FEDERALIST No. 23



The Necessity of a Government as Energetic as the One Proposed to

the Preservation of the Union

From the New York Packet.

Tuesday, December 18, 1787.



HAMILTON



To the People of the State of New York:



THE necessity of a Constitution, at least equally energetic with the one

proposed, to the preservation of the Union, is the point at the

examination of which we are now arrived.



This inquiry will naturally divide itself into three branches -- the

objects to be provided for by the federal government, the quantity of

power necessary to the accomplishment of those objects, the persons upon

whom that power ought to operate. Its distribution and organization will

more properly claim our attention under the succeeding head.



The principal purposes to be answered by union are these -- the common

defense of the members; the preservation of the public peace as well

against internal convulsions as external attacks; the regulation of

commerce with other nations and between the States; the superintendence

of our intercourse, political and commercial, with foreign countries.



The authorities essential to the common defense are these: to raise

armies; to build and equip fleets; to prescribe rules for the government

of both; to direct their operations; to provide for their support. These

powers ought to exist without limitation, BECAUSE IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO

FORESEE OR DEFINE THE EXTENT AND VARIETY OF NATIONAL EXIGENCIES, OR THE

CORRESPONDENT EXTENT AND VARIETY OF THE MEANS WHICH MAY BE NECESSARY TO

SATISFY THEM. The circumstances that endanger the safety of nations are

infinite, and for this reason no constitutional shackles can wisely be

imposed on the power to which the care of it is committed. This power

ought to be coextensive with all the possible combinations of such

circumstances; and ought to be under the direction of the same councils

which are appointed to preside over the common defense.



This is one of those truths which, to a correct and unprejudiced mind,

carries its own evidence along with it; and may be obscured, but cannot

be made plainer by argument or reasoning. It rests upon axioms as simple

as they are universal; the MEANS ought to be proportioned to the END;

the persons, from whose agency the attainment of any END is expected,

ought to possess the MEANS by which it is to be attained.



Whether there ought to be a federal government intrusted with the care

of the common defense, is a question in the first instance, open for

discussion; but the moment it is decided in the affirmative, it will

follow, that that government ought to be clothed with all the powers

requisite to complete execution of its trust. And unless it can be shown

that the circumstances which may affect the public safety are reducible

within certain determinate limits; unless the contrary of this position

can be fairly and rationally disputed, it must be admitted, as a

necessary consequence, that there can be no limitation of that authority

which is to provide for the defense and protection of the community, in

any matter essential to its efficacy that is, in any matter essential to

the FORMATION, DIRECTION, or SUPPORT of the NATIONAL FORCES.



Defective as the present Confederation has been proved to be, this

principle appears to have been fully recognized by the framers of it;

though they have not made proper or adequate provision for its exercise.

Congress have an unlimited discretion to make requisitions of men and

money; to govern the army and navy; to direct their operations. As their

requisitions are made constitutionally binding upon the States, who are

in fact under the most solemn obligations to furnish the supplies

required of them, the intention evidently was that the United States

should command whatever resources were by them judged requisite to the

"common defense and general welfare." It was presumed that a sense of

their true interests, and a regard to the dictates of good faith, would

be found sufficient pledges for the punctual performance of the duty of

the members to the federal head.



The experiment has, however, demonstrated that this expectation was

ill-founded and illusory; and the observations, made under the last

head, will, I imagine, have sufficed to convince the impartial and

discerning, that there is an absolute necessity for an entire change in

the first principles of the system; that if we are in earnest about

giving the Union energy and duration, we must abandon the vain project

of legislating upon the States in their collective capacities; we must

extend the laws of the federal government to the individual citizens of

America; we must discard the fallacious scheme of quotas and

requisitions, as equally impracticable and unjust. The result from all

this is that the Union ought to be invested with full power to levy

troops; to build and equip fleets; and to raise the revenues which will

be required for the formation and support of an army and navy, in the

customary and ordinary modes practiced in other governments.



If the circumstances of our country are such as to demand a compound

instead of a simple, a confederate instead of a sole, government, the

essential point which will remain to be adjusted will be to discriminate

the OBJECTS, as far as it can be done, which shall appertain to the

different provinces or departments of power; allowing to each the most

ample authority for fulfilling the objects committed to its charge.

Shall the Union be constituted the guardian of the common safety? Are

fleets and armies and revenues necessary to this purpose? The government

of the Union must be empowered to pass all laws, and to make all

regulations which have relation to them. The same must be the case in

respect to commerce, and to every other matter to which its jurisdiction

is permitted to extend. Is the administration of justice between the

citizens of the same State the proper department of the local

governments? These must possess all the authorities which are connected

with this object, and with every other that may be allotted to their

particular cognizance and direction. Not to confer in each case a degree

of power commensurate to the end, would be to violate the most obvious

rules of prudence and propriety, and improvidently to trust the great

interests of the nation to hands which are disabled from managing them

with vigor and success.



Who is likely to make suitable provisions for the public defense, as

that body to which the guardianship of the public safety is confided;

which, as the centre of information, will best understand the extent and

urgency of the dangers that threaten; as the representative of the

WHOLE, will feel itself most deeply interested in the preservation of

every part; which, from the responsibility implied in the duty assigned

to it, will be most sensibly impressed with the necessity of proper

exertions; and which, by the extension of its authority throughout the

States, can alone establish uniformity and concert in the plans and

measures by which the common safety is to be secured? Is there not a

manifest inconsistency in devolving upon the federal government the care

of the general defense, and leaving in the State governments the

EFFECTIVE powers by which it is to be provided for? Is not a want of

co-operation the infallible consequence of such a system? And will not

weakness, disorder, an undue distribution of the burdens and calamities

of war, an unnecessary and intolerable increase of expense, be its

natural and inevitable concomitants? Have we not had unequivocal

experience of its effects in the course of the revolution which we have

just accomplished?



Every view we may take of the subject, as candid inquirers after truth,

will serve to convince us, that it is both unwise and dangerous to deny

the federal government an unconfined authority, as to all those objects

which are intrusted to its management. It will indeed deserve the most

vigilant and careful attention of the people, to see that it be modeled

in such a manner as to admit of its being safely vested with the

requisite powers. If any plan which has been, or may be, offered to our

consideration, should not, upon a dispassionate inspection, be found to

answer this description, it ought to be rejected. A government, the

constitution of which renders it unfit to be trusted with all the powers

which a free people ought to delegate to any government, would be an

unsafe and improper depositary of the NATIONAL INTERESTS. Wherever THESE

can with propriety be confided, the coincident powers may safely

accompany them. This is the true result of all just reasoning upon the

subject. And the adversaries of the plan promulgated by the convention

ought to have confined themselves to showing, that the internal

structure of the proposed government was such as to render it unworthy

of the confidence of the people. They ought not to have wandered into

inflammatory declamations and unmeaning cavils about the extent of the

powers. The POWERS are not too extensive for the OBJECTS of federal

administration, or, in other words, for the management of our NATIONAL

INTERESTS; nor can any satisfactory argument be framed to show that they

are chargeable with such an excess. If it be true, as has been

insinuated by some of the writers on the other side, that the difficulty

arises from the nature of the thing, and that the extent of the country

will not permit us to form a government in which such ample powers can

safely be reposed, it would prove that we ought to contract our views,

and resort to the expedient of separate confederacies, which will move

within more practicable spheres. For the absurdity must continually

stare us in the face of confiding to a government the direction of the

most essential national interests, without daring to trust it to the

authorities which are indispensible to their proper and efficient

management. Let us not attempt to reconcile contradictions, but firmly

embrace a rational alternative.



I trust, however, that the impracticability of one general system cannot

be shown. I am greatly mistaken, if any thing of weight has yet been

advanced of this tendency; and I flatter myself, that the observations

which have been made in the course of these papers have served to place

the reverse of that position in as clear a light as any matter still in

the womb of time and experience can be susceptible of. This, at all

events, must be evident, that the very difficulty itself, drawn from the

extent of the country, is the strongest argument in favor of an

energetic government; for any other can certainly never preserve the

Union of so large an empire. If we embrace the tenets of those who

oppose the adoption of the proposed Constitution, as the standard of our

political creed, we cannot fail to verify the gloomy doctrines which

predict the impracticability of a national system pervading entire

limits of the present Confederacy.



PUBLIUS