FEDERALIST No. 14



Objections to the Proposed Constitution From Extent of Territory

Answered

From the New York Packet.

Friday, November 30, 1787.



MADISON



To the People of the State of New York:



WE HAVE seen the necessity of the Union, as our bulwark against foreign

danger, as the conservator of peace among ourselves, as the guardian of

our commerce and other common interests, as the only substitute for

those military establishments which have subverted the liberties of the

Old World, and as the proper antidote for the diseases of faction, which

have proved fatal to other popular governments, and of which alarming

symptoms have been betrayed by our own. All that remains, within this

branch of our inquiries, is to take notice of an objection that may be

drawn from the great extent of country which the Union embraces. A few

observations on this subject will be the more proper, as it is perceived

that the adversaries of the new Constitution are availing themselves of

the prevailing prejudice with regard to the practicable sphere of

republican administration, in order to supply, by imaginary

difficulties, the want of those solid objections which they endeavor in

vain to find.



The error which limits republican government to a narrow district has

been unfolded and refuted in preceding papers. I remark here only that

it seems to owe its rise and prevalence chiefly to the confounding of a

republic with a democracy, applying to the former reasonings drawn from

the nature of the latter. The true distinction between these forms was

also adverted to on a former occasion. It is, that in a democracy, the

people meet and exercise the government in person; in a republic, they

assemble and administer it by their representatives and agents. A

democracy, consequently, will be confined to a small spot. A republic

may be extended over a large region.



To this accidental source of the error may be added the artifice of some

celebrated authors, whose writings have had a great share in forming the

modern standard of political opinions. Being subjects either of an

absolute or limited monarchy, they have endeavored to heighten the

advantages, or palliate the evils of those forms, by placing in

comparison the vices and defects of the republican, and by citing as

specimens of the latter the turbulent democracies of ancient Greece and

modern Italy. Under the confusion of names, it has been an easy task to

transfer to a republic observations applicable to a democracy only; and

among others, the observation that it can never be established but among

a small number of people, living within a small compass of territory.



Such a fallacy may have been the less perceived, as most of the popular

governments of antiquity were of the democratic species; and even in

modern Europe, to which we owe the great principle of representation, no

example is seen of a government wholly popular, and founded, at the same

time, wholly on that principle. If Europe has the merit of discovering

this great mechanical power in government, by the simple agency of which

the will of the largest political body may be concentred, and its force

directed to any object which the public good requires, America can claim

the merit of making the discovery the basis of unmixed and extensive

republics. It is only to be lamented that any of her citizens should

wish to deprive her of the additional merit of displaying its full

efficacy in the establishment of the comprehensive system now under her

consideration.



As the natural limit of a democracy is that distance from the central

point which will just permit the most remote citizens to assemble as

often as their public functions demand, and will include no greater

number than can join in those functions; so the natural limit of a

republic is that distance from the centre which will barely allow the

representatives to meet as often as may be necessary for the

administration of public affairs. Can it be said that the limits of the

United States exceed this distance? It will not be said by those who

recollect that the Atlantic coast is the longest side of the Union, that

during the term of thirteen years, the representatives of the States

have been almost continually assembled, and that the members from the

most distant States are not chargeable with greater intermissions of

attendance than those from the States in the neighborhood of Congress.



That we may form a juster estimate with regard to this interesting

subject, let us resort to the actual dimensions of the Union. The

limits, as fixed by the treaty of peace, are: on the east the Atlantic,

on the south the latitude of thirty-one degrees, on the west the

Mississippi, and on the north an irregular line running in some

instances beyond the forty-fifth degree, in others falling as low as the

forty-second. The southern shore of Lake Erie lies below that latitude.

Computing the distance between the thirty-first and forty-fifth degrees,

it amounts to nine hundred and seventy-three common miles; computing it

from thirty-one to forty-two degrees, to seven hundred and sixty-four

miles and a half. Taking the mean for the distance, the amount will be

eight hundred and sixty-eight miles and three-fourths. The mean distance

from the Atlantic to the Mississippi does not probably exceed seven

hundred and fifty miles. On a comparison of this extent with that of

several countries in Europe, the practicability of rendering our system

commensurate to it appears to be demonstrable. It is not a great deal

larger than Germany, where a diet representing the whole empire is

continually assembled; or than Poland before the late dismemberment,

where another national diet was the depositary of the supreme power.

Passing by France and Spain, we find that in Great Britain, inferior as

it may be in size, the representatives of the northern extremity of the

island have as far to travel to the national council as will be required

of those of the most remote parts of the Union.



Favorable as this view of the subject may be, some observations remain

which will place it in a light still more satisfactory.



In the first place it is to be remembered that the general government is

not to be charged with the whole power of making and administering laws.

Its jurisdiction is limited to certain enumerated objects, which concern

all the members of the republic, but which are not to be attained by the

separate provisions of any. The subordinate governments, which can

extend their care to all those other subjects which can be separately

provided for, will retain their due authority and activity. Were it

proposed by the plan of the convention to abolish the governments of the

particular States, its adversaries would have some ground for their

objection; though it would not be difficult to show that if they were

abolished the general government would be compelled, by the principle of

self-preservation, to reinstate them in their proper jurisdiction.



A second observation to be made is that the immediate object of the

federal Constitution is to secure the union of the thirteen primitive

States, which we know to be practicable; and to add to them such other

States as may arise in their own bosoms, or in their neighborhoods,

which we cannot doubt to be equally practicable. The arrangements that

may be necessary for those angles and fractions of our territory which

lie on our northwestern frontier, must be left to those whom further

discoveries and experience will render more equal to the task.



Let it be remarked, in the third place, that the intercourse throughout

the Union will be facilitated by new improvements. Roads will everywhere

be shortened, and kept in better order; accommodations for travelers

will be multiplied and meliorated; an interior navigation on our eastern

side will be opened throughout, or nearly throughout, the whole extent

of the thirteen States. The communication between the Western and

Atlantic districts, and between different parts of each, will be

rendered more and more easy by those numerous canals with which the

beneficence of nature has intersected our country, and which art finds

it so little difficult to connect and complete.



A fourth and still more important consideration is, that as almost every

State will, on one side or other, be a frontier, and will thus find, in

regard to its safety, an inducement to make some sacrifices for the sake

of the general protection; so the States which lie at the greatest

distance from the heart of the Union, and which, of course, may partake

least of the ordinary circulation of its benefits, will be at the same

time immediately contiguous to foreign nations, and will consequently

stand, on particular occasions, in greatest need of its strength and

resources. It may be inconvenient for Georgia, or the States forming our

western or northeastern borders, to send their representatives to the

seat of government; but they would find it more so to struggle alone

against an invading enemy, or even to support alone the whole expense of

those precautions which may be dictated by the neighborhood of continual

danger. If they should derive less benefit, therefore, from the Union in

some respects than the less distant States, they will derive greater

benefit from it in other respects, and thus the proper equilibrium will

be maintained throughout.



I submit to you, my fellow-citizens, these considerations, in full

confidence that the good sense which has so often marked your decisions

will allow them their due weight and effect; and that you will never

suffer difficulties, however formidable in appearance, or however

fashionable the error on which they may be founded, to drive you into

the gloomy and perilous scene into which the advocates for disunion

would conduct you. Hearken not to the unnatural voice which tells you

that the people of America, knit together as they are by so many cords

of affection, can no longer live together as members of the same family;

can no longer continue the mutual guardians of their mutual happiness;

can no longer be fellow citizens of one great, respectable, and

flourishing empire. Hearken not to the voice which petulantly tells you

that the form of government recommended for your adoption is a novelty

in the political world; that it has never yet had a place in the

theories of the wildest projectors; that it rashly attempts what it is

impossible to accomplish. No, my countrymen, shut your ears against this

unhallowed language. Shut your hearts against the poison which it

conveys; the kindred blood which flows in the veins of American

citizens, the mingled blood which they have shed in defense of their

sacred rights, consecrate their Union, and excite horror at the idea of

their becoming aliens, rivals, enemies. And if novelties are to be

shunned, believe me, the most alarming of all novelties, the most wild

of all projects, the most rash of all attempts, is that of rendering us

in pieces, in order to preserve our liberties and promote our happiness.

But why is the experiment of an extended republic to be rejected, merely

because it may comprise what is new? Is it not the glory of the people

of America, that, whilst they have paid a decent regard to the opinions

of former times and other nations, they have not suffered a blind

veneration for antiquity, for custom, or for names, to overrule the

suggestions of their own good sense, the knowledge of their own

situation, and the lessons of their own experience? To this manly

spirit, posterity will be indebted for the possession, and the world for

the example, of the numerous innovations displayed on the American

theatre, in favor of private rights and public happiness. Had no

important step been taken by the leaders of the Revolution for which a

precedent could not be discovered, no government established of which an

exact model did not present itself, the people of the United States

might, at this moment have been numbered among the melancholy victims of

misguided councils, must at best have been laboring under the weight of

some of those forms which have crushed the liberties of the rest of

mankind. Happily for America, happily, we trust, for the whole human

race, they pursued a new and more noble course. They accomplished a

revolution which has no parallel in the annals of human society. They

reared the fabrics of governments which have no model on the face of the

globe. They formed the design of a great Confederacy, which it is

incumbent on their successors to improve and perpetuate. If their works

betray imperfections, we wonder at the fewness of them. If they erred

most in the structure of the Union, this was the work most difficult to

be executed; this is the work which has been new modelled by the act of

your convention, and it is that act on which you are now to deliberate

and to decide.



PUBLIUS