1787 Federalist 28 · Founding Made Plain

11787 Federalist No. 28

2The Same Subject Continued

3(The Idea of Restraining the Legislative Authority

4in Regard to the Common Defense Considered)

5For the Independent Journal.

6HAMILTON

7To the People of the State of New York:

8THAT there may happen cases

9 in which the national government

10 may be necessitated to resort to force,

11 cannot be denied.

12Our own experience has corroborated the lessons

13 taught by the examples of other nations;

14 that emergencies of this sort will sometimes arise

15 in all societies, however constituted;

16 that seditions and insurrections are, unhappily,

17 maladies as inseparable from the body politic

18 as tumors and eruptions from the natural body;

19 that the idea of governing at all times

20 by the simple force of law

21 (which we have been told

22 is the only admissible principle

23 of republican government),

24 has no place but in the reveries

25 of those political doctors

26 whose sagacity disdains the admonitions

27 of experimental instruction.

28Should such emergencies at any time happen

29 under the national government,

30 there could be no remedy but force.

31The means to be employed must be proportioned

32 to the extent of the mischief.

33If it should be a slight commotion

34 in a small part of a State,

35 the militia of the residue

36 would be adequate to its suppression;

37 and the national presumption is

38 that they would be ready to do their duty.

39An insurrection, whatever may be its immediate cause,

40 eventually endangers all government.

41Regard to the public peace,

42 if not to the rights of the Union,

43 would engage the citizens

44 to whom the contagion had not communicated itself

45 to oppose the insurgents;

46 and if the general government should be found

47 in practice conducive

48 to the prosperity and felicity of the people,

49 it were irrational to believe

50 that they would be disinclined to its support.

51If, on the contrary,

52 the insurrection should pervade a whole State,

53 or a principal part of it,

54 the employment of a different kind of force

55 might become unavoidable.

56It appears that Massachusetts found it necessary

57 to raise troops for repressing the disorders

58 within that State;

59 that Pennsylvania,

60 from the mere apprehension of commotions

61 among a part of her citizens,

62 has thought proper to have recourse

63 to the same measure.

64Suppose the State of New York had been inclined

65 to re-establish her lost jurisdiction

66 over the inhabitants of Vermont,

67 could she have hoped for success

68 in such an enterprise

69 from the efforts of the militia alone?

70Would she not have been compelled

71 to raise and to maintain a more regular force

72 for the execution of her design?

73If it must then be admitted

74 that the necessity of recurring to a force

75 different from the militia,

76 in cases of this extraordinary nature,

77 is applicable to the State governments themselves,

78 why should the possibility,

79 that the national government

80 might be under a like necessity,

81 in similar extremities,

82 be made an objection to its existence?

83Is it not surprising

84 that men who declare an attachment to the Union

85 in the abstract,

86 should urge as an objection

87 to the proposed Constitution

88 what applies with tenfold weight

89 to the plan for which they contend;

90 and what, as far as it has any foundation in truth,

91 is an inevitable consequence of civil society

92 upon an enlarged scale?

93Who would not prefer that possibility

94 to the unceasing agitations

95 and frequent revolutions

96 which are the continual scourges

97 of petty republics?

98Let us pursue this examination in another light.

99Suppose, in lieu of one general system,

100 two, or three, or even four Confederacies

101 were to be formed,

102 would not the same difficulty oppose itself

103 to the operations of either of these Confederacies?

104Would not each of them be exposed

105 to the same casualties;

106 and when these happened,

107 be obliged to have recourse to the same expedients

108 for upholding its authority

109 which are objected to

110 in a government for all the States?

111Would the militia, in this supposition,

112 be more ready or more able

113 to support the federal authority

114 than in the case of a general union?

115All candid and intelligent men must,

116 upon due consideration, acknowledge

117 that the principle of the objection

118 is equally applicable to either of the two cases;

119 and that whether we have one government

120 for all the States,

121 or different governments

122 for different parcels of them,

123 or even if there should be

124 an entire separation of the States,

125 there might sometimes be a necessity

126 to make use of a force

127 constituted differently from the militia,

128 to preserve the peace of the community

129 and to maintain the just authority of the laws

130 against those violent invasions of them

131 which amount to insurrections and rebellions.

132Independent of all other reasonings upon the subject,

133 it is a full answer to those

134 who require a more peremptory provision

135 against military establishments

136 in time of peace,

137 to say that the whole power

138 of the proposed government

139 is to be in the hands

140 of the representatives of the people.

141This is the essential, and, after all,

142 only efficacious security

143 for the rights and privileges of the people,

144 which is attainable in civil society.[1]

145If the representatives of the people

146 betray their constituents,

147 there is then no resource left

148 but in the exertion of that original right

149 of self-defense

150 which is paramount to all positive forms

151 of government,

152 and which against the usurpations

153 of the national rulers,

154 may be exerted with infinitely better prospect

155 of success

156 than against those of the rulers

157 of an individual state.

158In a single state,

159 if the persons intrusted with supreme power

160 become usurpers,

161 the different parcels, subdivisions, or districts

162 of which it consists,

163 having no distinct government in each,

164 can take no regular measures for defense.

165The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms,

166 without concert, without system, without resource;

167 except in their courage and despair.

168The usurpers,

169 clothed with the forms of legal authority,

170 can too often crush the opposition in embryo.

171The smaller the extent of the territory,

172 the more difficult will it be for the people

173 to form a regular or systematic plan

174 of opposition,

175 and the more easy will it be

176 to defeat their early efforts.

177Intelligence can be more speedily obtained

178 of their preparations and movements,

179 and the military force

180 in the possession of the usurpers

181 can be more rapidly directed

182 against the part where the opposition has begun.

183In this situation there must be

184 a peculiar coincidence of circumstances

185 to insure success to the popular resistance.

186The obstacles to usurpation

187 and the facilities of resistance

188 increase with the increased extent of the state,

189 provided the citizens understand their rights

190 and are disposed to defend them.

191The natural strength of the people

192 in a large community,

193 in proportion to the artificial strength

194 of the government,

195 is greater than in a small,

196 and of course more competent

197 to a struggle with the attempts

198 of the government to establish a tyranny.

199But in a confederacy the people,

200 without exaggeration,

201 may be said to be entirely the masters

202 of their own fate.

203Power being almost always the rival of power,

204 the general government will at all times

205 stand ready to check the usurpations

206 of the state governments,

207 and these will have the same disposition

208 towards the general government.

209The people, by throwing themselves into either scale,

210 will infallibly make it preponderate.

211If their rights are invaded by either,

212 they can make use of the other

213 as the instrument of redress.

214How wise will it be in them

215 by cherishing the union

216 to preserve to themselves an advantage

217 which can never be too highly prized!

218It may safely be received as an axiom

219 in our political system,

220 that the State governments will,

221 in all possible contingencies,

222 afford complete security

223 against invasions of the public liberty

224 by the national authority.

225Projects of usurpation cannot be masked

226 under pretenses so likely to escape

227 the penetration of select bodies of men,

228 as of the people at large.

229The legislatures will have better means of information.

230They can discover the danger at a distance;

231 and possessing all the organs of civil power,

232 and the confidence of the people,

233 they can at once adopt a regular plan of opposition,

234 in which they can combine

235 all the resources of the community.

236They can readily communicate with each other

237 in the different States,

238 and unite their common forces

239 for the protection of their common liberty.

240The great extent of the country

241 is a further security.

242We have already experienced its utility

243 against the attacks of a foreign power.

244And it would have precisely the same effect

245 against the enterprises of ambitious rulers

246 in the national councils.

247If the federal army should be able

248 to quell the resistance of one State,

249 the distant States would have it in their power

250 to make head with fresh forces.

251The advantages obtained in one place

252 must be abandoned to subdue the opposition in others;

253 and the moment the part

254 which had been reduced to submission

255 was left to itself,

256 its efforts would be renewed,

257 and its resistance revive.

258We should recollect

259 that the extent of the military force must,

260 at all events,

261 be regulated by the resources of the country.

262For a long time to come,

263 it will not be possible to maintain a large army;

264 and as the means of doing this increase,

265 the population and natural strength

266 of the community

267 will proportionably increase.

268When will the time arrive

269 that the federal government can raise and maintain

270 an army capable of erecting a despotism

271 over the great body of the people

272 of an immense empire,

273 who are in a situation,

274 through the medium of their State governments,

275 to take measures for their own defense,

276 with all the celerity, regularity,

277 and system of independent nations?

278The apprehension may be considered as a disease,

279 for which there can be found no cure

280 in the resources of argument and reasoning.

281PUBLIUS.

282[1] Its full efficacy will be examined hereafter.