Federalist 23:  The Necessity of an Energetic Federal Government to Preserve the United States 

WE ARE NOW ARRIVED at the point of examining the necessity of a Constitution energetic enough to preserve the United States. This inquiry will naturally divide itself into three branches: (1) the principal objects of the Federal government, (2) the quantity of power necessary to accomplish those objects, and (3) the persons upon whom that power ought to operate. 

The principal objects of the Federal government are these:  (1) the common defense of the States; (2) the preservation of the public peace against internal convulsions as well as external attacks; (3) the regulation of commerce with other nations and between the States; and (4) the superintendence of our political and commercial intercourse with foreign countries.

The Common Defense of the States

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; and 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 which can endanger the safety of nations are infinite. For this reason, it is unwise to impose constitutional shackles on the power to respond to these circumstances. The power must be coextensive with all of the possible combinations of circumstances, and ought to be under the direction of the same councils which are appointed to preside over the common defense.

To an unprejudiced mind, this truth carries its own evidence along with it. The truth may be obscured, but neither argument nor reasoning can make it plainer, for it rests on axioms as simple as they are universal:  the means ought to be proportioned to the end, and the persons from whose agency the attainment of any end is expected ought to possess the means by which it is to be attained.

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The principal objects of the Federal government are these:  

(1) the common defense of the States; 

(2) the preservation of the public peace against internal convulsions as well as external attacks; 

(3) the regulation of commerce with other nations and between the States; and 

(4) the superintendence of our political and commercial intercourse with foreign countries.

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Whether there ought to be a Federal government entrusted with the care of the common defense was a question that was open for discussion in the first instance.  But once decided in the affirmative, it necessarily follows that the Federal government ought to be clothed with all the powers requisite to complete execution of its trust. And in the absence of proof that the power to protect public safety can be reduced to certain determinate limits, it must be admitted that no limit can exist on the authority 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.

The Articles of Confederation Recognized Broad Federal Powers Were Needed 

The care of the common defense was fully recognized by the framers of the Articles of Confederation, although they did not make a proper or adequate provision for its exercise. The powers granted to the Congress included an unlimited discretion to make requisitions of men and money, to govern the army and navy, and to direct their operations. Congressional requisitions were constitutionally binding upon the States, which were under the most solemn obligations to furnish the supplies required of them.  The evident intention of the Congress was that the Congress could command whatever resources it judged requisite to the “common defense and general welfare.” The framers of the Articles of Confederation presumed that the sense of a State as to true interests – and a regard to the dictates of good faith – would be sufficient pledges for the punctual performance of the duties of the States to the national government.  

The experiment proved this expectation was ill-founded and illusory, as quotas failed. Impartial and discerning readers of Federalist 21 and Federalist 22 were shown the absolute necessity for an entire change in the first principles of our former system.  In order to give the Federal government energy and duration, we must abandon the vain project of legislating upon the States in their collective capacities, and instead 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 United States must be invested with full power to levy troops, build and equip fleets, and raise the revenues required for the formation and support of an army and navy in the customary and ordinary modes practiced in other governments.

Once the members of the Constitutional Convention decided the circumstances of our country demand a compound government, not a simple one, it became essential to discriminate the objects which shall appertain to the different departments (or provinces) of power, and granting to each the most ample authority for fulfilling those objects.

A few issues will illustrate the manner of analysis used at the Convention. For instance, shall the Federal government be constituted the guardian of the common safety? Are fleets and armies and revenues necessary to this purpose?   Should the Federal government be empowered to pass all laws, and to make all regulations which have relation to them?  If so, the same must be the case in respect to commerce and every other matter to which its jurisdiction is permitted to extend.  Is the administration of justice between the citizens of the same State more properly the department of the local governments?  If so, the States must possess all the authorities connected with this object, along with every other that may be allotted to their cognizance and direction. A policy that fails to confer in each case a degree of power commensurate to the end would violate the most obvious rules of prudence and propriety, and entrust the great interests of the nation to hands which are disabled from managing them with vigor and success.

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A government whose constitution renders it unfit to be entrusted with all the powers a free people ought to delegate to it would be an unsafe and improper depositary of the national interests. However, once these powers are properly delegated, coincident powers may safely accompany them.

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The Federal Government Must Have the Power and the Means to Provide for a Common Defense

There is a manifest inconsistency in devolving upon the Federal government the care of the general defense, but leaving  in State governments the powers to provide for it.  The Federal government will make the most suitable provisions for the public defense, since it will be the body to which the guardianship of the public safety is confided. It will be the center of information, and will best understand the extent and urgency of the dangers that threaten.  As it will be the representative of the whole, it will feel itself most deeply interested in the preservation of every part. The responsibility implied from the duty assigned to it will most sensibly demand the necessity of proper exertions. By the extension of its authority throughout the States, it alone can establish uniformity and concert in the plans and measures to secure the common safety. To leave the State governments in control of the powers of providing for a defense will infallibly lead to a want of cooperation between the Federal and State governments, and among the separate State governments. Its natural and inevitable concomitants will be weakness, disorder, undue distribution of the burdens and calamities of war, and an unnecessary and intolerable increase of expense. We had unequivocal experience of these detrimental effects in the course of the Revolutionary War. 

Every view we take of the subject convinces us it is both unwise and dangerous to deny to the Federal government an unconfined authority over those objects entrusted to its management. (Of course, a most vigilant and careful attention of the structure of the Federal government is deserved to see it be modeled in such a manner as to admit of its being safely vested with the requisite powers.)  

A government whose constitution renders it unfit to be entrusted with all of the powers a free people ought to delegate to any government, would be an unsafe and improper depositary of the national interests. However, once these powers are properly delegated, coincident powers may safely accompany them.  

The adversaries of the Constitution failed to confine themselves to showing the internal structure of the Federal government rendered it unworthy of the confidence of the People. Instead they wandered into inflammatory declamations and senseless objections to the powers conferred. The powers granted are not too extensive for the objects of Federal administration, namely, the management of our national interests.  

Hamiltonoriginal Federalist 23