The Federalist Papers

John Jay argues for the necessity of a union “under one Federal government,” as opposed to a loose confederation of separate states. On the matter of whether having a strong federal government would risk the loss of individual rights, Jay writes, “[W]henever and however [government] is instituted, the people must cede to it some of their natural rights in order to vest it with requisite powers” (5).

Jay elaborates on the argument made in the previous essay by stating that the safety of a nation’s people is its most pressing concern. With that in mind, he believes a union is better able to protect its people from foreign wars than a loose confederation of states because a single union will approach treaties with foreign nations consistently and justly. However, if given autonomy, any of the 13 states—particularly those bordering British, Spanish, and Indigenous territories—may violate treaties in impulsive and unpredictable ways that do not serve the broader American interest and that may eventually lead to unnecessary war and bloodshed.

In a third essay on the topic of national defense, Jay argues that a strong unified government will be best positioned to discourage attacks from foreign nations seeking to wage unjust war—either to bully America out of international markets or to fulfill the personal ambitions of monarchs for glory or revenge. By contrast, 13 separate states or three confederations will be unable to pool the talent of a larger whole toward a unified purpose. “What would the militia of Britain be,” Jay asks, “if the English militia obeyed the government of England, if the Scotch militia obeyed the government of Scotland, and if the Welsh militia obeyed the government of Wales?” (15).

In a final essay on national defense, Jay believes it is a certainty that America, if broken into three or four confederacies, would devolve into warring factions. Rather than ally with one another, these confederacies would just as likely strike separate alliances with foreign nations, creating a result in which “the foreign nation with whom the SOUTHERN confederacy might be at war would be the one with whom the NORTHERN confederacy would be the most desirous of preserving peace and friendship” (19).

Hamilton outlines the risks of dissensions between the states should America remain broken up into separate confederacies. He predicts these disputes because “men are ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious” (20).

Hamilton concludes by warning against adopting a Utopian attitude about the nature of humanity and society. He emphasizes that Americans are not exempt from the evils and weaknesses that long afflicted Europe, pointing to recent rebellions over economic downturns in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts. Therefore, it must safeguard against the temptations of violence by forming a unified government with shared national interests.

Having outlined why violent disagreements between disunited confederacies are likely, Hamilton details the specific types of disputes that may arise. He believes territorial disputes would be very common, particularly given how much of North America is unclaimed and unsettled by white men. Without a federal arbiter able to enforce rulings, territorial disputes between states will devolve into bloodshed, Hamilton writes.

Other disputes may emerge over economic advantages and disadvantages specific to each state. A state will pass and enforce regulations that result in economic benefits for its inhabitants and economic harm to its neighbors, which Hamilton writes “would naturally lead to outrages, and these to reprisals and wars” (28).

Finally, disputes will arise over each state’s obligation to the national debt and how public benefits are apportioned. As states argue over whose citizens should pay this debt and in what amounts, foreign creditors will grow uneasy, leading to what Hamilton calls “the double contingency of external invasion and internal contention” (29). Even if the states come to an agreement, Hamilton expects numerous states to fail in making these payments, either due to lack of resources, financial mismanagement, or sheer reluctance to part with money.

After establishing the likelihood of armed disputes between states, Hamilton outlines additional dangers aside from the immediate threat of greater bloodshed. With states so continually at risk of invasion from their neighbors, each would be forced to maintain a standing army for its citizens’ defense. However, Hamilton believes that standing armies (armies maintained during peacetime) may be detrimental to liberty and the overall wellbeing of private citizens. Building these armies and fortifications requires such a large expansion of the executive branch that states would be at risk of becoming monarchies. Moreover, Hamilton argues, the growth of a military state degrades the vigor of the civil state, as private citizens become inclined to rely too heavily on the military for protection, opening the door to oppression.

Before arguing on behalf of a union’s ability to safeguard against violent domestic turmoil, Hamilton admits that older republics in Greece failed to stave off internal dissension and violent revolutions; they were positioned perpetually between “tyranny and anarchy” (36). Yet he contends that it is a mistake to reject republican government and civil liberty based on centuries-old examples like these. Hamilton writes that new innovations in republican government—including legislative checks and balances, judges who may be removed for malpractice, and representative democracy—help calm the see-saw of tyranny and anarchy that afflicted more ancient republics.

Next, Hamilton directly counters his opponents who cite the French philosopher Montesquieu in defense of their anti-Federalist views. Montesquieu wrote that republics work best when limited to a very small geographic territory, and therefore anti-Federalists believe that America is far too large to function as a unified republic. Yet Hamilton points out that Montesquieu’s definition of small would also disqualify most individual states as too big to be republics, and therefore the argument is moot. Furthermore, Hamilton argues that Montesquieu’s solution to expanding the reach of popular government is not to divide republican territories into ever smaller factions but rather to unite separate states into a single Union in which states remain separate constituents which are nevertheless subordinate to a central federal authority. This, Hamilton writes, “reconcil[es] the advantages of monarchy with those of republicanism” (38). Under this balance, a great measure of individual liberty is preserved while maintaining the ability of a central government to put down popular insurrections in single states.

In his first essay, James Madison says the most important quality of a Union is “its tendency to break and control the violence of faction” (41). He defines a faction as “a number of citizens [...] united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of the other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community” (41). As long as the application of human reason remains fallible, such factions are inevitable unless one is willing to abolish the liberty that gives rise to them, a remedy that Madison calls “worse than the disease” (42). He adds that “the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property” (43). Given the inevitability of factions, Madison believes that systems of governments should be designed to combat their effects rather than aim to remove their causes, which are intractable in a free society.

The biggest challenges, Madison writes, arise when a faction includes a majority of the people. In these cases, the majority must be prevented from effecting schemes that oppress the minority. To this point, Madison argues on behalf of a representative republic as opposed to a pure democracy. In the former, the government delegates tasks to a small number of citizens elected by the whole. These elected officials will ideally be imbued with the wisdom, sense of justice, and love of country to carry out their duties faithfully and without bowing to the passions of various factions. However, these officials may also betray the confidence of the people by elevating their own fortunes over that of the country. Madison believes that large republics are best suited to diminishing the chances of this outcome for two reasons. One, a large republic allows for a large governing body which will be less susceptible to the misdeeds of individual actors or small groups of actors. Two, an elected official of a large republic must garner the votes of a large group of people and therefore is more likely to be a worthy candidate.

Hamilton writes that America’s enterprising approach toward commerce has “excited uneasy sensations in several of the maritime powers of Europe” (48). Yet if voters do not ratify the Constitution, and America is left as a loose group of states and confederacies, Hamilton says Europe will breathe a sigh of relief. With no strong federal navy to protect its commercial interests, America will be unable to meet its promise as a burgeoning maritime power while Europe will monopolize trade profits in the New World.

Hamilton stresses the importance of revenue for any nation, young or old. Yet vibrant commerce is not enough to sustain revenues in America, in large part because its citizens are, by mentality and circumstance, reluctant to pay state or federal taxes directly to the government. Instead, America must rely on “indirect taxes,” primarily in the form of import taxes.

However, Hamilton expects revenues from import taxes to remain insufficient if the country remains a confederation of separate states rather than a Union. This is because it will be too burdensome for each state to patrol its many inroads and waterways to stop the flow of contraband across borders. Hamilton points to the tens of thousands of patrols needed in France to guard against illegal imports from neighboring countries.

As a union, however, America would need only to patrol its Atlantic coast. Hamilton views this as a huge revenue opportunity, given that average duties on imports into America are currently three percent, whereas in France they are 15 percent and in Britain around 20 percent. America, he says, could easily raise its import tax to nine percent, tripling revenue without alienating foreign trade partners.

In a brief essay, Hamilton lays out the simple supposition that the administration of one federal government will be much less costly and more economical than the administration of several federal governments.

Madison revisits the objections he countered in Federalist No. 10 concerning the impracticability of administering a republic over an area as large as the 13 states. He further reiterates that this belief is rooted in false semantics that equate a republic, in which the people elect representatives to make and execute laws, and a pure democracy, in which all citizens participate in policymaking directly.