The Influence of the State
and Federal Governments Compared.
From the New York Packet. Tuesday, January 29, 1788.
To the People of the State of New York:
RESUMING the subject of the last paper, I proceed
to inquire whether the federal government or the State governments
will have the advantage with regard to the predilection and
support of the people. Notwithstanding the different modes in
which they are appointed, we must consider both of them as substantially
dependent on the great body of the citizens of the United States.
I assume this position here as it respects the first, reserving
the proofs for another place. The federal and State governments
are in fact but different agents and trustees of the people,
constituted with different powers, and designed for different
purposes. The adversaries of the Constitution seem to have lost
sight of the people altogether in their reasonings on this subject;
and to have viewed these different establishments, not only
as mutual rivals and enemies, but as uncontrolled by any common
superior in their efforts to usurp the authorities of each other.
These gentlemen must here be reminded of their error. They must
be told that the ultimate authority, wherever the derivative
may be found, resides in the people alone, and that it will
not depend merely on the comparative ambition or address of
the different governments, whether either, or which of them,
will be able to enlarge its sphere of jurisdiction at the expense
of the other. Truth, no less than decency, requires that the
event in every case should be supposed to depend on the sentiments
and sanction of their common constituents.
Many considerations, besides those suggested on
a former occasion, seem to place it beyond doubt that the first
and most natural attachment of the people will be to the governments
of their respective States. Into the administration of these
a greater number of individuals will expect to rise. From the
gift of these a greater number of offices and emoluments will
flow. By the superintending care of these, all the more domestic
and personal interests of the people will be regulated and provided
for. With the affairs of these, the people will be more familiarly
and minutely conversant. And with the members of these, will
a greater proportion of the people have the ties of personal
acquaintance and friendship, and of family and party attachments;
on the side of these, therefore, the popular bias may well be
expected most strongly to incline.
Experience speaks the same language in this case.
The federal administration, though hitherto very defective in
comparison with what may be hoped under a better system, had,
during the war, and particularly whilst the independent fund
of paper emissions was in credit, an activity and importance
as great as it can well have in any future circumstances whatever.
It was engaged, too, in a course of measures which had for their
object the protection of everything that was dear, and the acquisition
of everything that could be desirable to the people at large.
It was, nevertheless, invariably found, after the transient
enthusiasm for the early Congresses was over, that the attention
and attachment of the people were turned anew to their own particular
governments; that the federal council was at no time the idol
of popular favor; and that opposition to proposed enlargements
of its powers and importance was the side usually taken by the
men who wished to build their political consequence on the prepossessions
of their fellow-citizens.
If, therefore, as has been elsewhere remarked,
the people should in future become more partial to the federal
than to the State governments, the change can only result from
such manifest and irresistible proofs of a better administration,
as will overcome all their antecedent propensities. And in that
case, the people ought not surely to be precluded from giving
most of their confidence where they may discover it to be most
due; but even in that case the State governments could have
little to apprehend, because it is only within a certain sphere
that the federal power can, in the nature of things, be advantageously
administered.
The remaining points on which I propose to compare
the federal and State governments, are the disposition and the
faculty they may respectively possess, to resist and frustrate
the measures of each other.
It has been already proved that the members of
the federal will be more dependent on the members of the State
governments, than the latter will be on the former. It has appeared
also, that the prepossessions of the people, on whom both will
depend, will be more on the side of the State governments, than
of the federal government. So far as the disposition of each
towards the other may be influenced by these causes, the State
governments must clearly have the advantage. But in a distinct
and very important point of view, the advantage will lie on
the same side. The prepossessions, which the members themselves
will carry into the federal government, will generally be favorable
to the States; whilst it will rarely happen, that the members
of the State governments will carry into the public councils
a bias in favor of the general government. A local spirit will
infallibly prevail much more in the members of Congress, than
a national spirit will prevail in the legislatures of the particular
States. Every one knows that a great proportion of the errors
committed by the State legislatures proceeds from the disposition
of the members to sacrifice the comprehensive and permanent
interest of the State, to the particular and separate views
of the counties or districts in which they reside. And if they
do not sufficiently enlarge their policy to embrace the collective
welfare of their particular State, how can it be imagined that
they will make the aggregate prosperity of the Union, and the
dignity and respectability of its government, the objects of
their affections and consultations? For the same reason that
the members of the State legislatures will be unlikely to attach
themselves sufficiently to national objects, the members of
the federal legislature will be likely to attach themselves
too much to local objects. The States will be to the latter
what counties and towns are to the former. Measures will too
often be decided according to their probable effect, not on
the national prosperity and happiness, but on the prejudices,
interests, and pursuits of the governments and people of the
individual States. What is the spirit that has in general characterized
the proceedings of Congress? A perusal of their journals, as
well as the candid acknowledgments of such as have had a seat
in that assembly, will inform us, that the members have but
too frequently displayed the character, rather of partisans
of their respective States, than of impartial guardians of a
common interest; that where on one occasion improper sacrifices
have been made of local considerations, to the aggrandizement
of the federal government, the great interests of the nation
have suffered on a hundred, from an undue attention to the local
prejudices, interests, and views of the particular States. I
mean not by these reflections to insinuate, that the new federal
government will not embrace a more enlarged plan of policy than
the existing government may have pursued; much less, that its
views will be as confined as those of the State legislatures;
but only that it will partake sufficiently of the spirit of
both, to be disinclined to invade the rights of the individual
States, or the preorgatives of their governments. The motives
on the part of the State governments, to augment their prerogatives
by defalcations from the federal government, will be overruled
by no reciprocal predispositions in the members.
Were it admitted, however, that the Federal government
may feel an equal disposition with the State governments to
extend its power beyond the due limits, the latter would still
have the advantage in the means of defeating such encroachments.
If an act of a particular State, though unfriendly to the national
government, be generally popular in that State and should not
too grossly violate the oaths of the State officers, it is executed
immediately and, of course, by means on the spot and depending
on the State alone. The opposition of the federal government,
or the interposition of federal officers, would but inflame
the zeal of all parties on the side of the State, and the evil
could not be prevented or repaired, if at all, without the employment
of means which must always be resorted to with reluctance and
difficulty. On the other hand, should an unwarrantable measure
of the federal government be unpopular in particular States,
which would seldom fail to be the case, or even a warrantable
measure be so, which may sometimes be the case, the means of
opposition to it are powerful and at hand. The disquietude of
the people; their repugnance and, perhaps, refusal to co-operate
with the officers of the Union; the frowns of the executive
magistracy of the State; the embarrassments created by legislative
devices, which would often be added on such occasions, would
oppose, in any State, difficulties not to be despised; would
form, in a large State, very serious impediments; and where
the sentiments of several adjoining States happened to be in
unison, would present obstructions which the federal government
would hardly be willing to encounter.
But ambitious encroachments of the federal government,
on the authority of the State governments, would not excite
the opposition of a single State, or of a few States only. They
would be signals of general alarm. Every government would espouse
the common cause. A correspondence would be opened. Plans of
resistance would be concerted. One spirit would animate and
conduct the whole. The same combinations, in short, would result
from an apprehension of the federal, as was produced by the
dread of a foreign, yoke; and unless the projected innovations
should be voluntarily renounced, the same appeal to a trial
of force would be made in the one case as was made in the other.
But what degree of madness could ever drive the federal government
to such an extremity. In the contest with Great Britain, one
part of the empire was employed against the other. The more
numerous part invaded the rights of the less numerous part.
The attempt was unjust and unwise; but it was not in speculation
absolutely chimerical. But what would be the contest in the
case we are supposing? Who would be the parties? A few representatives
of the people would be opposed to the people themselves; or
rather one set of representatives would be contending against
thirteen sets of representatives, with the whole body of their
common constituents on the side of the latter.
The only refuge left for those who prophesy the
downfall of the State governments is the visionary supposition
that the federal government may previously accumulate a military
force for the projects of ambition. The reasonings contained
in these papers must have been employed to little purpose indeed,
if it could be necessary now to disprove the reality of this
danger. That the people and the States should, for a sufficient
period of time, elect an uninterupted succession of men ready
to betray both; that the traitors should, throughout this period,
uniformly and systematically pursue some fixed plan for the
extension of the military establishment; that the governments
and the people of the States should silently and patiently behold
the gathering storm, and continue to supply the materials, until
it should be prepared to burst on their own heads, must appear
to every one more like the incoherent dreams of a delirious
jealousy, or the misjudged exaggerations of a counterfeit zeal,
than like the sober apprehensions of genuine patriotism. Extravagant
as the supposition is, let it however be made. Let a regular
army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed;
and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government;
still it would not be going too far to say, that the State governments,
with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger.
The highest number to which, according to the best computation,
a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed
one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth
part of the number able to bear arms. This proportion would
not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five
or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia
amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their
hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting
for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments
possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted,
whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered
by such a proportion of regular troops. Those who are best acquainted
with the last successful resistance of this country against
the British arms, will be most inclined to deny the possibility
of it. Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans
possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence
of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached,
and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier
against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than
any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding
the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe,
which are carried as far as the public resources will bear,
the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. And
it is not certain, that with this aid alone they would not be
able to shake off their yokes. But were the people to possess
the additional advantages of local governments chosen by themselves,
who could collect the national will and direct the national
force, and of officers appointed out of the militia, by these
governments, and attached both to them and to the militia, it
may be affirmed with the greatest assurance, that the throne
of every tyranny in Europe would be speedily overturned in spite
of the legions which surround it. Let us not insult the free
and gallant citizens of America with the suspicion, that they
would be less able to defend the rights of which they would
be in actual possession, than the debased subjects of arbitrary
power would be to rescue theirs from the hands of their oppressors.
Let us rather no longer insult them with the supposition that
they can ever reduce themselves to the necessity of making the
experiment, by a blind and tame submission to the long train
of insidious measures which must precede and produce it.
The argument under the present head may be put
into a very concise form, which appears altogether conclusive.
Either the mode in which the federal government is to be constructed
will render it sufficiently dependent on the people, or it will
not. On the first supposition, it will be restrained by that
dependence from forming schemes obnoxious to their constituents.
On the other supposition, it will not possess the confidence
of the people, and its schemes of usurpation will be easily
defeated by the State governments, who will be supported by
the people.
On summing up the considerations stated in this
and the last paper, they seem to amount to the most convincing
evidence, that the powers proposed to be lodged in the federal
government are as little formidable to those reserved to the
individual States, as they are indispensably necessary to accomplish
the purposes of the Union; and that all those alarms which have
been sounded, of a meditated and consequential annihilation
of the State governments, must, on the most favorable interpretation,
be ascribed to the chimerical fears of the authors of them.
PUBLIUS.
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