FEDERALIST. No. 7
The Same Subject Continued
(Concerning Dangers from Dissensions Between the States)
For the Independent Journal - Hamilton
To the People of the State of New York:
It is sometimes asked, with an air of seeming triumph, what
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 the
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 noncompliance
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 tranquillity 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 (Divided and command)
must be the motto of every nation that either hates or fears us.
Publius.
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