The Same Subject Continued



(Concerning Dangers from Dissensions Between the States)



For the Independent Journal.



HAMILTON





To the People of the State of New York:



It is sometimes asked, with an air of seeming triumph, what inducements

could the States have, if disunited, to make war upon each other? It

would be a full answer to this question to say—precisely the same

inducements which have, at different times, deluged in blood all the

nations in the world. But, unfortunately for us, the question admits of

a more particular answer. There are causes of differences within our

immediate contemplation, of the tendency of which, even under the

restraints of a federal constitution, we have had sufficient experience

to enable us to form a judgment of what might be expected if those

restraints were removed.



Territorial disputes have at all times been found one of the most

fertile sources of hostility among nations. Perhaps the greatest

proportion of wars that have desolated the earth have sprung from this

origin. This cause would exist among us in full force. We have a vast

tract of unsettled territory within the boundaries of the United

States. There still are discordant and undecided claims between several

of them, and the dissolution of the Union would lay a foundation for

similar claims between them all. It is well known that they have

heretofore had serious and animated discussion concerning the rights to

the lands which were ungranted at the time of the Revolution, and which

usually went under the name of crown lands. The States within the

limits of whose colonial governments they were comprised have claimed

them as their property, the others have contended that the rights of

the crown in this article devolved upon the Union; especially as to all

that part of the Western territory which, either by actual possession,

or through the submission of the Indian proprietors, was subjected to

the jurisdiction of the king of Great Britain, till it was relinquished

in the treaty of peace. This, it has been said, was at all events an

acquisition to the Confederacy by compact with a foreign power. It has

been the prudent policy of Congress to appease this controversy, by

prevailing upon the States to make cessions to the United States for

the benefit of the whole. This has been so far accomplished as, under a

continuation of the Union, to afford a decided prospect of an amicable

termination of the dispute. A dismemberment of the Confederacy,

however, would revive this dispute, and would create others on the same

subject. At present, a large part of the vacant Western territory is,

by cession at least, if not by any anterior right, the common property

of the Union. If that were at an end, the States which made the

cession, on a principle of federal compromise, would be apt when the

motive of the grant had ceased, to reclaim the lands as a reversion.

The other States would no doubt insist on a proportion, by right of

representation. Their argument would be, that a grant, once made, could

not be revoked; and that the justice of participating in territory

acquired or secured by the joint efforts of the Confederacy, remained

undiminished. If, contrary to probability, it should be admitted by all

the States, that each had a right to a share of this common stock,

there would still be a difficulty to be surmounted, as to a proper rule

of apportionment. Different principles would be set up by different

States for this purpose; and as they would affect the opposite

interests of the parties, they might not easily be susceptible of a

pacific adjustment.



In the wide field of Western territory, therefore, we perceive an ample

theatre for hostile pretensions, without any umpire or common judge to

interpose between the contending parties. To reason from the past to

the future, we shall have good ground to apprehend, that the sword

would sometimes be appealed to as the arbiter of their differences. The

circumstances of the dispute between Connecticut and Pennsylvania,

respecting the land at Wyoming, admonish us not to be sanguine in

expecting an easy accommodation of such differences. The articles of

confederation obliged the parties to submit the matter to the decision

of a federal court. The submission was made, and the court decided in

favor of Pennsylvania. But Connecticut gave strong indications of

dissatisfaction with that determination; nor did she appear to be

entirely resigned to it, till, by negotiation and management, something

like an equivalent was found for the loss she supposed herself to have

sustained. Nothing here said is intended to convey the slightest

censure on the conduct of that State. She no doubt sincerely believed

herself to have been injured by the decision; and States, like

individuals, acquiesce with great reluctance in determinations to their

disadvantage.



Those who had an opportunity of seeing the inside of the transactions

which attended the progress of the controversy between this State and

the district of Vermont, can vouch the opposition we experienced, as

well from States not interested as from those which were interested in

the claim; and can attest the danger to which the peace of the

Confederacy might have been exposed, had this State attempted to assert

its rights by force. Two motives preponderated in that opposition: one,

a jealousy entertained of our future power; and the other, the interest

of certain individuals of influence in the neighboring States, who had

obtained grants of lands under the actual government of that district.

Even the States which brought forward claims, in contradiction to ours,

seemed more solicitous to dismember this State, than to establish their

own pretensions. These were New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and

Connecticut. New Jersey and Rhode Island, upon all occasions,

discovered a warm zeal for the independence of Vermont; and Maryland,

till alarmed by the appearance of a connection between Canada and that

State, entered deeply into the same views. These being small States,

saw with an unfriendly eye the perspective of our growing greatness. In

a review of these transactions we may trace some of the causes which

would be likely to embroil the States with each other, if it should be

their unpropitious destiny to become disunited.



The competitions of commerce would be another fruitful source of

contention. The States less favorably circumstanced would be desirous

of escaping from the disadvantages of local situation, and of sharing

in the advantages of their more fortunate neighbors. Each State, or

separate confederacy, would pursue a system of commercial policy

peculiar to itself. This would occasion distinctions, preferences, and

exclusions, which would beget discontent. The habits of intercourse, on

the basis of equal privileges, to which we have been accustomed since

the earliest settlement of the country, would give a keener edge to

those causes of discontent than they would naturally have independent

of this circumstance. WE SHOULD BE READY TO DENOMINATE INJURIES THOSE

THINGS WHICH WERE IN REALITY THE JUSTIFIABLE ACTS OF INDEPENDENT

SOVEREIGNTIES CONSULTING A DISTINCT INTEREST. The spirit of enterprise,

which characterizes the commercial part of America, has left no

occasion of displaying itself unimproved. It is not at all probable

that this unbridled spirit would pay much respect to those regulations

of trade by which particular States might endeavor to secure exclusive

benefits to their own citizens. The infractions of these regulations,

on one side, the efforts to prevent and repel them, on the other, would

naturally lead to outrages, and these to reprisals and wars.



The opportunities which some States would have of rendering others

tributary to them by commercial regulations would be impatiently

submitted to by the tributary States. The relative situation of New

York, Connecticut, and New Jersey would afford an example of this kind.

New York, from the necessities of revenue, must lay duties on her

importations. A great part of these duties must be paid by the

inhabitants of the two other States in the capacity of consumers of

what we import. New York would neither be willing nor able to forego

this advantage. Her citizens would not consent that a duty paid by them

should be remitted in favor of the citizens of her neighbors; nor would

it be practicable, if there were not this impediment in the way, to

distinguish the customers in our own markets. Would Connecticut and New

Jersey long submit to be taxed by New York for her exclusive benefit?

Should we be long permitted to remain in the quiet and undisturbed

enjoyment of a metropolis, from the possession of which we derived an

advantage so odious to our neighbors, and, in their opinion, so

oppressive? Should we be able to preserve it against the incumbent

weight of Connecticut on the one side, and the co-operating pressure of

New Jersey on the other? These are questions that temerity alone will

answer in the affirmative.



The public debt of the Union would be a further cause of collision

between the separate States or confederacies. The apportionment, in the

first instance, and the progressive extinguishment afterward, would be

alike productive of ill-humor and animosity. How would it be possible

to agree upon a rule of apportionment satisfactory to all? There is

scarcely any that can be proposed which is entirely free from real

objections. These, as usual, would be exaggerated by the adverse

interest of the parties. There are even dissimilar views among the

States as to the general principle of discharging the public debt. Some

of them, either less impressed with the importance of national credit,

or because their citizens have little, if any, immediate interest in

the question, feel an indifference, if not a repugnance, to the payment

of the domestic debt at any rate. These would be inclined to magnify

the difficulties of a distribution. Others of them, a numerous body of

whose citizens are creditors to the public beyond proportion of the

State in the total amount of the national debt, would be strenuous for

some equitable and effective provision. The procrastinations of the

former would excite the resentments of the latter. The settlement of a

rule would, in the meantime, be postponed by real differences of

opinion and affected delays. The citizens of the States interested

would clamour; foreign powers would urge for the satisfaction of their

just demands, and the peace of the States would be hazarded to the

double contingency of external invasion and internal contention.



Suppose the difficulties of agreeing upon a rule surmounted, and the

apportionment made. Still there is great room to suppose that the rule

agreed upon would, upon experiment, be found to bear harder upon some

States than upon others. Those which were sufferers by it would

naturally seek for a mitigation of the burden. The others would as

naturally be disinclined to a revision, which was likely to end in an

increase of their own incumbrances. Their refusal would be too

plausible a pretext to the complaining States to withhold their

contributions, not to be embraced with avidity; and the non-compliance

of these States with their engagements would be a ground of bitter

discussion and altercation. If even the rule adopted should in practice

justify the equality of its principle, still delinquencies in payments

on the part of some of the States would result from a diversity of

other causes—the real deficiency of resources; the mismanagement of

their finances; accidental disorders in the management of the

government; and, in addition to the rest, the reluctance with which men

commonly part with money for purposes that have outlived the exigencies

which produced them, and interfere with the supply of immediate wants.

Delinquencies, from whatever causes, would be productive of complaints,

recriminations, and quarrels. There is, perhaps, nothing more likely to

disturb the tranquillity of nations than their being bound to mutual

contributions for any common object that does not yield an equal and

coincident benefit. For it is an observation, as true as it is trite,

that there is nothing men differ so readily about as the payment of

money.



Laws in violation of private contracts, as they amount to aggressions

on the rights of those States whose citizens are injured by them, may

be considered as another probable source of hostility. We are not

authorized to expect that a more liberal or more equitable spirit would

preside over the legislations of the individual States hereafter, if

unrestrained by any additional checks, than we have heretofore seen in

too many instances disgracing their several codes. We have observed the

disposition to retaliation excited in Connecticut in consequence of the

enormities perpetrated by the Legislature of Rhode Island; and we

reasonably infer that, in similar cases, under other circumstances, a

war, not of PARCHMENT, but of the sword, would chastise such atrocious

breaches of moral obligation and social justice.



The probability of incompatible alliances between the different States

or confederacies and different foreign nations, and the effects of this

situation upon the peace of the whole, have been sufficiently unfolded

in some preceding papers. From the view they have exhibited of this

part of the subject, this conclusion is to be drawn, that America, if

not connected at all, or only by the feeble tie of a simple league,

offensive and defensive, would, by the operation of such jarring

alliances, be gradually entangled in all the pernicious labyrinths of

European politics and wars; and by the destructive contentions of the

parts into which she was divided, would be likely to become a prey to

the artifices and machinations of powers equally the enemies of them

all. _Divide et impera_[1] must be the motto of every nation that

either hates or fears us.[2]



PUBLIUS.



 [1] Divide and command.



 [2] In order that the whole subject of these papers may as soon as

 possible be laid before the public, it is proposed to publish them

 four times a week—on Tuesday in the New York Packet and on Thursday in

 the Daily Advertiser.









THE FEDERALIST.