FEDERALIST No. 7



The Same Subject Continued

(Concerning Dangers from Dissensions Between the States)

For the Independent Journal.

Thursday, November 15, 1787



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 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

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[1] must be the motto of every nation that either

hates or fears us.[2]



PUBLIUS



1. Divide and command.



2. In order that the whole subject of these papers may as soon as

possible be laid before the public, it is proposed to publish them four

times a week -- on Tuesday in the New York Packet and on Thursday in the

Daily Advertiser.