The Federalist Papers

Having established the importance of unity under a federal government, Hamilton explains why the current political situation under the Articles of Confederation has America teetering over the abyss of “impending anarchy” (67). At present, America is unable to pay its debts, both to foreign nations and to private citizens who fought in the American Revolution. Valuable territories on the continent are occupied by foreign powers, and America lacks the money and troops to repel them. Even worse, America’s “respectability in the eyes of foreign powers” (68) is so low that it invites further encroachment of the country’s existing territories.

The reason for this miserable state of affairs, Hamilton writes, is that there is no recourse to punish states that disobey the laws of the Articles of Confederation. Thus, the United States can neither raise armies nor revenue in the form of taxes. Disputes between states and citizens are settled violently instead of by the law, which is unenforceable. Hamilton writes, “[E]very breach of the laws must involve a state of war [...] Such a state of things can certainly not deserve the name of government, nor would any prudent man choose to commit his happiness to it” (71).

In closing, Hamilton explains why individuals need government in the first place: “Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint” (71).

Hamilton considers the principle underlying the current Articles of Confederation as “the parent of anarchy” (74), and he foresees a number of scenarios which end in civil war and “the violent death of the Confederacy” (75). Instead, he prefers a “more natural death” through the ratification and adoption of the US Constitution.

The only way, Hamilton writes, for law to be maintained in the current disunited Confederation is to maintain a large standing army charged with enforcing even the smallest federal decrees. This scenario, however, would soon devolve into “military despotism.”

Hamilton answers the objection that a Union which passes and enforces legislation on individuals would become too powerful, rendering state governments impotent. He argues that this is unlikely for two reasons. First, even the most ambitious and power-hungry federal administrators will find little temptation to interfere with ordinary state matters, like the regulation of the local police. On the contrary, in a republic Hamilton says the greater risk is for state power to grow out of proportion to federal power because the people are more intimately familiar with matters of state governance as opposed to federal governance, which impacts their lives in more distant and less perceptible ways. He writes, “Upon the same principle that a man is more attached to his family than to his neighborhood [...] the people of each State would be apt to feel a stronger bias towards their local governments than towards the government of the Union” (80).

In narrating the downfall of ancient Greek republics, Madison and Hamilton explain why insufficiently strong federal governing bodies tend toward anarchy.

Madison and Hamilton turn to a contemporary example of a failed confederation: Germany. The proposed Union under the Constitution differs greatly from Germany, which is “a community of sovereigns” (88) instead of one sovereign power with ultimate authority over federal matters. As a result, they write, “The history of Germany is a history of wars between the emperor and the princes and states; of wars among the princes and states themselves; of the licentiousness of the strong, and the oppression of the weak” (88).

Madison and Hamilton discuss the United Netherlands as yet another example of a failed confederacy of smaller republics. In closing, they write, all these examples show that “a sovereignty over sovereigns, a government over governments [...] substitut[es] VIOLENCE in place of LAW, or the destructive COERCION of the SWORD in place of the mild and salutary COERCION of the MAGISTRACY” (97).

Hamilton reiterates his belief that the most profound flaw in the Articles of Confederation’s central government is “the total want of a SANCTION to its laws” (98). He references a recent rebellion in Massachusetts (Shays’ Rebellion) and is mortified to consider what may have come to the country had the revolt been headed “by a Caesar or by a Cromwell” (99).

A second major defect is the Confederation’s method of taxing the states through quotas, set by each state’s population and the value of its land. Again, the central government has no method for forcing states to pay these taxes. Even if it did, population and land value are poor metrics for levying taxes. Under a Union, however, the federal government would be empowered to raise revenues through import and excise taxes, as Hamilton detailed in Federalist No. 12.

Hamilton points out yet another defect in the Articles of Confederation: the inability to regulate commerce uniformly. As a result, foreign nations refuse to enter into mutually favorable trade agreements with America because at any time one state might violate the agreement.

A second defect outlined here is the Confederation’s difficulty of raising armies. Currently, troops are requisitioned by way of assigned quotas. Yet as Hamilton observed during the American Revolution, states located far from the fighting were reluctant to meet their quotas, while states located on the battlefront exceeded their quotas out of self-preservation.

The third defect Hamilton identifies is the disproportionate voting power enjoyed by tiny states like Rhode Island and Delaware. If anything, these states should be willing to accept less power, given how much more vulnerable they are to foreign attack. Hamilton points out that New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware, Georgia, South Carolina, and Maryland make up a majority of the states, yet they contain less than one third of America’s total population. He goes on to denigrate the need for two-thirds supermajorities instead of simple majorities. Hamilton argues that it leaves America open to foreign interference by adversaries who may bribe a comparatively small number of legislators to block, for example, a peace accord with a third country.

Finally, Hamilton lists what he views as the ultimate defect of the Confederation: A lack of a federal judiciary. He writes, “Laws are a dead letter without courts to expound and define their true meaning and operation. [...] To produce uniformity in these determinations, they ought to be submitted, in the last resort, to one SUPREME TRIBUNAL” (108).