inducements could the States have, if disunited, to make war upon
each other? It would be a full answer to this question to
say--precisely the same inducements which have, at different times,
deluged in blood all the nations in the world. But, unfortunately
for us, the question admits of a more particular answer. There are
causes of differences within our immediate contemplation, of the
tendency of which, even under the restraints of a federal
constitution, we have had sufficient experience to enable us to form
a judgment of what might be expected if those restraints were
removed.
Territorial disputes have at all times been found one of th
most fertile sources of hostility among nations. Perhaps the
greatest proportion of wars that have desolated the earth have
sprung from this origin. This cause would exist among us in full
force. We have a vast tract of unsettled territory within the
boundaries of the United States. There still are discordant and
undecided claims between several of them, and the dissolution of the
Union would lay a foundation for similar claims between them all.
It is well known that they have heretofore had serious and animated
discussion concerning the rights to the lands which were ungranted
at the time of the Revolution, and which usually went under the name
of crown lands. The States within the limits of whose colonial
governments they were comprised have claimed them as their property,
the others have contended that the rights of the crown in this
article devolved upon the Union; especially as to all that part of
the Western territory which, either by actual possession, or through
the submission of the Indian proprietors, was subjected to the
jurisdiction of the king of Great Britain, till it was relinquished
in the treaty of peace. This, it has been said, was at all events
an acquisition to the Confederacy by compact with a foreign power.
It has been the prudent policy of Congress to appease this controversy, by prevailing upon the States to make cessions to the United States for the benefit of the whole.This has been so far accomplished as, under a continuation of the Union, to afford a
decided prospect of an amicable termination of the dispute. A
dismemberment of the Confederacy, however, would revive this
dispute, and would create others on the same subject. At present, a
large part of the vacant Western territory is, by cession at least,
if not by any anterior right, the common property of the Union. If
that were at an end, the States which made the cession, on a
principle of federal compromise, would be apt when the motive of the
grant had ceased, to reclaim the lands as a reversion. The other
States would no doubt insist on a proportion, by right of
representation. Their argument would be, that a grant, once made,
could not be revoked; and that the justice of participating in
territory acquired or secured by the joint efforts of the
Confederacy, remained undiminished. If, contrary to probability, it
should be admitted by all the States, that each had a right to a
share of this common stock, there would still be a difficulty to be
surmounted, as to a proper rule of apportionment. Different
principles would be set up by different States for this purpose;
and as they would affect the opposite interests of the parties,
they might not easily be susceptible of a pacific adjustment.
In the wide field of Western territory, therefore, we perceive
an ample theatre for hostile pretensions, without any umpire or
common judge to interpose between the contending parties. To reason
from the past to the future, we shall have good ground to apprehend,
that the sword would sometimes be appealed to as the arbiter of
their differences. The circumstances of the dispute between
Connecticut and Pennsylvania, respecting the land at Wyoming,
admonish us not to be sanguine in expecting an easy accommodation of
such differences. The articles of confederation obliged the parties
to submit the matter to the decision of a federal court. The
submission was made, and the court decided in favor of Pennsylvania.
But Connecticut gave strong indications of dissatisfaction with
that determination; nor did she appear to be entirely resigned to
it, till, by negotiation and management, something like an
equivalent was found for the loss she supposed herself to have
sustained. Nothing here said is intended to convey the slightest
censure on the conduct of that State. She no doubt sincerely
believed herself to have been injured by the decision; and States,
like individuals, acquiesce with great reluctance in determinations
to their disadvantage.
Those who had an opportunity of seeing the inside of the
transactions which attended the progress of the controversy between
this State [NYS]and the district of Vermont, can vouch the opposition we
experienced, as well from States not interested as from those which
were interested in the claim; and can attest the danger to which
the peace of the Confederacy might have been exposed, had this State
attempted to assert its rights by force. Two motives preponderated
in that opposition: one, a jealousy entertained of our future
power; and the other, the interest of certain individuals of
influence in the neighboring States, who had obtained grants of
lands under the actual government of that district. Even the States
which brought forward claims, in contradiction to ours, seemed more
solicitous to dismember this State, than to establish their own
pretensions. These were New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and
Connecticut. New Jersey and Rhode Island, upon all occasions,
discovered a warm zeal for the independence of Vermont; and
Maryland, till alarmed by the appearance of a connection between
Canada and that State, entered deeply into the same views. These
being small States, saw with an unfriendly eye the perspective of
our growing greatness. In a review of these transactions we may
trace some of the causes which would be likely to embroil the States
with each other, if it should be their unpropitious destiny to
become disunited.
The competitions of commerce would be another fruitful source of
contention. The States less favorably circumstanced would be
desirous of escaping from the disadvantages of local situation, and
of sharing in the advantages of their more fortunate neighbors.
Each State, or separate confederacy, would pursue a system of
commercial policy peculiar to itself. This would occasion
distinctions, preferences, and exclusions, which would beget
discontent. The habits of intercourse, on the basis of equal
privileges, to which we have been accustomed since the earliest
settlement of the country, would give a keener edge to those causes
of discontent than they would naturally have independent of this
circumstance. WE SHOULD BE READY TO DENOMINATE INJURIES THOSE
THINGS WHICH WERE IN REALITY THE JUSTIFIABLE ACTS OF INDEPENDENT
SOVEREIGNTIES CONSULTING A DISTINCT INTEREST. The spirit of
enterprise, which characterizes the commercial part of America, has
left no occasion of displaying itself unimproved. It is not at all
probable that this unbridled spirit would pay much respect to those
regulations of trade by which particular States might endeavor to
secure exclusive benefits to their own citizens. The infractions of
these regulations, on one side, the efforts to prevent and repel
them, on the other, would naturally lead to outrages, and these to
reprisals and wars.
The opportunities which some States would have of rendering
others tributary to them by commercial regulations would be
impatiently submitted to by the tributary States. The relative
situation of New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey would afford an
example of this kind. New York, from the necessities of revenue,
must lay duties on her importations. A great part of these duties
must be paid by the inhabitants of the two other States in the
capacity of consumers of what we import. New York would neither be
willing nor able to forego this advantage. Her citizens would not
consent that a duty paid by them should be remitted in favor of the
citizens of her neighbors; nor would it be practicable, if there
were not this impediment in the way, to distinguish the customers in
our own markets. Would Connecticut and New Jersey long submit to be
taxed by New York for her exclusive benefit? Should we be long
permitted to remain in the quiet and undisturbed enjoyment of a
metropolis, from the possession of which we derived an advantage so
odious to our neighbors, and, in their opinion, so oppressive?
Should we be able to preserve it against the incumbent weight of
Connecticut on the one side, and the co-operating pressure of New
Jersey on the other? These are questions that temerity alone will
answer in the affirmative.
The public debt of the Union would be a further cause of
collision between the separate States or confederacies. The
apportionment, in the first instance, and the progressive
extinguishment afterward, would be alike productive of ill-humor and
animosity. How would it be possible to agree upon a rule of
apportionment satisfactory to all? There is scarcely any that can
be proposed which is entirely free from real objections. These, as
usual, would be exaggerated by the adverse interest of the parties.
There are even dissimilar views among the States as to the general
principle of discharging the public debt. Some of them, either less
impressed with the importance of national credit, or because their
citizens have little, if any, immediate interest in the question,
feel an indifference, if not a repugnance, to the payment of the
domestic debt at any rate. These would be inclined to magnify the
difficulties of a distribution. Others of them, a numerous body of
whose citizens are creditors to the public beyond proportion of the
State in the total amount of the national debt, would be strenuous
for some equitable and effective provision. The procrastinations of
the former would excite the resentments of the latter. The
settlement of a rule would, in the meantime, be postponed by real
differences of opinion and affected delays. The citizens of the
States interested would clamour; foreign powers would urge for the
satisfaction of their just demands, and the peace of the States
would be hazarded to the double contingency of external invasion and
internal contention.
Suppose the difficulties of agreeing upon a rule surmounted, and
the apportionment made. Still there is great room to suppose that
the rule agreed upon would, upon experiment, be found to bear harder
upon some States than upon others. Those which were sufferers by it
would naturally seek for a mitigation of the burden. The others
would as naturally be disinclined to a revision, which was likely to
end in an increase of their own incumbrances. Their refusal would
be too plausible a pretext to the complaining States to withhold
their contributions, not to be embraced with avidity; and the
non-compliance of these States with their engagements would be a
ground of bitter discussion and altercation. If even the rule
adopted should in practice justify the equality of its principle,
still delinquencies in payments on the part of some of the States
would result from a diversity of other causes--the real deficiency of
resources; the mismanagement of their finances; accidental
disorders in the management of the government; and, in addition to
the rest, the reluctance with which men commonly part with money for
purposes that have outlived the exigencies which produced them, and
interfere with the supply of immediate wants. Delinquencies, from
whatever causes, would be productive of complaints, recriminations,
and quarrels. There is, perhaps, nothing more likely to disturb the
tranquility of nations than their being bound to mutual
contributions for any common object that does not yield an equal and
coincident benefit. For it is an observation, as true as it is
trite, that there is nothing men differ so readily about as the
payment of money.
Laws in violation of private contracts, as they amount to
aggressions on the rights of those States whose citizens are injured
by them, may be considered as another probable source of hostility.
We are not authorized to expect that a more liberal or more
equitable spirit would preside over the legislations of the
individual States hereafter, if unrestrained by any additional
checks, than we have heretofore seen in too many instances
disgracing their several codes. We have observed the disposition to
retaliation excited in Connecticut in consequence of the enormities
perpetrated by the Legislature of Rhode Island; and we reasonably
infer that, in similar cases, under other circumstances, a war, not
of PARCHMENT, but of the sword, would chastise such atrocious
breaches of moral obligation and social justice.
The probability of incompatible alliances between the different
States or confederacies and different foreign nations, and the
effects of this situation upon the peace of the whole, have been
sufficiently unfolded in some preceding papers. From the view they
have exhibited of this part of the subject, this conclusion is to be
drawn, that America, if not connected at all, or only by the feeble
tie of a simple league, offensive and defensive, would, by the
operation of such jarring alliances, be gradually entangled in all
the pernicious labyrinths of European politics and wars; and by the
destructive contentions of the parts into which she was divided,
would be likely to become a prey to the artifices and machinations
of powers equally the enemies of them all. Divide et
impera must be the motto of every nation that either hates or
fears us.
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