The Same Subject Continued



(The Idea of Restraining the Legislative Authority in Regard to the

Common Defense Considered)



For the Independent Journal.



HAMILTON





To the People of the State of New York:



That there may happen cases in which the national government may be

necessitated to resort to force, cannot be denied. Our own experience

has corroborated the lessons taught by the examples of other nations;

that emergencies of this sort will sometimes arise in all societies,

however constituted; that seditions and insurrections are, unhappily,

maladies as inseparable from the body politic as tumors and eruptions

from the natural body; that the idea of governing at all times by the

simple force of law (which we have been told is the only admissible

principle of republican government), has no place but in the reveries

of those political doctors whose sagacity disdains the admonitions of

experimental instruction.



Should such emergencies at any time happen under the national

government, there could be no remedy but force. The means to be

employed must be proportioned to the extent of the mischief. If it

should be a slight commotion in a small part of a State, the militia of

the residue would be adequate to its suppression; and the national

presumption is that they would be ready to do their duty. An

insurrection, whatever may be its immediate cause, eventually endangers

all government. Regard to the public peace, if not to the rights of the

Union, would engage the citizens to whom the contagion had not

communicated itself to oppose the insurgents; and if the general

government should be found in practice conducive to the prosperity and

felicity of the people, it were irrational to believe that they would

be disinclined to its support.



If, on the contrary, the insurrection should pervade a whole State, or

a principal part of it, the employment of a different kind of force

might become unavoidable. It appears that Massachusetts found it

necessary to raise troops for repressing the disorders within that

State; that Pennsylvania, from the mere apprehension of commotions

among a part of her citizens, has thought proper to have recourse to

the same measure. Suppose the State of New York had been inclined to

re-establish her lost jurisdiction over the inhabitants of Vermont,

could she have hoped for success in such an enterprise from the efforts

of the militia alone? Would she not have been compelled to raise and to

maintain a more regular force for the execution of her design? If it

must then be admitted that the necessity of recurring to a force

different from the militia, in cases of this extraordinary nature, is

applicable to the State governments themselves, why should the

possibility, that the national government might be under a like

necessity, in similar extremities, be made an objection to its

existence? Is it not surprising that men who declare an attachment to

the Union in the abstract, should urge as an objection to the proposed

Constitution what applies with tenfold weight to the plan for which

they contend; and what, as far as it has any foundation in truth, is an

inevitable consequence of civil society upon an enlarged scale? Who

would not prefer that possibility to the unceasing agitations and

frequent revolutions which are the continual scourges of petty

republics?



Let us pursue this examination in another light. Suppose, in lieu of

one general system, two, or three, or even four Confederacies were to

be formed, would not the same difficulty oppose itself to the

operations of either of these Confederacies? Would not each of them be

exposed to the same casualties; and when these happened, be obliged to

have recourse to the same expedients for upholding its authority which

are objected to in a government for all the States? Would the militia,

in this supposition, be more ready or more able to support the federal

authority than in the case of a general union? All candid and

intelligent men must, upon due consideration, acknowledge that the

principle of the objection is equally applicable to either of the two

cases; and that whether we have one government for all the States, or

different governments for different parcels of them, or even if there

should be an entire separation of the States, there might sometimes be

a necessity to make use of a force constituted differently from the

militia, to preserve the peace of the community and to maintain the

just authority of the laws against those violent invasions of them

which amount to insurrections and rebellions.



Independent of all other reasonings upon the subject, it is a full

answer to those who require a more peremptory provision against

military establishments in time of peace, to say that the whole power

of the proposed government is to be in the hands of the representatives

of the people. This is the essential, and, after all, only efficacious

security for the rights and privileges of the people, which is

attainable in civil society.[1]



If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there

is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of

self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government,

and which against the usurpations of the national rulers, may be

exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those

of the rulers of an individual state. In a single state, if the persons

intrusted with supreme power become usurpers, the different parcels,

subdivisions, or districts of which it consists, having no distinct

government in each, can take no regular measures for defense. The

citizens must rush tumultuously to arms, without concert, without

system, without resource; except in their courage and despair. The

usurpers, clothed with the forms of legal authority, can too often

crush the opposition in embryo. The smaller the extent of the

territory, the more difficult will it be for the people to form a

regular or systematic plan of opposition, and the more easy will it be

to defeat their early efforts. Intelligence can be more speedily

obtained of their preparations and movements, and the military force in

the possession of the usurpers can be more rapidly directed against the

part where the opposition has begun. In this situation there must be a

peculiar coincidence of circumstances to insure success to the popular

resistance.



The obstacles to usurpation and the facilities of resistance increase

with the increased extent of the state, provided the citizens

understand their rights and are disposed to defend them. The natural

strength of the people in a large community, in proportion to the

artificial strength of the government, is greater than in a small, and

of course more competent to a struggle with the attempts of the

government to establish a tyranny. But in a confederacy the people,

without exaggeration, may be said to be entirely the masters of their

own fate. Power being almost always the rival of power, the general

government will at all times stand ready to check the usurpations of

the state governments, and these will have the same disposition towards

the general government. The people, by throwing themselves into either

scale, will infallibly make it preponderate. If their rights are

invaded by either, they can make use of the other as the instrument of

redress. How wise will it be in them by cherishing the union to

preserve to themselves an advantage which can never be too highly

prized!



It may safely be received as an axiom in our political system, that the

State governments will, in all possible contingencies, afford complete

security against invasions of the public liberty by the national

authority. Projects of usurpation cannot be masked under pretenses so

likely to escape the penetration of select bodies of men, as of the

people at large. The legislatures will have better means of

information. They can discover the danger at a distance; and possessing

all the organs of civil power, and the confidence of the people, they

can at once adopt a regular plan of opposition, in which they can

combine all the resources of the community. They can readily

communicate with each other in the different States, and unite their

common forces for the protection of their common liberty.



The great extent of the country is a further security. We have already

experienced its utility against the attacks of a foreign power. And it

would have precisely the same effect against the enterprises of

ambitious rulers in the national councils. If the federal army should

be able to quell the resistance of one State, the distant States would

have it in their power to make head with fresh forces. The advantages

obtained in one place must be abandoned to subdue the opposition in

others; and the moment the part which had been reduced to submission

was left to itself, its efforts would be renewed, and its resistance

revive.



We should recollect that the extent of the military force must, at all

events, be regulated by the resources of the country. For a long time

to come, it will not be possible to maintain a large army; and as the

means of doing this increase, the population and natural strength of

the community will proportionably increase. When will the time arrive

that the federal government can raise and maintain an army capable of

erecting a despotism over the great body of the people of an immense

empire, who are in a situation, through the medium of their State

governments, to take measures for their own defense, with all the

celerity, regularity, and system of independent nations? The

apprehension may be considered as a disease, for which there can be

found no cure in the resources of argument and reasoning.



PUBLIUS.



 [1] Its full efficacy will be examined hereafter.









THE FEDERALIST.