>FEDERALIST No. 18 (Hamilton and Madison)                      .



The Same Subject Continued

(The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the

 Union)

For the Independent Journal.



HAMILTON AND MADISON



To the People of the State of New York:

AMONG the confederacies of antiquity, the most considerable was

 that of the Grecian republics, associated under the Amphictyonic

 council. From the best accounts transmitted of this celebrated

 institution, it bore a very instructive analogy to the present

 Confederation of the American States.

The members retained the character of independent and sovereign

 states, and had equal votes in the federal council. This council

 had a general authority to propose and resolve whatever it judged

 necessary for the common welfare of Greece; to declare and carry on

 war; to decide, in the last resort, all controversies between the

 members; to fine the aggressing party; to employ the whole force

 of the confederacy against the disobedient; to admit new members.

 The Amphictyons were the guardians of religion, and of the immense

 riches belonging to the temple of Delphos, where they had the right

 of jurisdiction in controversies between the inhabitants and those

 who came to consult the oracle. As a further provision for the

 efficacy of the federal powers, they took an oath mutually to defend

 and protect the united cities, to punish the violators of this oath,

 and to inflict vengeance on sacrilegious despoilers of the temple.

In theory, and upon paper, this apparatus of powers seems amply

 sufficient for all general purposes. In several material instances,

 they exceed the powers enumerated in the articles of confederation.

 The Amphictyons had in their hands the superstition of the times,

 one of the principal engines by which government was then

 maintained; they had a declared authority to use coercion against

 refractory cities, and were bound by oath to exert this authority on

 the necessary occasions.

Very different, nevertheless, was the experiment from the theory.

 The powers, like those of the present Congress, were administered

 by deputies appointed wholly by the cities in their political

 capacities; and exercised over them in the same capacities. Hence

 the weakness, the disorders, and finally the destruction of the

 confederacy. The more powerful members, instead of being kept in

 awe and subordination, tyrannized successively over all the rest.

 Athens, as we learn from Demosthenes, was the arbiter of Greece

 seventy-three years. The Lacedaemonians next governed it

 twenty-nine years; at a subsequent period, after the battle of

 Leuctra, the Thebans had their turn of domination.

It happened but too often, according to Plutarch, that the

 deputies of the strongest cities awed and corrupted those of the

 weaker; and that judgment went in favor of the most powerful party.

Even in the midst of defensive and dangerous wars with Persia

 and Macedon, the members never acted in concert, and were, more or

 fewer of them, eternally the dupes or the hirelings of the common

 enemy. The intervals of foreign war were filled up by domestic

 vicissitudes convulsions, and carnage.

After the conclusion of the war with Xerxes, it appears that the

 Lacedaemonians required that a number of the cities should be turned

 out of the confederacy for the unfaithful part they had acted. The

 Athenians, finding that the Lacedaemonians would lose fewer

 partisans by such a measure than themselves, and would become

 masters of the public deliberations, vigorously opposed and defeated

 the attempt. This piece of history proves at once the inefficiency

 of the union, the ambition and jealousy of its most powerful

 members, and the dependent and degraded condition of the rest. The

 smaller members, though entitled by the theory of their system to

 revolve in equal pride and majesty around the common center, had

 become, in fact, satellites of the orbs of primary magnitude.

Had the Greeks, says the Abbe Milot, been as wise as they were

 courageous, they would have been admonished by experience of the

 necessity of a closer union, and would have availed themselves of

 the peace which followed their success against the Persian arms, to

 establish such a reformation. Instead of this obvious policy,

 Athens and Sparta, inflated with the victories and the glory they

 had acquired, became first rivals and then enemies; and did each

 other infinitely more mischief than they had suffered from Xerxes.

 Their mutual jealousies, fears, hatreds, and injuries ended in the

 celebrated Peloponnesian war; which itself ended in the ruin and

 slavery of the Athenians who had begun it.

As a weak government, when not at war, is ever agitated by

 internal dissentions, so these never fail to bring on fresh

 calamities from abroad. The Phocians having ploughed up some

 consecrated ground belonging to the temple of Apollo, the

 Amphictyonic council, according to the superstition of the age,

 imposed a fine on the sacrilegious offenders. The Phocians, being

 abetted by Athens and Sparta, refused to submit to the decree. The

 Thebans, with others of the cities, undertook to maintain the

 authority of the Amphictyons, and to avenge the violated god. The

 latter, being the weaker party, invited the assistance of Philip of

 Macedon, who had secretly fostered the contest. Philip gladly

 seized the opportunity of executing the designs he had long planned

 against the liberties of Greece. By his intrigues and bribes he won

 over to his interests the popular leaders of several cities; by

 their influence and votes, gained admission into the Amphictyonic

 council; and by his arts and his arms, made himself master of the

 confederacy.

Such were the consequences of the fallacious principle on which

 this interesting establishment was founded. Had Greece, says a

 judicious observer on her fate, been united by a stricter

 confederation, and persevered in her union, she would never have

 worn the chains of Macedon; and might have proved a barrier to the

 vast projects of Rome.

The Achaean league, as it is called, was another society of

 Grecian republics, which supplies us with valuable instruction.

The Union here was far more intimate, and its organization much

 wiser, than in the preceding instance. It will accordingly appear,

 that though not exempt from a similar catastrophe, it by no means

 equally deserved it.

The cities composing this league retained their municipal

 jurisdiction, appointed their own officers, and enjoyed a perfect

 equality. The senate, in which they were represented, had the sole

 and exclusive right of peace and war; of sending and receiving

 ambassadors; of entering into treaties and alliances; of

 appointing a chief magistrate or praetor, as he was called, who

 commanded their armies, and who, with the advice and consent of ten

 of the senators, not only administered the government in the recess

 of the senate, but had a great share in its deliberations, when

 assembled. According to the primitive constitution, there were two

 praetors associated in the administration; but on trial a single

 one was preferred.

It appears that the cities had all the same laws and customs,

 the same weights and measures, and the same money. But how far this

 effect proceeded from the authority of the federal council is left

 in uncertainty. It is said only that the cities were in a manner

 compelled to receive the same laws and usages. When Lacedaemon was

 brought into the league by Philopoemen, it was attended with an

 abolition of the institutions and laws of Lycurgus, and an adoption

 of those of the Achaeans. The Amphictyonic confederacy, of which

 she had been a member, left her in the full exercise of her

 government and her legislation. This circumstance alone proves a

 very material difference in the genius of the two systems.

It is much to be regretted that such imperfect monuments remain

 of this curious political fabric. Could its interior structure and

 regular operation be ascertained, it is probable that more light

 would be thrown by it on the science of federal government, than by

 any of the like experiments with which we are acquainted.

One important fact seems to be witnessed by all the historians

 who take notice of Achaean affairs. It is, that as well after the

 renovation of the league by Aratus, as before its dissolution by the

 arts of Macedon, there was infinitely more of moderation and justice

 in the administration of its government, and less of violence and

 sedition in the people, than were to be found in any of the cities

 exercising SINGLY all the prerogatives of sovereignty. The Abbe

 Mably, in his observations on Greece, says that the popular

 government, which was so tempestuous elsewhere, caused no disorders

 in the members of the Achaean republic, BECAUSE IT WAS THERE

 TEMPERED BY THE GENERAL AUTHORITY AND LAWS OF THE CONFEDERACY.

We are not to conclude too hastily, however, that faction did

 not, in a certain degree, agitate the particular cities; much less

 that a due subordination and harmony reigned in the general system.

 The contrary is sufficiently displayed in the vicissitudes and fate

 of the republic.

Whilst the Amphictyonic confederacy remained, that of the

 Achaeans, which comprehended the less important cities only, made

 little figure on the theatre of Greece. When the former became a

 victim to Macedon, the latter was spared by the policy of Philip and

 Alexander. Under the successors of these princes, however, a

 different policy prevailed. The arts of division were practiced

 among the Achaeans. Each city was seduced into a separate interest;

 the union was dissolved. Some of the cities fell under the tyranny

 of Macedonian garrisons; others under that of usurpers springing

 out of their own confusions. Shame and oppression erelong awaken

 their love of liberty. A few cities reunited. Their example was

 followed by others, as opportunities were found of cutting off their

 tyrants. The league soon embraced almost the whole Peloponnesus.

 Macedon saw its progress; but was hindered by internal dissensions

 from stopping it. All Greece caught the enthusiasm and seemed ready

 to unite in one confederacy, when the jealousy and envy in Sparta

 and Athens, of the rising glory of the Achaeans, threw a fatal damp

 on the enterprise. The dread of the Macedonian power induced the

 league to court the alliance of the Kings of Egypt and Syria, who,

 as successors of Alexander, were rivals of the king of Macedon.

 This policy was defeated by Cleomenes, king of Sparta, who was led

 by his ambition to make an unprovoked attack on his neighbors, the

 Achaeans, and who, as an enemy to Macedon, had interest enough with

 the Egyptian and Syrian princes to effect a breach of their

 engagements with the league.

The Achaeans were now reduced to the dilemma of submitting to

 Cleomenes, or of supplicating the aid of Macedon, its former

 oppressor. The latter expedient was adopted. The contests of the

 Greeks always afforded a pleasing opportunity to that powerful

 neighbor of intermeddling in their affairs. A Macedonian army

 quickly appeared. Cleomenes was vanquished. The Achaeans soon

 experienced, as often happens, that a victorious and powerful ally

 is but another name for a master. All that their most abject

 compliances could obtain from him was a toleration of the exercise

 of their laws. Philip, who was now on the throne of Macedon, soon

 provoked by his tyrannies, fresh combinations among the Greeks. The

 Achaeans, though weakenened by internal dissensions and by the

 revolt of Messene, one of its members, being joined by the AEtolians

 and Athenians, erected the standard of opposition. Finding

 themselves, though thus supported, unequal to the undertaking, they

 once more had recourse to the dangerous expedient of introducing the

 succor of foreign arms. The Romans, to whom the invitation was

 made, eagerly embraced it. Philip was conquered; Macedon subdued.

 A new crisis ensued to the league. Dissensions broke out among it

 members. These the Romans fostered. Callicrates and other popular

 leaders became mercenary instruments for inveigling their countrymen.

 The more effectually to nourish discord and disorder the Romans

 had, to the astonishment of those who confided in their sincerity,

 already proclaimed universal liberty1 throughout Greece. With

 the same insidious views, they now seduced the members from the

 league, by representing to their pride the violation it committed on

 their sovereignty. By these arts this union, the last hope of

 Greece, the last hope of ancient liberty, was torn into pieces; and

 such imbecility and distraction introduced, that the arms of Rome

 found little difficulty in completing the ruin which their arts had

 commenced. The Achaeans were cut to pieces, and Achaia loaded with

 chains, under which it is groaning at this hour.

I have thought it not superfluous to give the outlines of this

 important portion of history; both because it teaches more than one

 lesson, and because, as a supplement to the outlines of the Achaean

 constitution, it emphatically illustrates the tendency of federal

 bodies rather to anarchy among the members, than to tyranny in the

 head.

PUBLIUS.

1 This was but another name more specious for the independence

 of the members on the federal head.





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