FEDERALIST No. 28



The Same Subject Continued

(The Idea of Restraining the Legislative Authority in Regard to

the Common Defense Considered)

For the Independent Journal.

Wednesday, December 26, 1787



HAMILTON



To the People of the State of New York:



THAT there may happen cases in which the national government may be

necessitated to resort to force, cannot be denied. Our own experience

has corroborated the lessons taught by the examples of other nations;

that emergencies of this sort will sometimes arise in all societies,

however constituted; that seditions and insurrections are, unhappily,

maladies as inseparable from the body politic as tumors and eruptions

from the natural body; 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.



Should such emergencies at any time happen under the national

government, there could be no remedy but force. The means to be employed

must be proportioned to the extent of the mischief. 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. An insurrection, whatever may

be its immediate cause, eventually endangers all government. 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.



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. 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.

Suppose the State of New York had been inclined to re-establish 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?

Would she not have been compelled to raise and to maintain a more

regular force for the execution of her design? 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? 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? Who would not prefer that possibility to

the unceasing agitations and frequent revolutions which are the

continual scourges of petty republics?



Let us pursue this examination in another light. 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? 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? 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? 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.



Independent of all other reasonings 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. This is the essential, and, after all, only efficacious security

for the rights and privileges of the people, which is attainable in

civil society.[1]



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. In a single state, if the persons

intrusted 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. The

citizens must rush tumultuously to arms, without concert, without

system, without resource; except in their courage and despair. The

usurpers, clothed with the forms of legal authority, can too often crush

the opposition in embryo. 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. 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. In this situation there must be a peculiar

coincidence of circumstances to insure success to the popular

resistance.



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 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. But in a confederacy the people, without

exaggeration, may be said to be entirely the masters of their own fate.

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. The people, by throwing themselves into either

scale, will infallibly make it preponderate. If their rights are invaded

by either, they can make use of the other as the instrument of redress.

How wise will it be in them by cherishing the union to preserve to

themselves an advantage which can never be too highly prized!



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. 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. The legislatures will have better means of information.

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. They can readily communicate with each

other in the different States, and unite their common forces for the

protection of their common liberty.



The great extent of the country is a further security. We have already

experienced its utility against the attacks of a foreign power. And it

would have precisely the same effect against the enterprises of

ambitious rulers in the national councils. 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. 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.



We should recollect that the extent of the military force must, at all

events, be regulated by the resources of the country. 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. 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? The

apprehension may be considered as a disease, for which there can be

found no cure in the resources of argument and reasoning.



PUBLIUS



1. Its full efficacy will be examined hereafter.