Federalist 16: Anarchy Results When Federal Systems Lack Power Over Subordinate Individuals
WHEN A CENTRAL AUTHORITY or government directs its legislation to lesser states or communities in their political capacities – as opposed to directing it to the individuals comprising those states or communities – the tendency is towards anarchy, as exemplified both by the experiment we have made of it, and the events which have befallen all other federal governments in exact proportion to its prevalence in those systems.
Legislation directed to states or communities invariably leads to delinquencies by one or more of its members. The only constitutional remedy for such delinquencies is force, and the immediate effect of its use is civil war.
The Use of Force Is a Far from Certain Remedy for Breaches by Subordinate Governments
It was uncertain whether the use of force would even have remedied the ills which weakened our former confederacy of States. In the absence of a large army constantly at the disposal of the national government, force could not be employed at all. If an army could have been raised, it would have resulted in a war between parts of the former confederacy.
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Legislation directed to states or communities invariably leads to delinquencies by one or more of its members. The only constitutional remedy for such delinquencies is force, and the immediate effect of its use is civil war.
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In such a war, the strongest combination would most likely have prevailed, whether consisting of those who supported or of those who resisted the general authority. Since the delinquencies to be redressed would not likely be confined to a single member, the similarity of situation among those who had neglected their duty would have induced them to unite for common defense. Aside from this motive of sympathy, if a large and influential State should happen to have been the initial aggressor, it would likely have weight enough with its neighbors to win over some of them as associates. It would have been easy to contrive specious arguments about dangers to the common liberty and invent plausible excuses for the delinquency, in order to alarm the apprehensions, inflame the passions, and conciliate the goodwill even of those States not chargeable with any violation or omission of duty.
This would have been the more likely course of the larger members, perhaps motivated by the ambitious premeditation of its rulers to break free from all external control upon their designs of personal aggrandizement. To achieve this end, these rulers presumably would have pleaded beforehand with leading individuals of adjacent States. If associates to their scheme could not be found at home, recourse would be had to the aid of foreign powers, who would seldom be disinclined to encourage the dissensions of a confederacy they would otherwise rightly fear.
Once the sword is drawn, the passions of humans observe no bounds of moderation. The States against which the arms of the union were exerted would have been carried by wounded pride and irritated resentment to any extreme necessary to avenge the affront or avoid the disgrace of submission. The first war of this kind would probably have terminated in a violent dissolution of the union.
A more natural death of the former confederacy of States is what we now seem to be on the point of experiencing, unless the Federal system is speedily renovated in a more substantial form. Considering the genius of this country, it would be improbable for complying States to support the authority of the Union by engaging in a war against the noncomplying States. They would always be more ready to pursue the milder course of putting themselves upon an equal footing with the delinquent members by an imitation of their example. And the guilt of all would thus become the security of all.
Our past experience has exhibited the operation of this spirit in its full light, due to the insuperable difficulty in ascertaining when force could with propriety be employed. In the case of pecuniary contribution to the national government – which was the most usual source of delinquency – it was often impossible to decide whether it had proceeded from disinclination or inability. The pretense of inability would always be advanced, and seldom refuted, except in cases where the fallacy was flagrant. It is easy to see that this problem alone, as often as it should occur, would open a wide field for the exercise of factious views, partiality, and oppression, among any majority that happened to prevail in the national council.
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Once the sword is drawn, the passions of humans observe no bounds of moderation.
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It requires no proof that States ought not to prefer a national Constitution which could only be kept in motion by the instrumentality of a large army continually on foot to execute the ordinary requisitions or decrees of the government. And yet this is the plain alternative involved by those who wish to deny it the power of extending its operations to individuals. If such a scheme were even practicable, it would instantly degenerate into a military despotism. But such a scheme will be found in every light impracticable. To begin with, the resources of the Union are not and would not be equal to the maintenance of an army considerable enough to confine the larger States within the limits of their duty. Nor would the means ever be furnished of forming such an army in the first instance. Anyone who considers the populousness and strength of several of these States singly at the present juncture, and looks forward to what they will become, even at the distance of half a century, will at once dismiss as idle and visionary any scheme which aims at regulating their movements by laws to operate upon them in their collective capacities, and to be executed by a coercion applicable to them in the same capacities.
The principle of legislation for sovereign states, supported by military coercion, has proven ineffectual even in those confederacies composed of members smaller than many of our counties. Military coercion has been rarely employed, and then only against the weaker members. Such attempts to coerce the refractory and disobedient have been the signals of bloody wars, in which one half of the confederacy has displayed its banners against the other half.
Federal Law Must Extend to Individual Citizens
From these observations, intelligent minds must conclude that a Federal government capable of regulating the common concerns and preserving the general tranquility must be founded upon the reverse of the principle upon which the opponents of the Constitution rely. The Federal government must carry its agency to the persons of the citizens. It must stand in need of no intermediate legislation. It must itself be empowered to employ the arm of the ordinary magistrate to execute its own resolutions, and the majesty of the national authority must be manifested through the medium of the courts of justice. The government of the United States, like that of each State, must be able to address itself immediately to the hopes and fears of individuals; and to attract to its support those passions which have the strongest influence upon the human heart. The United States must possess all the means, and have a right to resort to all the methods, of executing the powers with which it is entrusted, that are possessed and exercised by the government of the particular States.
Since Federal Law Applies to Individual Citizens, a Contrary State Law Would Be an Open and Violent Exertion of an Unconstitutional Power
It may be asserted in response that any State disaffected to the authority of the United States could obstruct the execution of its laws and thereby bring the matter to the same issue of force. The objection itself loses force when we advert to the essential difference between a mere noncompliance and a direct and active resistance to the laws of the Federal government. Where the interposition of the State legislatures is necessary to give effect to a measure of the United States, those legislatures need only not act, or to act evasively, to defeat the measure. Such neglect of duty could be disguised under affected but unsubstantial provisions, so as not to appear to raise – and of course not excite – any alarm in the People for the safety of the Constitution. The State leaders may even claim their surreptitious invasions are justified on the ground of some temporary convenience, exemption, or advantage.
But if the execution of the laws of the national government should not require the intervention of the State legislatures, if they were to pass into immediate operation upon the citizens themselves, State governments could not interrupt their progress without an open and violent exertion of an unconstitutional power. No omissions or evasions could prove otherwise. They would be obliged to act, and in such a manner as would leave no doubt that they had encroached on the national rights. An experiment of this nature would always be hazardous in the face of (1) an existing Constitution that is in any degree competent to its own defense, and (2) of a People enlightened enough to distinguish between a legal exercise and an illegal usurpation of authority. The success of it would require not merely a factious majority in the legislature, but the concurrence of the courts of justice and of the body of the People. If the judges were not embarked in a conspiracy with the legislature, they would pronounce the resolutions of such a majority to be contrary to the supreme law of the land, unconstitutional, and void. If the People were not tainted with the spirit of their State representatives, they – as the natural guardians of the Constitution – would throw their weight into the national scale and give it a decided preponderancy in the contest. Attempts of this kind would not often be made with levity or rashness, because they could seldom be made without danger to the authors, except perhaps in the case of a tyrannical exercise of the Federal authority.
Refractory and Seditious Leaders of State Governments Would Be Subject to Prosecution by the Federal Executive Branch
If opposition to the national government should arise from the disorderly conduct of refractory or seditious individuals, it could be overcome by the same means which are daily employed against the same evil under the State governments. The executive magistracy – being equally the ministers of the law of the land, would doubtless be as ready to guard the national as the local regulations from the inroads of private licentiousness, from whatever source it might emanate. As to those partial commotions and insurrections, which sometimes disquiet society – from intrigues of an inconsiderable faction, or sudden or occasional ill humors that do not infect the great body of the community, the Federal government could command more extensive resources for the suppression of disturbances of that kind than would be in the power of any single State.
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It requires no proof that States ought not to prefer a national Constitution which could only be kept in motion by the instrumentality of a large army continually on foot to execute the ordinary requisitions or decrees of the government.
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A Civil War Usually Results in Revolution or Dismemberment of Empire
And as to those mortal feuds which, in certain conjunctures, spread a conflagration through a whole nation, or through a very large proportion of it – proceeding either from weighty causes of discontent given by the government or from the contagion of some violent popular paroxysm – they do not fall within any ordinary rules of calculation. When they happen, they commonly amount to revolutions and dismemberment of empire. No form of government can always either avoid or control them. It is in vain to hope to guard against events too mighty for human foresight or precaution, and it is idle to object to a government because it could not perform impossibilities.
Hamiltonoriginal Federalist 16