Federalist 6: The Causes of Human Hostility Are Innumerable

ONE MUST BE FAR GONE IN UTOPIAN SPECULATIONS to question whether the States of a disunited America would have frequent and violent contests with each other. We should not presume a lack of motives for such hostilities. Are not humans ambitious, rapacious, and vindictive? To anticipate harmony between a number of independent, unconnected sovereignties in the same neighborhood would be to disregard the uniform course of human events, and to set at defiance the accumulated experience of the ages.

In Federalist 3 through Federalist 5, I exposed the dangers a  disunited United States would suffer from the arms and arts of foreign nations. I now delineate dangers of a different and more alarming kind:  those which will flow from dissensions between the States themselves, and from domestic factions and convulsions.  

The Love and Jealousy of Power

The causes of hostility among nations are innumerable. Some have a general and almost constant operation upon the collective bodies of society.  One is the love of power: the desire for preeminence and dominion. Another is the jealousy of power:  the desire for equality and safety.  

The Commercial Rivalries of Nations

Other causes of hostility are more circumscribed – such as the rivalries and competitions between commercial nations – but these too maintain an equally operative influence within their spheres.  

The Rivalries of Passion

Still other causes of human hostility take their origin entirely in private passions, such as the attachments, enmities, interests, hopes and fears of leading individuals in their communities.  Individuals of this class – whether the favorites a king or a people – have in too many instances abused the confidence they possessed. They have assumed the pretext of some public motive, and sacrificed the national tranquility to personal advantage or personal gratification. More grounds of human hostility are discussed in Federalist 7. 

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The causes of hostility among nations are innumerable. Some have a general and almost constant operation upon the collective bodies of society. One is the love of power: the desire for preeminence and dominion. Another is the jealousy of power: the desire for equality and safety.

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The Case of Pericles and Athens

The celebrated Pericles of Athens attacked, vanquished, and destroyed another Greek city-state – at the expense of much of the blood and treasure of his countrymen – to satisfy the resentment of a woman. The same man was the primitive author of the famous and fatal Peloponnesian War which, after various vicissitudes, intermissions and renewals, terminated in the ruin of the Athenian commonwealth. 

The stimulus for his actions was either a private pique against another city-state, or to avoid his own prosecution for theft of public funds, or to eliminate accusations that he had dissipated the funds of the state to purchase popularity, or from a combination of all these causes.

Cardinal Wolsey and Charles V of Spain

The ambitious Cardinal Wolsey, the prime minister to Henry VIII,  permitted his vanity to aspire to the papacy – with the aid of Emperor Charles V of Spain.  To this end, Wolsey precipitated England into a war with France, contrary to the plainest dictates of policy, thereby hazarding the safety and independence of England and Europe. If ever there was a sovereign who bid fair to realize the project of universal monarchy, it was Charles V, of whose intrigues Wolsey was at once both instrument and dupe.

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If ever there was a sovereign who bid fair to realize the project of universal monarchy, it was Charles V of Spain, of whose intrigues Cardinal Wolsey was at once both instrument and dupe.

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Recent Examples, Including Shays of Massachusetts

More recently, the bigotry of Madame de Maintenon, the petulance of the Duchess of Marlborough, and the cabals of Madame de Pompadour have led to ferments and pacifications of a considerable part of Europe. 

It is unnecessary to multiply examples of the agency of personal considerations in the production of great national events. Even those only superficially acquainted with the sources from which they are drawn will themselves recollect a variety of similar instances.  

One has lately happened among ourselves. If the leader of Shays’ Rebellion had not been a desperate debtor, it is doubtful Massachusetts would have been plunged into a civil war.

Visionaries and Schemers Alike Will Advocate Dismemberment of the United States 

Notwithstanding the concurring testimony of experience, there are still to be found visionary or designing individuals who stand ready to advocate the paradox of perpetual peace among the States even though they be dismembered and alienated from each other.  The genius of republics (say they) is pacific; the spirit of commerce has a tendency to soften the manners of men, and to extinguish those inflammable humors which have so often kindled into wars. Commercial republics like ours, the argument proceeds, will never be disposed to waste themselves in ruinous contentions with each other. They will be governed by mutual interest, and will cultivate a spirit of mutual amity and concord.

But we may ask, is it not the true interest of all nations to cultivate the same benevolent and philosophic spirit?  And if this be their true interest, have they in fact pursued it? Or has it not invariably been found that momentary passions and immediate interests have a more active and imperious control over human conduct than those general or remote considerations of policy, utility and justice? In practice, have republics been less addicted to war than monarchies?  Both are administered by individuals. 

The aversions, predilections, rivalries and desires of unjust acquisitions affect nations as well as kings.  Are not popular assemblies frequently subject to the impulses of rage, resentment, jealousy, avarice and other irregular and violent propensities?  The decisions of popular assemblies are often governed by a few individual leaders whose passions and views have infected those of the body or assembly.   

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One must be far gone in utopian speculations to question whether the States of a disunited America would have frequent and violent contests with each other.

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Has commerce hitherto done anything more than change the objects of war? Is not the love of wealth as domineering and enterprising a passion as that of power or glory? Have there not been as many wars founded upon commercial motives since that has become the prevailing system of nations, as were before occasioned by the cupidity of territory or dominion? Has not the spirit of commerce, in many instances, administered new incentives to the appetite, both for the one and for the other?  Let experience – the least fallible guide of human opinions – be consulted for an answer to these inquiries.

Experience Proves Even Commercial Republics Are Fallible    

Sparta, Athens, Rome, and Carthage were all republics.  Sparta was little better than a well regulated camp, and Rome was never sated of carnage and conquest. Athens and Carthage were commercial republics, yet were they as often engaged in wars – offensive and defensive – as the neighboring monarchies of the same times. 

Although it was a commercial republic, Carthage was the aggressor in the very war that ended in her destruction. Hannibal carried her arms into the heart of Italy and to the gates of Rome, before Scipio, in turn, gave him an overthrow in the territories of Carthage, and made a conquest of that commonwealth.

Venice, in later times, figured more than once in wars of ambition, until it became an object to the other Italian states and the pope, who formed a league with the kingdoms of France and Aragon, which gave a deadly blow to the power and pride of the haughty Venetian republic.

The provinces of Holland took a leading and conspicuous part in the wars of Europe, until they were overwhelmed in debts and taxes.

Commerce has been for ages the predominant pursuit of Britain, but few nations have been more frequently engaged in war. Although the representatives of its People compose one branch of the national legislature, they have championed aggression in numerous instances. 

There have been almost as many popular wars as royal wars. The cries of a nation and the importunities of its representatives have dragged its monarchs into war upon various occasions, or continued them in it, contrary to the monarch’s inclinations – and sometimes contrary to the real interests of the state. In that memorable struggle for superiority between the rival houses of Austria and Bourbon, Europe was long kept in a flame by the antipathies of the English – stirred by the avarice of their favored leader, the Duke of Marlborough – who protracted the war beyond the limits marked out by sound policy, and for a considerable time in opposition to the views of the court.

The wars of England and France have in a great measure grown out of commercial considerations – the desire of supplanting and the fear of being supplanted – either in particular branches of traffic or in the general advantages of trade and navigation.

From this summary of situations nearest our own, what reason can seduce us into an expectation of peace and cordiality between the members of a confederacy in a state of separation?  Have we not already seen enough of the fallacy and extravagance of those idle theories which have amused us with promises of an exemption from the imperfections, weaknesses and evils incident to society in every shape? We must awaken from the deceitful dream of a golden age, and adopt as a practical maxim for the direction of our political conduct that we – as well as the other inhabitants of the globe – are yet remote from the happy empire of perfect wisdom and perfect virtue. 

We need look no further than the extreme depression to which our national dignity and credit have sunk, the lax and ill administration of government, the revolt in a part of North Carolina, the late menacing disturbances in Pennsylvania, and the actual insurrections and rebellions in Massachusetts.  

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We must awaken from the deceitful dream of a golden age, and adopt as a practical maxim for the direction of  our political conduct that we – as well as the other inhabitants of the globe – are yet remote from the happy empire of perfect wisdom and perfect virtue. 

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The Enmity which Naturally Arises from Close Physical Proximity Can Be Alleviated by a League of Confederate Republics 

From long observation of the progress of human society, it is an axiom in politics that vicinity or nearness of situation can render nations natural enemies. L’Abbé de Mably, an intelligent writer on this subject, explained how a joinder of neighboring weak confederacies can overcome this natural tendency to animosity:  “Neighboring nations are naturally enemies of each other unless their common weakness forces them to league in a confederate republic, and their constitution prevents the differences that neighborhood occasions, extinguishing that secret jealousy which disposes all states to aggrandize themselves at the expense of their neighbors.”  

This passage at once points out the evil and suggests the remedy.

Hamiltonoriginal Federalist 6