Posted on 06/17/2010 6:30:15 AM PDT by Publius
Hamilton addresses the possibility of insurrections and the need for a military that can put them down.
1 To the People of the State of New York:
2 That there may happen cases in which the national government may be necessitated to resort to force cannot be denied.
3 Our own experience has corroborated the lessons taught by the examples of other nations:
4 Should such emergencies at any time happen under the national government, there could be no remedy but force.
5 The means to be employed must be proportioned to the extent of the mischief.
6 If it should be a slight commotion in a small part of a state, the militia of the residue would be adequate to its suppression, and the national presumption is that they would be ready to do their duty.
7 An insurrection, whatever may be its immediate cause, eventually endangers all government.
8 Regard to the public peace, if not to the rights of the Union, would engage the citizens to whom the contagion had not communicated itself to oppose the insurgents, and if the general government should be found in practice conducive to the prosperity and felicity of the people, it were irrational to believe that they would be disinclined to its support.
9 If, on the contrary, the insurrection should pervade a whole state or a principal part of it, the employment of a different kind of force might become unavoidable.
10 It appears that Massachusetts found it necessary to raise troops for repressing the disorders within that state, that Pennsylvania from the mere apprehension of commotions among a part of her citizens has thought proper to have recourse to the same measure.
11 Suppose the state of New York had been inclined to reestablish her lost jurisdiction over the inhabitants of Vermont, could she have hoped for success in such an enterprise from the efforts of the militia alone?
12 Would she not have been compelled to raise and to maintain a more regular force for the execution of her design?
13 If it must then be admitted that the necessity of recurring to a force different from the militia in cases of this extraordinary nature is applicable to the state governments themselves, why should the possibility that the national government might be under a like necessity in similar extremities be made an objection to its existence?
14 Is it not surprising that men who declare an attachment to the Union in the abstract should urge as an objection to the proposed Constitution what applies with tenfold weight to the plan for which they contend, and what, as far as it has any foundation in truth, is an inevitable consequence of civil society upon an enlarged scale?
15 Who would not prefer that possibility to the unceasing agitations and frequent revolutions which are the continual scourges of petty republics?
16 Let us pursue this examination in another light.
17 Suppose, in lieu of one general system, two or three or even four confederacies were to be formed, would not the same difficulty oppose itself to the operations of either of these confederacies?
18 Would not each of them be exposed to the same casualties, and when these happened, be obliged to have recourse to the same expedients for upholding its authority which are objected to in a government for all the states?
19 Would the militia, in this supposition, be more ready or more able to support the federal authority than in the case of a general union?
20 All candid and intelligent men must upon due consideration acknowledge that the principle of the objection is equally applicable to either of the two cases, and that whether we have one government for all the states or different governments for different parcels of them, or even if there should be an entire separation of the states, there might sometimes be a necessity to make use of a force constituted differently from the militia to preserve the peace of the community and to maintain the just authority of the laws against those violent invasions of them which amount to insurrections and rebellions.
21 Independent of all other reasoning upon the subject, it is a full answer to those who require a more peremptory provision against military establishments in time of peace to say that the whole power of the proposed government is to be in the hands of the representatives of the people.
22 This is the essential, and after all, only efficacious security for the rights and privileges of the people which is attainable in civil society. *
23 If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government and which against the usurpations of the national rulers may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual state.
24 In a single state, if the persons entrusted with supreme power become usurpers, the different parcels, subdivisions, or districts of which it consists, having no distinct government in each, can take no regular measures for defense.
25 The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms without concert, without system, without resource, except in their courage and despair.
26 The usurpers, clothed with the forms of legal authority, can too often crush the opposition in embryo.
27 The smaller the extent of the territory, the more difficult will it be for the people to form a regular or systematic plan of opposition and the more easy will it be to defeat their early efforts.
28 Intelligence can be more speedily obtained of their preparations and movements, and the military force in the possession of the usurpers can be more rapidly directed against the part where the opposition has begun.
29 In this situation there must be a peculiar coincidence of circumstances to insure success to the popular resistance.
30 The obstacles to usurpation and the facilities of resistance increase with the increased extent of the state, provided the citizens understand their rights and are disposed to defend them.
31 The natural strength of the people in a large community, in proportion to the artificial strength of the government, is greater than in a small, and of course more competent to a struggle with the attempts of the government to establish a tyranny.
32 But in a confederacy the people, without exaggeration, may be said to be entirely the masters of their own fate.
33 Power being almost always the rival of power, the general government will at all times stand ready to check the usurpations of the state governments, and these will have the same disposition towards the general government.
34 The people, by throwing themselves into either scale, will infallibly make it preponderate.
35 If their rights are invaded by either, they can make use of the other as the instrument of redress.
36 How wise will it be in them by cherishing the Union to preserve to themselves an advantage which can never be too highly prized!
37 It may safely be received as an axiom in our political system that the state governments will in all possible contingencies afford complete security against invasions of the public liberty by the national authority.
38 Projects of usurpation cannot be masked under pretenses so likely to escape the penetration of select bodies of men, as of the people at large.
39 The legislatures will have better means of information.
40 They can discover the danger at a distance, and possessing all the organs of civil power and the confidence of the people, they can at once adopt a regular plan of opposition in which they can combine all the resources of the community.
41 They can readily communicate with each other in the different states and unite their common forces for the protection of their common liberty.
42 The great extent of the country is a further security.
43 We have already experienced its utility against the attacks of a foreign power.
44 And it would have precisely the same effect against the enterprises of ambitious rulers in the national councils.
45 If the federal army should be able to quell the resistance of one state, the distant states would have it in their power to make head with fresh forces.
46 The advantages obtained in one place must be abandoned to subdue the opposition in others, and the moment the part which had been reduced to submission was left to itself, its efforts would be renewed and its resistance revive.
47 We should recollect that the extent of the military force must at all events be regulated by the resources of the country.
48 For a long time to come, it will not be possible to maintain a large army, and as the means of doing this increase, the population and natural strength of the community will proportionably increase.
49 When will the time arrive that the federal government can raise and maintain an army capable of erecting a despotism over the great body of the people of an immense empire who are in a situation, through the medium of their state governments, to take measures for their own defense with all the celerity, regularity and system of independent nations?
50 The apprehension may be considered as a disease for which there can be found no cure in the resources of argument and reasoning.
[*] Its full efficacy will be examined hereafter.
Hamilton’s Critique
The theme of the piece is sedition, and Hamilton is against it. One might understand this position taken from the point of view of the architect of a new government, but on the other hand, exactly what had Hamilton been doing for the seven years of the war? Had not Lord Cornwallis been indisposed, he might have seen his sword presented to a triumphant Washington in the company of the latter’s late aide de camp – and recently blooded infantry commander – one Alexander Hamilton. These seem, on the face of it, hardly the credentials of an apologist for political orthodoxy.
Rather, it is the ability of the proposed federal government to maintain itself in power that concerns the author here. His people – he knows us well – are by nature suspicious and disrespectful of government. One senses Hamilton’s hope that the new government will not evoke the sort of sentiment that had, after all, resulted in its very creation, and as well his fear that any government at all was likely to do precisely that. How best, then, to ensure that this unruly people were to be the beneficiaries of a government that they were likely to despise? Was the answer that the government would be so perfect as to deal with its constituents only through the wisdom incorporated into a body of law? Hardly.
3 Our own experience has corroborated the lessons taught by the examples of other nations…That the idea of governing at all times by the simple force of law, which we have been told is the only admissible principle of republican government, has no place but in the reveries of those political doctors whose sagacity disdains the admonitions of experimental instruction.
Hamilton is referring to high-minded theorists better suited to a faculty lounge than a saloon, and in early America there were certainly more saloons than faculty lounges. It was not simply an anticipation of unrest to come, it was an appreciation of that which already had happened.
10 It appears that Massachusetts found it necessary to raise troops for repressing the disorders within that state, that Pennsylvania from the mere apprehension of commotions among a part of her citizens has thought proper to have recourse to the same measure.
Hence the necessity for the provision for the use of military force. Government is fundamentally coercion, and Hamilton knew it. If the states had already experienced that necessity, then surely the federal government would as well (13).
Next Hamilton asks whether a single federal government would be better capable of addressing this nearly inevitable threat than a confederacy (17). He feels that it would: first, because the latter’s constituent parts would face the same challenges as the proposed federal government without its greater base of support (18, 20); second, because the federal government’s military would, by design, be subject to the control of the Legislative branch (21).
Now Hamilton at last appears to recognize, albeit grudgingly, that even this carries its own attendant hazard, and that one cannot design a government perfect enough to provide an infallible guard against the wickedness of men.
23 If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government and which against the usurpations of the national rulers may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual state.
The reader may blink for a moment before he or she realizes what Hamilton is conceding here. It is simply that an abusive and corrupt federal government will be easier to rebel against than that of any individual state. Hamilton the rebel has surfaced at last, and at 24 through 29 he gives his reasons, finishing in 30 with the astonishing claim that the size of the new nation will act as a guarantee against small-scale abuses that would be possible within each individual state.
30 The obstacles to usurpation and the facilities of resistance increase with the increased extent of the state, provided the citizens understand their rights and are disposed to defend them.
The essay has come full circle, from an insistence that the state must be free from the threat of insurrection to the converse position that insurrection must be free from the threat of the state. Hamilton feels that the proposed Constitution allows for both of these seemingly incompatible positions, providing of course that one major stipulation be the case: “provided the citizens understand their rights and are disposed to defend them.”
The onus, then, is on the individual citizen, as it should be. This is the consequence of Hamilton’s insistence that the federal government be able to deal directly with the citizen: that the citizen would be able to deal directly with the government, and not, in the end, in a court of law. Government is coercion, true, but coercion turns out to be a two-edged sword, and a government without the sanction of the people must in the end bend to its power. In case anyone missed that message, Hamilton drives it home.
45 If the federal army should be able to quell the resistance of one state, the distant states would have it in their power to make head with fresh forces.
This is a remarkable piece taken as a whole. It is Hamilton the statist being cautioned by Hamilton the revolutionary. It is an assurance to a suspicious electorate that in the end, even the right of the federal government to guard itself against insurrection was bounded by the ultimate authority of the people whose consent was required for its very existence. It was also a promise that would prove very difficult to keep.
The Battle of Athens, Tennessee
30 The obstacles to usurpation and the facilities of resistance increase with the increased extent of the state, provided the citizens understand their rights and are disposed to defend them.
The corrupt Cantrell machine of McMinn County, Tennessee had managed to dodge federal intervention during World War II, and following the war, it continued its practice of arresting people for imaginary crimes, incarcerating them and raking off the profits of each arrest. It particularly rankled when GI’s returning from the war became targets.
In August 1946, the machine imported 200 armed mercenaries, deputized them, and used them to beat GI poll watchers who were there to prevent the traditional stuffing of the ballot boxes. One black voter who attempted to vote was shot by the mercenaries. When a crowd surrounded the polling place, the sheriff’s men formed a line and threatened to fire into the crowd. The sheriff then removed the ballot boxes to the jail so the votes could be counted the “machine way”.
Former GI’s scoured the area for firearms, even entering national guard and state guard armories. Returning to the jail armed with military weaponry, they besieged it in a half-hour firefight. The Cantrell people contacted the governor, who mobilized the state guard, but didn’t send it in, fearing that former GI’s would not fire on their comrades.
At 2 AM, the men besieging the jail dynamited the front entrance, prompting politicians, police and mercenaries to surrender and disappear into the night. The GI’s formed a new police force, a new city government and cleaned up the county government.
It should be noted that they returned each and every weapon to their respective armories properly cleaned. Today this event is remembered as one of the key reasons the Second Amendment exists.
Discussion Topics
Earlier threads:
FReeper Book Club: The Debate over the Constitution
5 Oct 1787, Centinel #1
6 Oct 1787, James Wilson’s Speech at the State House
8 Oct 1787, Federal Farmer #1
9 Oct 1787, Federal Farmer #2
18 Oct 1787, Brutus #1
22 Oct 1787, John DeWitt #1
27 Oct 1787, John DeWitt #2
27 Oct 1787, Federalist #1
31 Oct 1787, Federalist #2
3 Nov 1787, Federalist #3
5 Nov 1787, John DeWitt #3
7 Nov 1787, Federalist #4
10 Nov 1787, Federalist #5
14 Nov 1787, Federalist #6
15 Nov 1787, Federalist #7
20 Nov 1787, Federalist #8
21 Nov 1787, Federalist #9
23 Nov 1787, Federalist #10
24 Nov 1787, Federalist #11
27 Nov 1787, Federalist #12
27 Nov 1787, Cato #5
28 Nov 1787, Federalist #13
29 Nov 1787, Brutus #4
30 Nov 1787, Federalist #14
1 Dec 1787, Federalist #15
4 Dec 1787, Federalist #16
5 Dec 1787, Federalist #17
7 Dec 1787, Federalist #18
8 Dec 1787, Federalist #19
11 Dec 1787, Federalist #20
12 Dec 1787, Federalist #21
14 Dec 1787, Federalist #22
18 Dec 1787, Federalist #23
18 Dec 1787, Address of the Pennsylvania Minority
19 Dec 1787, Federalist #24
21 Dec 1787, Federalist #25
22 Dec 1787, Federalist #26
25 Dec 1787, Federalist #27
Enough of Hamilton already!
We have quite a ways to go before Madison takes over for Hamilton. However, Brutus #6 is scheduled for Monday.
BRUTUS! BRUTUS! BRUTUS! :-)
This, of course, has proven to be a mismatch, as Hamilton probably assumed it would be.
Yeah! I know. Even a brief respite will be nice!
They will moreover, have the power of leading troops among you in order to suppress those struggles which may sometimes happen among a free people, and which tyranny will impiously brand with the name of sedition. On one day the state collector will call on you for your proportion of those taxes which have been laid on you by the general assembly, where you are fully and adequately represented; on the next will come the Continental collector to demand from you those taxes which shall be levied by the continental congress, where the whole state of Virginia will be represented by only ten men!
Thus shall we imprudently confer on so small a number the very important power of taking our money out of our pockets, and of levying taxes without control-a right which the wisdom of our state constitution will, in vain, have confided to the most numerous branch of the legislature. Should the sheriff or state collector in any manner aggrieve you either in person or property, these sacred rights are amply secured by the most solemn compact. Beside, the arm of government is always at hand to shield you from his injustice and oppression.
But if a Continental collector, in the execution of his office, should invade your freedom (according to this new government, which has expressly declared itself paramount to all state laws and constitutions) the state of which you are a citizen will have no authority to afford you relief.
A continental court may, indeed, be established in the state, and it may be urged that you will find a remedy here; but, my fellow citizens, let me ask, what protection this will afford you against the insults or rapacity of a continental officer, when he will have it in his power to appeal to the seat of congress perhaps at several hundred miles distance, and by this means oblige you to expend hundreds of pounds in obtaining redress for twenty shillings unjustly extorted?
Thus will you be necessarily compelled either to make a bold effort to extricate yourselves from these grievous and oppressive extortions, or you will be fatigued by fruitless attempts into the quiet and peaceable surrender of those rights, for which the blood of your fellow citizens has been shed in vain. But the latter will, no doubt, be the melancholy fate of a people once inspired with the love of liberty, as the power vested in congress of sending troops for suppressing insurrections will always enable them to stifle the first struggles of freedom.
It is one of those cases where Hamilton had to respond immediately to get the debate back onto ground where he felt safe.
And it appears that Brutus is about to hijack the thread. Hamilton has already expressed his complaint that the existing federal government didn't have a way of taking some of your money, the remedy for which was a means of taking all of your money. Apparently there were people who took exception to that. ;-)
That was beautiful. Thank you for the observation.
Billthedrill has finished his piece, and Brutus #6 is ready to go Monday morning. You’ll love it. Be prepared.
I know. I was just pulling your chain.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.