Of particular importance in these early essays are Nos. 9 and 10, wherein Publius defends the political principles upon which the proposed Constitution is based. In No. 9 he maintains that an improved “science of politics” provides a cure for the “rapid succession of revolutions” which plagued “the petty republics of Greece and Italy” and “kept” them “perpetually vibrating between the extremes of tyranny and anarchy.” Among the improvements he mentions are the doctrines of separation of powers and “legislative balances and checks,” judicial independence, and “the representation of the people in the legislature, by deputies of their own election”—the republican principle. The “enlightened friends of liberty,” he asserts, have woven these principles into the new Constitution. Moreover, by establishing a “CONFEDERATE REPUBLIC” they have combined the advantages of energetic government with those of republican government over an extensive territory.
In No. 10, the most widely read of all the essays, Publius continues to respond to the charges of the Anti-Federalists who, citing Montesquieu, contend that a stable and enduring republic is possible only over a confined territory with a small population possessing the same interests. He explains how the conditions associated with extensiveness will operate to cure the disease of majority factions—i.e., majorities “united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse of the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community”—which have caused the demise of earlier small republics. He envisions the election of representatives “whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice, will be least likely to sacrifice it to partial considerations.” Moreover, he holds that in the extensive republic under the proposed Constitution there will be a multiplicity and diversity of interests which will render it unlikely that “a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the fights of other citizens.” Thus, he sees representation coupled with numerous and diverse interests controlling the effects of “faction.”
In Federalist No. 11, Publius argues that a stronger Union among the states would be commercially advantageous. A loose confederation of wholly independent States, he suggests, invites commercial weakness, European control of American markets, and domestic jealousies. A strong Union, he adds, would also make it possible for the American people to create a navy and a merchant marine and improve navigation for the protection of American commercial interests.
Likewise, he contends in No. 12, the new union will promote “the interests of revenue.” Simply increasing taxes, he points out, will not fill the empty treasuries of the State and national governments. “It is evident,” he writes, “from the state of the country, from the habits of the people, from the experience we have had on the point itself, that it is impracticable to raise any very considerable sums by direct taxation.” Noting that taxes on land, wealth, or consumption are either unpopular with the people or extremely difficult to administer, he maintains that the main source of revenue for the foreseeable future will be the collection of duties on imports. One national government, he observes in Federalist No. 13, would be far more economical and efficient in collecting these duties than separate confederacies or independent states.
Federalist No. 14 offers a summary of the preceding essays, with particular emphasis on the meaning, importance, and application of the “republican” principle embodied in the new Constitution. Publius concludes by noting the continuity between the ideals and spirit of the American Revolution and the present struggle for a new government. The Framers of the new Constitutions are, he suggests, simply improving and perpetuating the goals of the American Revolution and the early constitutional systems that arose from it.
PART II
Weaknesses of the Existing Confederation
Publius begins his discussion of the second topic of his outline, “the insufficiency of the present Confederation to preserve . . . [the] Union,” in Federalist No. 15. In this paper he asserts that the people of the United States under the Articles of Confederation “may indeed, with propriety, be said to have reached the last stage of national humiliation. . . . There is scarcely anything that can wound the pride, or degrade the character, of an independent people, which we do not experience.”
Publius explains why the situation is so desperate. The “great and radical” defect of the government under the Articles, he maintains, is that it must legislate for States, not individuals. Such a practice, he charges, allows each of the States to subvert, undermine, and even ignore the laws of the general government and fails to take account of the “spirit of faction” and the “love of power.” Thus, he believes it imperative that the authority of the national government operate upon individuals, “the only proper objects of government.”
In Federalist No. 16, he continues his attack on the “great and radical vice” of the Articles—that it legislates for States, not individuals. While noting that a resort to force has resulted in the “violent death” of such confederacies in the past, he believes that the confederacy under the Articles will undergo a more “natural death”—a gradual and peaceful collapse through the general noncompliance of its members. The solution to the problem is to vest the national government not only with the authority to operate directly upon individuals, but also with the capacity to impose sanctions, if necessary, through the “courts of justices” in order to obtain compliance with its laws. Under this arrangement, he observes, the States could subvert the execution of national laws only through an “overt” act in violation of the Constitution, an unlikely occurrence, in his view, save in the case of a “tyrannical exercise” of national power.
Understandably, Publius has to turn his attention to answering the charges of the Anti-Federalists that such a powerful national government will swallow up the States. This he does in Federalist No. 17. Those in charge of the broad and general responsibilities of the national government, he argues, will have no need or desire to encroach upon the residual powers of the states. Thus, there is unlikely to be any clash of basic interests between the two levels of government. The national government will be dealing with national issues relating to “commerce, finance, [treaty] negotiation, and war,” whereas the states will be concerned with matters involving the “administration of private justice,” the “supervision of agriculture, and of other concerns of a similar nature.” Moreover, he continues, if the national government were to encroach upon the States’ residual powers, the States and local governments, being closer to the people, would be more than a match for the national government. Indeed, in his view, State encroachment on the national government “will always be far more easy” than national encroachment on the State authorities.
Intent upon illustrating the basis for his views on the “great and radical vice” of the Articles, Publius examines the histories of ancient and modern confederacies in Federalist Nos. 18, 19, and 20. In the first of these essays, he surveys the structure, workings, and eventual disintegration of the major confederacies of ancient Greece. He suggests there are parallels between these confederacies and the condition of the States under the Articles of Confederation, and sees a lesson to be learned from the fact that foreign intervention and internal dissensions among the member States, rather than oppression on the part of the central governments, were primarily responsible for their demise. In Federalist No. 19 he turns to more modern confederacies, devoting most of his attention to the history, development, and status of the Germanic empire. Here again he finds a weakness and disunity fostered by a lack of central authority over the member states. Continuing with his analysis of modern confederacies in Federalist No. 20, he examines the United Netherlands, racked by dissension, “popular convulsions,” and “invasion by foreign arms.” He concludes this essay by emphasizing once again an “important truth” to which the experience of the United Netherlands amply attests: “a sovereignty over sovereigns, a government over governments, a legislation for communities, as contradistinguished from individuals; as it is a solecism in theory, so in practice, it is subversive of the order and ends of civil polity, by substituting violence in place of law, or the destructive coercion of the sword, in place of the mild and salutary coercion of the magistracy.”
In the