RESUMING THE SUBJECT OF FEDERALIST 45, I now inquire whether the predilection and support of the People will lie with the Federal government or with State governments.
Although appointed differently, both governments are substantially dependent on the great body of the citizens of the United States.
In fact, the adversaries of the Constitution omitted the People altogether in their reasonings on this topic, thereby ignoring that ultimate authority resides in the People alone.
The Federal and State governments are not mutual rivals and enemies, as some contended.
The Federal and State governments are but different agents and trustees of the People, constituted with different powers, and designed for different purposes.
Thus, the authorities of the Federal and State governments do not depend merely on the comparative ambition or location of each, or whether one will enlarge its sphere of jurisdiction at the expense of the other.
Truth and decency require the event in every case will depend on the sentiments and sanction of their common constituents.
The People Will Naturally Favor State Governments
The first and most natural attachment of the People will be to the governments of their respective States.
A greater number of individuals will rise into the administration of State governments – and from these a greater number of offices and emoluments will flow – and by the superintending care of these individuals the domestic and personal interests of the People of each State will be provided for and regulated.
The People will be more familiar and minutely conversant with the affairs of State officials, with whom they will share greater ties of personal acquaintance, friendship, family and party attachment, than with Federal officials.
Therefore the popular bias may well be expected most strongly to incline the People to favor State officials.
Experience speaks the same language.
During the Revolutionary War, the Federal administration had as great an activity and importance as it can have in any future circumstance whatever.
It was engaged in a course of measures whose object was the protection of everything that was dear, and the acquisition of everything that could be desirable to the People at large.
Nevertheless, after the transient enthusiasm for the early Congresses was over, it was invariably found the attention and attachments of the People turned anew to their own State governments.
The Federal council was at no time the idol of popular favor. In practice, those who sought to build their political futures on the prepossessions of their fellow-citizens usually opposed enlargement of the Federal sphere.
The Federal and State governments are not mutual rivals and enemies, as some contended. The Federal and State governments are but different agents and trustees of the People, constituted with different powers, and designed for different purposes.
If the Federal Government Becomes More Popular than State Governments, It Would Be Due to a Better Administration
If in the future the People should overcome all their antecedent propensities and become more partial to the Federal government than to their State governments, the change could only have resulted from the manifest and irresistible proofs of a better Federal administration.
Should that occur, the People ought not be precluded from giving most of their confidence where they discover it is most due.
But even in that event, the State governments would have little to apprehend, due to the limited sphere in which the Federal power can be administered advantageously.
State Governments May More Easily Frustrate the Laws of the Federal Government than vice versa
The remaining points of comparison between the Federal and State governments are the disposition and faculty they respectively possess to resist and frustrate the measures of each other.
I have already proven the members of the Federal government will be more dependent on the members of the State governments, than vice versa.
Furthermore, the prepossessions of the People – on whom both the Federal and State governments depend – will be more on the side of the State governments.
If in the future the People should overcome all their antecedent propensities and become more partial to the Federal government than to their State governments, the change could only have resulted from the manifest and irresistible proofs of a better Federal administration.
The prepossessions the members themselves will carry into the Federal government also will be more favorable to the States, while rarely will members of State governments carry into the public councils a bias in favor of the Federal government.
Further, a spirit in favor of the States among members of Congress will infallibly exceed a spirit in favor of the Federal government among the legislatures of the States.
So far as the disposition of each towards the other may be influenced by these causes, the State governments must clearly have the advantage.
Everyone knows most of the errors committed by the members of State legislatures proceed from the disposition of the members to sacrifice the comprehensive and permanent interest of their State to the particular and separate views of the counties or districts in which they reside.
And if such members cannot sufficiently enlarge their policy to embrace the collective welfare of their particular State, how will they make the aggregate prosperity of the United States and the dignity and respectability of its government the objects of their affections and consultations?
For the same reason members of State legislatures cannot attach themselves sufficiently to State and Federal objects, so too will members of Congress attach themselves too much to local objects.
The States will be to the Federal members what counties and towns are to the State members.
Measures will too often be decided according to their probable effect on the prejudices, interests, and pursuits of the governments and people of the individual States, rather than on the national prosperity and happiness.
What is the spirit that has in general characterized the proceedings of Congress?
Their journals – as well as the candid acknowledgments of those who have been seated there – inform us the members have but too frequently displayed the character of partisans of their respective States rather than impartial guardians of a common interest.
For every occasion when improper sacrifices were made of local considerations to the aggrandizement of the Federal government, the great interests of the nation have suffered a hundred losses from an undue attention to the local prejudices, interests, and views of the particular States.
These reflections are not intended to insinuate the new Federal government will not embrace a more enlarged plan of policy than the existing government has pursued, or that its views will be as confined as those of the State legislatures.
I imply only that the Federal government will partake sufficiently of the spirit of both State and Federal interests, and be disinclined to invade the rights of the individual States, or the prerogatives of their governments.
In short, the motives on the part of the State governments to augment their prerogatives by misappropriating Federal powers will not be overruled by reciprocal predispositions in the Federal members.
Even if the Federal government may feel an equal disposition with the State governments to extend its power beyond the due limits, the State governments would still have the advantage in the means of defeating such encroachments.
For instance, if a generally popular State action became effective immediately – and should not too grossly violate the oaths of the State officers – it would be enforced on the spot according to State rules, even though the act was unfriendly to the national government.
The opposition of the Federal government – or the interposition of Federal officers – would but inflame the zeal of all parties on the side of the State.
Federal opposition could neither prevent nor repair the evil, except by the use of means which must always be resorted to with reluctance and difficulty.
On the one hand, should an unwarrantable measure of the Federal government be unpopular in particular States (which would seldom fail to be the case) – or even a warrantable measure of the Federal government be so unpopular (which may sometimes be the case), the means of opposition to it are powerful and at hand:
(1) the disquietude of the People and their repugnance and possible refusal to cooperate with the officers of the United States,
(2) the frowns of the executive magistracy of the State, and
(3) the embarrassments created by legislative devices which would often be added on such occasions.
In a large State – particularly where the sentiments of several adjoining States happened to be in unison – these interests would present very serious obstructions the Federal government would hardly be willing to encounter.
On the other hand, ambitious encroachments of the Federal government on the authority of State governments would be signals of general alarm in all the States.
The same combinations that were produced previously by the dread of a foreign yoke would result from an apprehension of a Federal yoke.
Unless the projected Federal innovations should be voluntarily renounced, the same appeal to a trial of force would be made in the one case as was made in the other.
Every government would espouse the common cause.
A correspondence would be opened, plans of resistance concerted, and one spirit would animate and conduct the whole.
What degree of madness could ever drive the Federal government to such an extremity?
In the contest with Great Britain, one part of the empire was employed against the other.
The more numerous part invaded the rights of the less numerous part.
The attempt was unjust and unwise, but it was not in speculation absolutely chimerical.
What would be the contest in the case we are supposing?
Who would be the parties?
A few Federal representatives of the People would be opposed to the People themselves.
More precisely, one set of Federal representatives would be contending against thirteen sets of state representatives, with the whole body of their common constituents on the side of the State governments.
Even if the Federal government may feel an equal disposition with the State governments to extend its power beyond the due limits, the State governments would still have the advantage in the means of defeating such encroachments.
The Right to Bear Arms and Maintain State and Local Governments Are the Best Defenses to Federal Tyranny
The only refuge left for those who prophesy the downfall of State governments is the visionary supposition that the Federal government may accumulate a military force for its projects of ambition.
These papers will have been useless indeed if it is now necessary now to disprove the reality of this danger.
To imagine the People and the States would elect a sufficiently uninterrupted succession of individuals ready to betray both; that the traitors should uniformly and systematically pursue some fixed plan for the extension of the military establishment throughout this period; that the State governments and the People of the States should silently and patiently behold the gathering storm, and continue to supply the materials, until it should be prepared to burst on their own heads, must appear to everyone more like the incoherent dreams of a delirious jealousy or the misjudged exaggerations of a counterfeit zeal, than like the sober apprehensions of genuine patriotism.
Extravagant as the supposition is, however, let it be made.
If we assume a regular army fully equal to the resources of the country is formed entirely at the devotion of the Federal government, then State governments – with the People on their side – would be able to repel the danger.
According to the best computation, the highest number to which a standing army can be carried in any country does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls, or one quarter of the number able to bear arms. In the United States, this proportion would not yield an army of more than 25 or 30 thousand men.
To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence.
It is doubtful whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular Federal troops.
Those who are best acquainted with the last successful resistance of this country against the British arms will be most inclined to deny the possibility of it.
First, unlike the People of almost every other nation, Americans have the advantage of being armed.
Further, the existence of State and local governments to which the People are attached – and by which the militia officers are appointed – forms a nearly insurmountable barrier against the enterprises of Federal ambition.
Consider the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear.
Their governments are afraid to trust their inhabitants with arms.
But even armed, it is uncertain whether this aid alone would allow them to shake off their yokes.
But if those inhabitants possessed the additional advantages of local governments chosen by them – governments which could collect the national will, direct the national force, and appoint militia officers attached both to them and to the militia – the throne of every tyranny in Europe would be speedily overturned notwithstanding the legions surrounding it.
The free and gallant citizens of America would be no less able would than these debased subjects of arbitrary power to defend their rights, particularly since our citizens already will be in actual possession of those rights.
Let us no longer insult the People of America with the supposition that they will ever reduce themselves to the use of force as a result of their blind and tame submission to a long train of insidious measures which must precede and produce it.
Either the mode in which the Federal government is constructed will render it sufficiently dependent on the People, or it will not.
If dependent on the People, it will be restrained thereby from forming schemes obnoxious to their constituents.
If independent of the People, the Federal government will not possess their confidence, and its schemes of usurpation will be easily defeated by the State governments, who will be supported by the People.
Either the mode in which the Federal government is constructed will render it sufficiently dependent on the People, or it will not. If dependent on the People, it will be restrained thereby from forming schemes obnoxious to their constituents. If independent of the People, the Federal government will not possess their confidence, and its schemes of usurpation will be easily defeated by the State governments, who will be supported by the People.
The powers to be lodged in the Federal government are as little formidable to those reserved to the individual States, as they are indispensably necessary to accomplish the purposes of the United States.
All those alarms sounded about of the eventual annihilation of State governments must be ascribed to the chimerical fears of their authors.
Madison