To the People of the State of New
York:
THE Constitution proposed by the
convention may be considered under two general points of view. The FIRST
relates to the sum or quantity of power which it vests in the government,
including the restraints imposed on the States. The SECOND, to the particular
structure of the government, and the distribution of this power among its
several branches. Under the FIRST view of the subject, two important questions
arise: 1. Whether any part of the powers transferred to the general government
be unnecessary or improper? 2. Whether the entire mass of them be dangerous
to the portion of jurisdiction left in the several States? Is the aggregate
power of the general government greater than ought to have been vested
in it? This is the FIRST question. It cannot have escaped those who have
attended with candor to the arguments employed against the extensive powers
of the government, that the authors of them have very little considered
how far these powers were necessary means of attaining a necessary end.
They have chosen rather to dwell on the inconveniences which must be unavoidably
blended with all political advantages; and on the possible abuses which
must be incident to every power or trust, of which a beneficial use can
be made. This method of handling the subject cannot impose on the good
sense of the people of America. It may display the subtlety of the writer;
it may open a boundless field for rhetoric and declamation; it may inflame
the passions of the unthinking, and may confirm the prejudices of the misthinking:
but cool and candid people will at once reflect, that the purest of human
blessings must have a portion of alloy in them; that the choice must always
be made, if not of the lesser evil, at least of the GREATER, not the PERFECT,
good; and that in every political institution, a power to advance the public
happiness involves a discretion which may be misapplied and abused. They
will see, therefore, that in all cases where power is to be conferred,
the point first to be decided is, whether such a power be necessary to
the public good; as the next will be, in case of an affirmative decision,
to guard as effectually as possible against a perversion of the power to
the public detriment. That we may form a correct judgment on this subject,
it will be proper to review the several powers conferred on the government
of the Union; and that this may be the more conveniently done they may
be reduced into different classes as they relate to the following different
objects: 1. Security against foreign danger; 2. Regulation of the intercourse
with foreign nations; 3. Maintenance of harmony and proper intercourse
among the States; 4. Certain miscellaneous objects of general utility;
5. Restraint of the States from certain injurious acts; 6. Provisions for
giving due efficacy to all these powers. The powers falling within the
FIRST class are those of declaring war and granting letters of marque;
of providing armies and fleets; of regulating and calling forth the militia;
of levying and borrowing money. Security against foreign danger is one
of the primitive objects of civil society. It is an avowed and essential
object of the American Union. The powers requisite for attaining it must
be effectually confided to the federal councils. Is the power of declaring
war necessary? No man will answer this question in the negative. It would
be superfluous, therefore, to enter into a proof of the affirmative. The
existing Confederation establishes this power in the most ample form. Is
the power of raising armies and equipping fleets necessary? This is involved
in the foregoing power. It is involved in the power of self-defense. But
was it necessary to give an INDEFINITE POWER of raising TROOPS, as well
as providing fleets; and of maintaining both in PEACE, as well as in war?
The answer to these questions has been too far anticipated in another place
to admit an extensive discussion of them in this place. The answer indeed
seems to be so obvious and conclusive as scarcely to justify such a discussion
in any place. With what color of propriety could the force necessary for
defense be limited by those who cannot limit the force of offense? If a
federal Constitution could chain the ambition or set bounds to the exertions
of all other nations, then indeed might it prudently chain the discretion
of its own government, and set bounds to the exertions for its own safety.
How could a readiness for war in
time of peace be safely prohibited, unless we could prohibit, in like manner,
the preparations and establishments of every hostile nation? The means
of security can only be regulated by the means and the danger of attack.
They will, in fact, be ever determined by these rules, and by no others.
It is in vain to oppose constitutional barriers to the impulse of self-preservation.
It is worse than in vain; because it plants in the Constitution itself
necessary usurpations of power, every precedent of which is a germ of unnecessary
and multiplied repetitions. If one nation maintains constantly a disciplined
army, ready for the service of ambition or revenge, it obliges the most
pacific nations who may be within the reach of its enterprises to take
corresponding precautions.
The fifteenth century was the unhappy
epoch of military establishments in the time of peace. They were introduced
by Charles VII. of France. All Europe has followed, or been forced into,
the example. Had the example not been followed by other nations, all Europe
must long ago have worn the chains of a universal monarch. Were every nation
except France now to disband its peace establishments, the same event might
follow. The veteran legions of Rome were an overmatch for the undisciplined
valor of all other nations and rendered her the mistress of the world.
Not the less true is it, that the liberties of Rome proved the final victim
to her military triumphs; and that the liberties of Europe, as far as they
ever existed, have, with few exceptions, been the price of her military
establishments. A standing force, therefore, is a dangerous, at the same
time that it may be a necessary, provision. On the smallest scale it has
its inconveniences. On an extensive scale its consequences may be fatal.
On any scale it is an object of laudable circumspection and precaution.
A wise nation will combine all these considerations; and, whilst it does
not rashly preclude itself from any resource which may become essential
to its safety, will exert all its prudence in diminishing both the necessity
and the danger of resorting to one which may be inauspicious to its liberties.
The clearest marks of this prudence are stamped on the proposed Constitution.
The Union itself, which it cements and secures, destroys every pretext
for a military establishment which could be dangerous. America united,
with a handful of troops, or without a single soldier, exhibits a more
forbidding posture to foreign ambition than America disunited, with a hundred
thousand veterans ready for combat. It was remarked, on a former occasion,
that the want of this pretext had saved the liberties of one nation in
Europe. Being rendered by her insular situation and her maritime resources
impregnable to the armies of her neighbors, the rulers of Great Britain
have never been able, by real or artificial dangers, to cheat the public
into an extensive peace establishment. The distance of the United States
from the powerful nations of the world gives them the same happy security.
A dangerous establishment can never be necessary or plausible, so long
as they continue a united people. But let it never, for a moment, be forgotten
that they are indebted for this advantage to the Union alone. The moment
of its dissolution will be the date of a new order of things. The fears
of the weaker, or the ambition of the stronger States, or Confederacies,
will set the same example in the New, as Charles VII. did in the Old World.
The example will be followed here from the same motives which produced
universal imitation there. Instead of deriving from our situation the precious
advantage which Great Britain has derived from hers, the face of America
will be but a copy of that of the continent of Europe. It will present
liberty everywhere crushed between standing armies and perpetual taxes.
The fortunes of disunited America will be even more disastrous than those
of Europe. The sources of evil in the latter are confined to her own limits.
No superior powers of another quarter of the globe intrigue among her rival
nations, inflame their mutual animosities, and render them the instruments
of foreign ambition, jealousy, and revenge. In America the miseries springing
from her internal jealousies, contentions, and wars, would form a part
only of her lot. A plentiful addition of evils would have their source
in that relation in which Europe stands to this quarter of the earth, and
which no other quarter of the earth bears to Europe. This picture of the
consequences of disunion cannot be too highly colored, or too often exhibited.
Every man who loves peace, every man who loves his country, every man who
loves liberty, ought to have it ever before his eyes, that he may cherish
in his heart a due attachment to the Union of America, and be able to set
a due value on the means of preserving it.
Next to the effectual establishment
of the Union, the best possible precaution against danger from standing
armies is a limitation of the term for which revenue may be appropriated
to their support. This precaution the Constitution has prudently added.
I will not repeat here the observations which I flatter myself have placed
this subject in a just and satisfactory light. But it may not be improper
to take notice of an argument against this part of the Constitution, which
has been drawn from the policy and practice of Great Britain. It is said
that the continuance of an army in that kingdom requires an annual vote
of the legislature; whereas the American Constitution has lengthened this
critical period to two years. This is the form in which the comparison
is usually stated to the public: but is it a just form? Is it a fair comparison?
Does the British Constitution restrain the parliamentary discretion to
one year? Does the American impose on the Congress appropriations for two
years? On the contrary, it cannot be unknown to the authors of the fallacy
themselves, that the British Constitution fixes no limit whatever to the
discretion of the legislature, and that the American ties down the legislature
to two years, as the longest admissible term. Had the argument from the
British example been truly stated, it would have stood thus: The term for
which supplies may be appropriated to the army establishment, though unlimited
by the British Constitution, has nevertheless, in practice, been limited
by parliamentary discretion to a single year. Now, if in Great Britain,
where the House of Commons is elected for seven years; where so great a
proportion of the members are elected by so small a proportion of the people;
where the electors are so corrupted by the representatives, and the representatives
so corrupted by the Crown, the representative body can possess a power
to make appropriations to the army for an indefinite term, without desiring,
or without daring, to extend the term beyond a single year, ought not suspicion
herself to blush, in pretending that the representatives of the United
States, elected FREELY by the WHOLE BODY of the people, every SECOND YEAR,
cannot be safely intrusted with the discretion over such appropriations,
expressly limited to the short period of TWO YEARS? A bad cause seldom
fails to betray itself. Of this truth, the management of the opposition
to the federal government is an unvaried exemplification. But among all
the blunders which have been committed, none is more striking than the
attempt to enlist on that side the prudent jealousy entertained by the
people, of standing armies. The attempt has awakened fully the public attention
to that important subject; and has led to investigations which must terminate
in a thorough and universal conviction, not only that the constitution
has provided the most effectual guards against danger from that quarter,
but that nothing short of a Constitution fully adequate to the national
defense and the preservation of the Union, can save America from as many
standing armies as it may be split into States or Confederacies, and from
such a progressive augmentation, of these establishments in each, as will
render them as burdensome to the properties and ominous to the liberties
of the people, as any establishment that can become necessary, under a
united and efficient government, must be tolerable to the former and safe
to the latter. The palpable necessity of the power to provide and maintain
a navy has protected that part of the Constitution against a spirit of
censure, which has spared few other parts. It must, indeed, be numbered
among the greatest blessings of America, that as her Union will be the
only source of her maritime strength, so this will be a principal source
of her security against danger from abroad. In this respect our situation
bears another likeness to the insular advantage of Great Britain. The batteries
most capable of repelling foreign enterprises on our safety, are happily
such as can never be turned by a perfidious government against our liberties.
The inhabitants of the Atlantic frontier are all of them deeply interested
in this provision for naval protection, and if they have hitherto been
suffered to sleep quietly in their beds; if their property has remained
safe against the predatory spirit of licentious adventurers; if their maritime
towns have not yet been compelled to ransom themselves from the terrors
of a conflagration, by yielding to the exactions of daring and sudden invaders,
these instances of good fortune are not to be ascribed to the capacity
of the existing government for the protection of those from whom it claims
allegiance, but to causes that are fugitive and fallacious. If we except
perhaps Virginia and Maryland, which are peculiarly vulnerable on their
eastern frontiers, no part of the Union ought to feel more anxiety on this
subject than New York. Her seacoast is extensive. A very important district
of the State is an island. The State itself is penetrated by a large navigable
river for more than fifty leagues. The great emporium of its commerce,
the great reservoir of its wealth, lies every moment at the mercy of events,
and may almost be regarded as a hostage for ignominious compliances with
the dictates of a foreign enemy, or even with the rapacious demands of
pirates and barbarians. Should a war be the result of the precarious situation
of European affairs, and all the unruly passions attending it be let loose
on the ocean, our escape from insults and depredations, not only on that
element, but every part of the other bordering on it, will be truly miraculous.
In the present condition of America, the States more immediately exposed
to these calamities have nothing to hope from the phantom of a general
government which now exists; and if their single resources were equal to
the task of fortifying themselves against the danger, the object to be
protected would be almost consumed by the means of protecting them. The
power of regulating and calling forth the militia has been already sufficiently
vindicated and explained. The power of levying and borrowing money, being
the sinew of that which is to be exerted in the national defense, is properly
thrown into the same class with it. This power, also, has been examined
already with much attention, and has, I trust, been clearly shown to be
necessary, both in the extent and form given to it by the Constitution.
I will address one additional reflection only to those who contend that
the power ought to have been restrained to external taxation by which they
mean, taxes on articles imported from other countries. It cannot be doubted
that this will always be a valuable source of revenue; that for a considerable
time it must be a principal source; that at this moment it is an essential
one. But we may form very mistaken ideas on this subject, if we do not
call to mind in our calculations, that the extent of revenue drawn from
foreign commerce must vary with the variations, both in the extent and
the kind of imports; and that these variations do not correspond with the
progress of population, which must be the general measure of the public
wants. As long as agriculture continues the sole field of labor, the importation
of manufactures must increase as the consumers multiply. As soon as domestic
manufactures are begun by the hands not called for by agriculture, the
imported manufactures will decrease as the numbers of people increase.
In a more remote stage, the imports may consist in a considerable part
of raw materials, which will be wrought into articles for exportation,
and will, therefore, require rather the encouragement of bounties, than
to be loaded with discouraging duties. A system of government, meant for
duration, ought to contemplate these revolutions, and be able to accommodate
itself to them. Some, who have not denied the necessity of the power of
taxation, have grounded a very fierce attack against the Constitution,
on the language in which it is defined. It has been urged and echoed, that
the power "to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay
the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the
United States," amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power
which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general
welfare. No stronger proof could be given of the distress under which these
writers labor for objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction.
Had no other enumeration or definition of the powers of the Congress been
found in the Constitution, than the general expressions just cited, the
authors of the objection might have had some color for it; though it would
have been difficult to find a reason for so awkward a form of describing
an authority to legislate in all possible cases. A power to destroy the
freedom of the press, the trial by jury, or even to regulate the course
of descents, or the forms of conveyances, must be very singularly expressed
by the terms "to raise money for the general welfare. "But what color can
the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these
general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer
pause than a semicolon? If the different parts of the same instrument ought
to be so expounded, as to give meaning to every part which will bear it,
shall one part of the same sentence be excluded altogether from a share
in the meaning; and shall the more doubtful and indefinite terms be retained
in their full extent, and the clear and precise expressions be denied any
signification whatsoever? For what purpose could the enumeration of particular
powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in
the preceding general power? Nothing is more natural nor common than first
to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital
of particulars. But the idea of an enumeration of particulars which neither
explain nor qualify the general meaning, and can have no other effect than
to confound and mislead, is an absurdity, which, as we are reduced to the
dilemma of charging either on the authors of the objection or on the authors
of the Constitution, we must take the liberty of supposing, had not its
origin with the latter. The objection here is the more extraordinary, as
it appears that the language used by the convention is a copy from the
articles of Confederation. The objects of the Union among the States, as
described in article third, are "their common defense, security of their
liberties, and mutual and general welfare. " The terms of article eighth
are still more identical: "All charges of war and all other expenses that
shall be incurred for the common defense or general welfare, and allowed
by the United States in Congress, shall be defrayed out of a common treasury,"
etc. A similar language again occurs in article ninth. Construe either
of these articles by the rules which would justify the construction put
on the new Constitution, and they vest in the existing Congress a power
to legislate in all cases whatsoever.
But what would have been thought
of that assembly, if, attaching themselves to these general expressions,
and disregarding the specifications which ascertain and limit their import,
they had exercised an unlimited power of providing for the common defense
and general welfare? I appeal to the objectors themselves, whether they
would in that case have employed the same reasoning in justification of
Congress as they now make use of against the convention. How difficult
it is for error to escape its own condemnation!
PUBLIUS. |