1787 Federalist 7 · Founding Made Plain

11787 Federalist No. 7

2The Same Subject Continued:

3Concerning Dangers from Dissensions Between the States

4For the Independent Journal.

5HAMILTON

6To the People of the State of New York:

7IT IS sometimes asked, with an air of seeming triumph,

8 what inducements could the States have,

9 if disunited,

10 to make war upon each other?

11It would be a full answer to this question to say--

12 precisely the same inducements which have,

13 at different times,

14 deluged in blood all the nations in the world.

15But, unfortunately for us,

16 the question admits of a more particular answer.

17There are causes of differences

18 within our immediate contemplation,

19 of the tendency of which,

20 even under the restraints

21 of a federal constitution,

22 we have had sufficient experience

23 to enable us to form a judgment

24 of what might be expected

25 if those restraints were removed.

26Territorial disputes have at all times been found

27 one of the most fertile sources of hostility

28 among nations.

29Perhaps the greatest proportion of wars

30 that have desolated the earth

31 have sprung from this origin.

32This cause would exist among us in full force.

33We have a vast tract of unsettled territory

34 within the boundaries of the United States.

35There still are discordant and undecided claims

36 between several of them,

37 and the dissolution of the Union would lay a foundation

38 for similar claims between them all.

39It is well known that they have heretofore

40 had serious and animated discussion

41 concerning the rights to the lands

42 which were ungranted at the time of the Revolution,

43 and which usually went

44 under the name of crown lands.

45The States within the limits

46 of whose colonial governments they were comprised

47 have claimed them as their property,

48 the others have contended

49 that the rights of the crown in this article

50 devolved upon the Union;

51 especially as to all that part of the Western territory

52 which, either by actual possession,

53 or through the submission

54 of the Indian proprietors,

55 was subjected to the jurisdiction

56 of the king of Great Britain,

57 till it was relinquished in the treaty of peace.

58This, it has been said,

59 was at all events an acquisition to the Confederacy

60 by compact with a foreign power.

61It has been the prudent policy of Congress

62 to appease this controversy,

63 by prevailing upon the States to make cessions

64 to the United States for the benefit of the whole.

65This has been so far accomplished as,

66 under a continuation of the Union,

67 to afford a decided prospect

68 of an amicable termination of the dispute.

69A dismemberment of the Confederacy, however,

70 would revive this dispute,

71 and would create others on the same subject.

72At present, a large part of the vacant

73 Western territory is,

74 by cession at least, if not by any anterior right,

75 the common property of the Union.

76If that were at an end,

77 the States which made the cession,

78 on a principle of federal compromise,

79 would be apt when the motive of the grant had ceased,

80 to reclaim the lands as a reversion.

81The other States would no doubt insist on a proportion,

82 by right of representation.

83Their argument would be,

84 that a grant, once made, could not be revoked;

85 and that the justice of participating in territory

86 acquired or secured

87 by the joint efforts of the Confederacy,

88 remained undiminished.

89If, contrary to probability,

90 it should be admitted by all the States,

91 that each had a right

92 to a share of this common stock,

93 there would still be a difficulty to be surmounted,

94 as to a proper rule of apportionment.

95Different principles would be set up

96 by different States for this purpose;

97 and as they would affect the opposite interests

98 of the parties,

99 they might not easily be susceptible

100 of a pacific adjustment.

101In the wide field of Western territory, therefore,

102 we perceive an ample theatre for hostile pretensions,

103 without any umpire or common judge

104 to interpose between the contending parties.

105To reason from the past to the future,

106 we shall have good ground to apprehend,

107 that the sword would sometimes be appealed to

108 as the arbiter of their differences.

109The circumstances of the dispute

110 between Connecticut and Pennsylvania,

111 respecting the land at Wyoming,

112 admonish us not to be sanguine

113 in expecting an easy accommodation

114 of such differences.

115The articles of confederation obliged the parties

116 to submit the matter

117 to the decision of a federal court.

118The submission was made,

119 and the court decided in favor of Pennsylvania.

120But Connecticut gave strong indications of dissatisfaction

121 with that determination;

122 nor did she appear to be entirely resigned to it,

123 till, by negotiation and management,

124 something like an equivalent was found

125 for the loss she supposed herself

126 to have sustained.

127Nothing here said is intended to convey

128 the slightest censure on the conduct of that State.

129She no doubt sincerely believed herself

130 to have been injured by the decision;

131 and States, like individuals,

132 acquiesce with great reluctance

133 in determinations to their disadvantage.

134Those who had an opportunity of seeing the inside

135 of the transactions which attended the progress

136 of the controversy

137 between this State and the district of Vermont,

138 can vouch the opposition we experienced,

139 as well from States not interested

140 as from those which were interested in the claim;

141 and can attest the danger

142 to which the peace of the Confederacy

143 might have been exposed,

144 had this State attempted to assert its rights

145 by force.

146Two motives preponderated in that opposition:

147 one, a jealousy entertained of our future power;

148 and the other, the interest of certain individuals

149 of influence in the neighboring States,

150 who had obtained grants of lands

151 under the actual government of that district.

152Even the States which brought forward claims,

153 in contradiction to ours,

154 seemed more solicitous to dismember this State,

155 than to establish their own pretensions.

156These were New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.

157New Jersey and Rhode Island, upon all occasions,

158 discovered a warm zeal

159 for the independence of Vermont;

160 and Maryland,

161 till alarmed by the appearance of a connection

162 between Canada and that State,

163 entered deeply into the same views.

164These being small States,

165 saw with an unfriendly eye

166 the perspective of our growing greatness.

167In a review of these transactions

168 we may trace some of the causes

169 which would be likely to embroil the States

170 with each other,

171 if it should be their unpropitious destiny

172 to become disunited.

173The competitions of commerce

174 would be another fruitful source of contention.

175The States less favorably circumstanced

176 would be desirous of escaping

177 from the disadvantages of local situation,

178 and of sharing in the advantages

179 of their more fortunate neighbors.

180Each State, or separate confederacy,

181 would pursue a system of commercial policy

182 peculiar to itself.

183This would occasion distinctions, preferences,

184 and exclusions, which would beget discontent.

185The habits of intercourse,

186 on the basis of equal privileges,

187 to which we have been accustomed

188 since the earliest settlement of the country,

189 would give a keener edge to those causes of discontent

190 than they would naturally have

191 independent of this circumstance.

192WE SHOULD BE READY TO DENOMINATE INJURIES THOSE THINGS

193 WHICH WERE IN REALITY THE JUSTIFIABLE ACTS

194 OF INDEPENDENT SOVEREIGNTIES

195 CONSULTING A DISTINCT INTEREST.

196The spirit of enterprise,

197 which characterizes the commercial part of America,

198 has left no occasion of displaying itself unimproved.

199It is not at all probable

200 that this unbridled spirit would pay much respect

201 to those regulations of trade

202 by which particular States might endeavor

203 to secure exclusive benefits to their own citizens.

204The infractions of these regulations, on one side,

205 the efforts to prevent and repel them, on the other,

206 would naturally lead to outrages,

207 and these to reprisals and wars.

208The opportunities which some States would have

209 of rendering others tributary to them

210 by commercial regulations

211 would be impatiently submitted to

212 by the tributary States.

213The relative situation of New York, Connecticut,

214 and New Jersey

215 would afford an example of this kind.

216New York, from the necessities of revenue,

217 must lay duties on her importations.

218A great part of these duties must be paid

219 by the inhabitants of the two other States

220 in the capacity of consumers of what we import.

221New York would neither be willing nor able

222 to forego this advantage.

223Her citizens would not consent

224 that a duty paid by them should be remitted

225 in favor of the citizens of her neighbors;

226 nor would it be practicable,

227 if there were not this impediment in the way,

228 to distinguish the customers in our own markets.

229Would Connecticut and New Jersey long submit

230 to be taxed by New York for her exclusive benefit?

231Should we be long permitted to remain

232 in the quiet and undisturbed enjoyment of a metropolis,

233 from the possession of which we derived an advantage

234 so odious to our neighbors,

235 and, in their opinion, so oppressive?

236Should we be able to preserve it

237 against the incumbent weight of Connecticut

238 on the one side,

239 and the co-operating pressure of New Jersey

240 on the other?

241These are questions that temerity alone

242 will answer in the affirmative.

243The public debt of the Union

244 would be a further cause of collision

245 between the separate States or confederacies.

246The apportionment, in the first instance,

247 and the progressive extinguishment afterward,

248 would be alike productive of ill-humor and animosity.

249How would it be possible to agree upon a rule

250 of apportionment satisfactory to all?

251There is scarcely any that can be proposed

252 which is entirely free from real objections.

253These, as usual, would be exaggerated

254 by the adverse interest of the parties.

255There are even dissimilar views among the States

256 as to the general principle

257 of discharging the public debt.

258Some of them,

259 either less impressed with the importance

260 of national credit,

261 or because their citizens have little, if any,

262 immediate interest in the question,

263 feel an indifference, if not a repugnance,

264 to the payment of the domestic debt at any rate.

265These would be inclined to magnify

266 the difficulties of a distribution.

267Others of them,

268 a numerous body of whose citizens are creditors

269 to the public beyond proportion of the State

270 in the total amount of the national debt,

271 would be strenuous

272 for some equitable and effective provision.

273The procrastinations of the former

274 would excite the resentments of the latter.

275The settlement of a rule would, in the meantime,

276 be postponed by real differences of opinion

277 and affected delays.

278The citizens of the States interested would clamour;

279 foreign powers would urge

280 for the satisfaction of their just demands,

281 and the peace of the States would be hazarded

282 to the double contingency

283 of external invasion and internal contention.

284Suppose the difficulties of agreeing upon a rule

285 surmounted, and the apportionment made.

286Still there is great room to suppose

287 that the rule agreed upon would, upon experiment,

288 be found to bear harder upon some States

289 than upon others.

290Those which were sufferers by it

291 would naturally seek for a mitigation of the burden.

292The others would as naturally be disinclined to a revision,

293 which was likely to end

294 in an increase of their own incumbrances.

295Their refusal would be too plausible a pretext

296 to the complaining States

297 to withhold their contributions,

298 not to be embraced with avidity;

299 and the non-compliance of these States

300 with their engagements

301 would be a ground of bitter discussion and altercation.

302If even the rule adopted should in practice

303 justify the equality of its principle,

304 still delinquencies in payments

305 on the part of some of the States

306 would result from a diversity of other causes--

307 the real deficiency of resources;

308 the mismanagement of their finances;

309 accidental disorders

310 in the management of the government;

311 and, in addition to the rest,

312 the reluctance with which men

313 commonly part with money

314 for purposes that have outlived the exigencies

315 which produced them,

316 and interfere with the supply of immediate wants.

317Delinquencies, from whatever causes,

318 would be productive of complaints,

319 recriminations, and quarrels.

320There is, perhaps, nothing more likely

321 to disturb the tranquillity of nations

322 than their being bound to mutual contributions

323 for any common object

324 that does not yield an equal

325 and coincident benefit.

326For it is an observation, as true as it is trite,

327 that there is nothing men differ so readily about

328 as the payment of money.

329Laws in violation of private contracts,

330 as they amount to aggressions on the rights

331 of those States whose citizens are injured by them,

332 may be considered as another probable

333 source of hostility.

334We are not authorized to expect

335 that a more liberal or more equitable spirit

336 would preside over the legislations

337 of the individual States hereafter,

338 if unrestrained by any additional checks,

339 than we have heretofore seen in too many instances

340 disgracing their several codes.

341We have observed the disposition to retaliation

342 excited in Connecticut

343 in consequence of the enormities perpetrated

344 by the Legislature of Rhode Island;

345 and we reasonably infer that, in similar cases,

346 under other circumstances,

347 a war, not of PARCHMENT, but of the sword,

348 would chastise such atrocious breaches

349 of moral obligation and social justice.

350The probability of incompatible alliances

351 between the different States or confederacies

352 and different foreign nations,

353 and the effects of this situation

354 upon the peace of the whole,

355 have been sufficiently unfolded

356 in some preceding papers.

357From the view they have exhibited

358 of this part of the subject,

359 this conclusion is to be drawn,

360 that America, if not connected at all,

361 or only by the feeble tie of a simple league,

362 offensive and defensive,

363 would, by the operation of such jarring alliances,

364 be gradually entangled

365 in all the pernicious labyrinths

366 of European politics and wars;

367 and by the destructive contentions of the parts

368 into which she was divided,

369 would be likely to become a prey

370 to the artifices and machinations of powers

371 equally the enemies of them all.

372Divide et impera[1]

373 must be the motto of every nation

374 that either hates or fears us.

375PUBLIUS.

376[1] Divide and command.