of the same State the proper department of

the local governments? These must possess all the authorities which are

connected with this object, and with every other that may be allotted

to their particular cognizance and direction. Not to confer in each

case a degree of power commensurate to the end, would be to violate the

most obvious rules of prudence and propriety, and improvidently to

trust the great interests of the nation to hands which are disabled

from managing them with vigor and success.



Who is likely to make suitable provisions for the public defense, as

that body to which the guardianship of the public safety is confided;

which, as the centre of information, will best understand the extent

and urgency of the dangers that threaten; as the representative of the

WHOLE, will feel itself most deeply interested in the preservation of

every part; which, from the responsibility implied in the duty assigned

to it, will be most sensibly impressed with the necessity of proper

exertions; and which, by the extension of its authority throughout the

States, can alone establish uniformity and concert in the plans and

measures by which the common safety is to be secured? Is there not a

manifest inconsistency in devolving upon the federal government the

care of the general defense, and leaving in the State governments the

EFFECTIVE powers by which it is to be provided for? Is not a want of

co-operation the infallible consequence of such a system? And will not

weakness, disorder, an undue distribution of the burdens and calamities

of war, an unnecessary and intolerable increase of expense, be its

natural and inevitable concomitants? Have we not had unequivocal

experience of its effects in the course of the revolution which we have

just accomplished?



Every view we may take of the subject, as candid inquirers after truth,

will serve to convince us, that it is both unwise and dangerous to deny

the federal government an unconfined authority, as to all those objects

which are intrusted to its management. It will indeed deserve the most

vigilant and careful attention of the people, to see that it be modeled

in such a manner as to admit of its being safely vested with the

requisite powers. If any plan which has been, or may be, offered to our

consideration, should not, upon a dispassionate inspection, be found to

answer this description, it ought to be rejected. A government, the

constitution of which renders it unfit to be trusted with all the

powers which a free people OUGHT TO DELEGATE TO ANY GOVERNMENT, would

be an unsafe and improper depositary of the NATIONAL INTERESTS.

Wherever THESE can with propriety be confided, the coincident powers

may safely accompany them. This is the true result of all just

reasoning upon the subject. And the adversaries of the plan promulgated

by the convention ought to have confined themselves to showing, that

the internal structure of the proposed government was such as to render

it unworthy of the confidence of the people. They ought not to have

wandered into inflammatory declamations and unmeaning cavils about the

extent of the powers. The POWERS are not too extensive for the OBJECTS

of federal administration, or, in other words, for the management of

our NATIONAL INTERESTS; nor can any satisfactory argument be framed to

show that they are chargeable with such an excess. If it be true, as

has been insinuated by some of the writers on the other side, that the

difficulty arises from the nature of the thing, and that the extent of

the country will not permit us to form a government in which such ample

powers can safely be reposed, it would prove that we ought to contract

our views, and resort to the expedient of separate confederacies, which

will move within more practicable spheres. For the absurdity must

continually stare us in the face of confiding to a government the

direction of the most essential national interests, without daring to

trust it to the authorities which are indispensible to their proper and

efficient management. Let us not attempt to reconcile contradictions,

but firmly embrace a rational alternative.



I trust, however, that the impracticability of one general system

cannot be shown. I am greatly mistaken, if any thing of weight has yet

been advanced of this tendency; and I flatter myself, that the

observations which have been made in the course of these papers have

served to place the reverse of that position in as clear a light as any

matter still in the womb of time and experience can be susceptible of.

This, at all events, must be evident, that the very difficulty itself,

drawn from the extent of the country, is the strongest argument in

favor of an energetic government; for any other can certainly never

preserve the Union of so large an empire. If we embrace the tenets of

those who oppose the adoption of the proposed Constitution, as the

standard of our political creed, we cannot fail to verify the gloomy

doctrines which predict the impracticability of a national system

pervading entire limits of the present Confederacy.



PUBLIUS.









THE FEDERALIST.