Study 6 - The Federalist Papers No. 6

To the People of the State of New York:

THE three last numbers of this paper have been dedicated to an
enumeration of the dangers to which we should be exposed, in a state
of disunion, from the arms and arts of foreign nations. I shall now
proceed to delineate dangers of a different and, perhaps, still more
alarming kind--those which will in all probability flow from
dissensions between the States themselves, and from domestic
factions and convulsions. These have been already in some instances
slightly anticipated; but they deserve a more particular and more
full investigation. A man must be far gone in Utopian speculations who can seriously
doubt that, if these States should either be wholly disunited, or
only united in partial confederacies, the subdivisions into which
they might be thrown would have frequent and violent contests with
each other. To presume a want of motives for such contests as an
argument against their existence, would be to forget that men are
ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious. To look for a continuation of
harmony between a number of independent, unconnected sovereignties
in the same neighborhood, would be to disregard the uniform course
of human events, and to set at defiance the accumulated experience
of ages.
The causes of hostility among nations are innumerable. There
are some which have a general and almost constant operation upon the
collective bodies of society. Of this description are the love of
power or the desire of per-eminence and dominion--the jealousy of
power, or the desire of equality and safety. There are others which
have a more circumscribed though an equally operative influence
within their spheres. Such are the rivalships and competitions of
commerce between commercial nations. And there are others, not less
numerous than either of the former, which take their origin entirely
in private passions; in the attachments, enmities, interests,
hopes, and fears of leading individuals in the communities of which
they are members. Men of this class, whether the favorites of a
king or of a people, have in too many instances abused the
confidence they possessed; and assuming the pretext of some public
motive, have not scrupled to sacrifice the national tranquility to
personal advantage or personal gratification.
The celebrated Pericles, in compliance with the resentment of a
prostitute, at the expense of much of the blood and treasure of
his countrymen, attacked, vanquished, and destroyed the city of the
SAMNIANS. The same man, stimulated by private pique against the
MEGARENSIANS, another nation of Greece, or to avoid a
prosecution with which he was threatened as an accomplice of a
supposed theft of the statuary Phidias, or to get rid of the
accusations prepared to be brought against him for dissipating the
funds of the state in the purchase of popularity, or from a
combination of all these causes, was the primitive author of that
famous and fatal war, distinguished in the Grecian annals by the
name of the PELOPONNESIAN war; which, after various vicissitudes,
intermissions, and renewals, terminated in the ruin of the Athenian
commonwealth.
The ambitious cardinal, who was prime minister to Henry VIII.,
permitting his vanity to aspire to the triple crown, 
entertained hopes of succeeding in the acquisition of that splendid
prize by the influence of the Emperor Charles V. To secure the
favor and interest of this enterprising and powerful monarch, he
precipitated England into a war with France, contrary to the
plainest dictates of policy, and at the hazard of the safety and
independence, as well of the kingdom over which he presided by his
counsels, as of Europe in general. For if there ever was a
sovereign who bid fair to realize the project of universal monarchy,
it was the Emperor Charles V., of whose intrigues Wolsey was at once
the instrument and the dupe.
The influence which the bigotry of one female, the
petulance of another, and the cabals of a third, had in
the contemporary policy, ferments, and pacifications, of a
considerable part of Europe, are topics that have been too often
descanted upon not to be generally known.
To multiply examples of the agency of personal considerations in
the production of great national events, either foreign or domestic,
according to their direction, would be an unnecessary waste of time.
Those who have but a superficial acquaintance with the sources from
which they are to be drawn, will themselves recollect a variety of
instances; and those who have a tolerable knowledge of human nature
will not stand in need of such lights to form their opinion either
of the reality or extent of that agency. Perhaps, however, a
reference, tending to illustrate the general principle, may with
propriety be made to a case which has lately happened among
ourselves. If Shays had not been a DESPERATE DEBTOR, it is much to
be doubted whether Massachusetts would have been plunged into a
civil war.
But notwithstanding the concurring testimony of experience, in
this particular, there are still to be found visionary or designing
men, who stand ready to advocate the paradox of perpetual peace
between the States, though dismembered and alienated from each other.
The genius of republics (say they) is pacific; the spirit of
commerce has a tendency to soften the manners of men, and to
extinguish those inflammable humors which have so often kindled into
wars. Commercial republics, like ours, will never be disposed to
waste themselves in ruinous contentions with each other. They will
be governed by mutual interest, and will cultivate a spirit of
mutual amity and concord.
Is it not (we may ask these projectors in politics) the true
interest of all nations to cultivate the same benevolent and
philosophic spirit? If this be their true interest, have they in
fact pursued it? Has it not, on the contrary, invariably been found
that momentary passions, and immediate interest, have a more active
and imperious control over human conduct than general or remote
considerations of policy, utility or justice? Have republics in
practice been less addicted to war than monarchies? Are not the
former administered by MEN as well as the latter? Are there not
aversions, predilections, rivalships, and desires of unjust
acquisitions, that affect nations as well as kings? Are not popular
assemblies frequently subject to the impulses of rage, resentment,
jealousy, avarice, and of other irregular and violent propensities?
Is it not well known that their determinations are often governed
by a few individuals in whom they place confidence, and are, of
course, liable to be tinctured by the passions and views of those
individuals? Has commerce hitherto done anything more than change
the objects of war? Is not the love of wealth as domineering and
enterprising a passion as that of power or glory? Have there not
been as many wars founded upon commercial motives since that has
become the prevailing system of nations, as were before occasioned
by the cupidity of territory or dominion? Has not the spirit of
commerce, in many instances, administered new incentives to the
appetite, both for the one and for the other? Let experience, the
least fallible guide of human opinions, be appealed to for an answer
to these inquiries.
Sparta, Athens, Rome, and Carthage were all republics; two of
them, Athens and Carthage, of the commercial kind. Yet were they as
often engaged in wars, offensive and defensive, as the neighboring
monarchies of the same times. Sparta was little better than a
well-regulated camp; and Rome was never sated of carnage and
conquest.
Carthage, though a commercial republic, was the aggressor in the
very war that ended in her destruction. Hannibal had carried her
arms into the heart of Italy and to the gates of Rome, before
Scipio, in turn, gave him an overthrow in the territories of
Carthage, and made a conquest of the commonwealth.
Venice, in later times, figured more than once in wars of
ambition, till, becoming an object to the other Italian states, Pope
Julius II. found means to accomplish that formidable league, 
which gave a deadly blow to the power and pride of this haughty
republic.
The provinces of Holland, till they were overwhelmed in debts
and taxes, took a leading and conspicuous part in the wars of Europe.
They had furious contests with England for the dominion of the
sea, and were among the most persevering and most implacable of the
opponents of Louis XIV.
In the government of Britain the representatives of the people
compose one branch of the national legislature. Commerce has been
for ages the predominant pursuit of that country. Few nations,
nevertheless, have been more frequently engaged in war; and the
wars in which that kingdom has been engaged have, in numerous
instances, proceeded from the people.
There have been, if I may so express it, almost as many popular
as royal wars. The cries of the nation and the importunities of
their representatives have, upon various occasions, dragged their
monarchs into war, or continued them in it, contrary to their
inclinations, and sometimes contrary to the real interests of the
State. In that memorable struggle for superiority between the rival
houses of AUSTRIA and BOURBON, which so long kept Europe in a flame,
it is well known that the antipathies of the English against the
French, seconding the ambition, or rather the avarice, of a favorite
leader, protracted the war beyond the limits marked out by
sound policy, and for a considerable time in opposition to the views
of the court.
The wars of these two last-mentioned nations have in a great
measure grown out of commercial considerations,--the desire of
supplanting and the fear of being supplanted, either in particular
branches of traffic or in the general advantages of trade and
navigation.
From this summary of what has taken place in other countries,
whose situations have borne the nearest resemblance to our own, what
reason can we have to confide in those reveries which would seduce
us into an expectation of peace and cordiality between the members
of the present confederacy, in a state of separation? Have we not
already seen enough of the fallacy and extravagance of those idle
theories which have amused us with promises of an exemption from the
imperfections, weaknesses and evils incident to society in every
shape? Is it not time to awake from the deceitful dream of a golden
age, and to adopt as a practical maxim for the direction of our
political conduct that we, as well as the other inhabitants of the
globe, are yet remote from the happy empire of perfect wisdom and
perfect virtue?
Let the point of extreme depression to which our national
dignity and credit have sunk, let the inconveniences felt everywhere
from a lax and ill administration of government, let the revolt of a
part of the State of North Carolina, the late menacing disturbances
in Pennsylvania, and the actual insurrections and rebellions in
Massachusetts, declare--!
So far is the general sense of mankind from corresponding with
the tenets of those who endeavor to lull asleep our apprehensions of
discord and hostility between the States, in the event of disunion,
that it has from long observation of the progress of society become
a sort of axiom in politics, that vicinity or nearness of situation,
constitutes nations natural enemies. An intelligent writer
expresses himself on this subject to this effect: ``NEIGHBORING
NATIONS (says he) are naturally enemies of each other unless their
common weakness forces them to league in a CONFEDERATE REPUBLIC, and
their constitution prevents the differences that neighborhood
occasions, extinguishing that secret jealousy which disposes all
states to aggrandize themselves at the expense of their
neighbors." This passage, at the same time, points out the
EVIL and suggests the REMEDY.