>FEDERALIST No. 20 (Hamilton and Madison)                      .



The Same Subject Continued

(The Insufficiency fo the Present Confederation to Preserve the

 Union)

From the New York Packet.

Tuesday, December 11, 1787.



HAMILTON AND MADISON



To the People of the State of New York:

THE United Netherlands are a confederacy of republics, or rather

 of aristocracies of a very remarkable texture, yet confirming all

 the lessons derived from those which we have already reviewed.

The union is composed of seven coequal and sovereign states, and

 each state or province is a composition of equal and independent

 cities. In all important cases, not only the provinces but the

 cities must be unanimous.

The sovereignty of the Union is represented by the

 States-General, consisting usually of about fifty deputies appointed

 by the provinces. They hold their seats, some for life, some for

 six, three, and one years; from two provinces they continue in

 appointment during pleasure.

The States-General have authority to enter into treaties and

 alliances; to make war and peace; to raise armies and equip

 fleets; to ascertain quotas and demand contributions. In all these

 cases, however, unanimity and the sanction of their constituents are

 requisite. They have authority to appoint and receive ambassadors;

 to execute treaties and alliances already formed; to provide for

 the collection of duties on imports and exports; to regulate the

 mint, with a saving to the provincial rights; to govern as

 sovereigns the dependent territories. The provinces are restrained,

 unless with the general consent, from entering into foreign

 treaties; from establishing imposts injurious to others, or

 charging their neighbors with higher duties than their own subjects.

 A council of state, a chamber of accounts, with five colleges of

 admiralty, aid and fortify the federal administration.

The executive magistrate of the union is the stadtholder, who is

 now an hereditary prince. His principal weight and influence in the

 republic are derived from this independent title; from his great

 patrimonial estates; from his family connections with some of the

 chief potentates of Europe; and, more than all, perhaps, from his

 being stadtholder in the several provinces, as well as for the

 union; in which provincial quality he has the appointment of town

 magistrates under certain regulations, executes provincial decrees,

 presides when he pleases in the provincial tribunals, and has

 throughout the power of pardon.

As stadtholder of the union, he has, however, considerable

 prerogatives.

In his political capacity he has authority to settle disputes

 between the provinces, when other methods fail; to assist at the

 deliberations of the States-General, and at their particular

 conferences; to give audiences to foreign ambassadors, and to keep

 agents for his particular affairs at foreign courts.

In his military capacity he commands the federal troops,

 provides for garrisons, and in general regulates military affairs;

 disposes of all appointments, from colonels to ensigns, and of the

 governments and posts of fortified towns.

In his marine capacity he is admiral-general, and superintends

 and directs every thing relative to naval forces and other naval

 affairs; presides in the admiralties in person or by proxy;

 appoints lieutenant-admirals and other officers; and establishes

 councils of war, whose sentences are not executed till he approves

 them.

His revenue, exclusive of his private income, amounts to three

 hundred thousand florins. The standing army which he commands

 consists of about forty thousand men.

Such is the nature of the celebrated Belgic confederacy, as

 delineated on parchment. What are the characters which practice has

 stamped upon it? Imbecility in the government; discord among the

 provinces; foreign influence and indignities; a precarious

 existence in peace, and peculiar calamities from war.

It was long ago remarked by Grotius, that nothing but the hatred

 of his countrymen to the house of Austria kept them from being

 ruined by the vices of their constitution.

The union of Utrecht, says another respectable writer, reposes

 an authority in the States-General, seemingly sufficient to secure

 harmony, but the jealousy in each province renders the practice very

 different from the theory.

The same instrument, says another, obliges each province to levy

 certain contributions; but this article never could, and probably

 never will, be executed; because the inland provinces, who have

 little commerce, cannot pay an equal quota.

In matters of contribution, it is the practice to waive the

 articles of the constitution. The danger of delay obliges the

 consenting provinces to furnish their quotas, without waiting for

 the others; and then to obtain reimbursement from the others, by

 deputations, which are frequent, or otherwise, as they can. The

 great wealth and influence of the province of Holland enable her to

 effect both these purposes.

It has more than once happened, that the deficiencies had to be

 ultimately collected at the point of the bayonet; a thing

 practicable, though dreadful, in a confedracy where one of the

 members exceeds in force all the rest, and where several of them are

 too small to meditate resistance; but utterly impracticable in one

 composed of members, several of which are equal to each other in

 strength and resources, and equal singly to a vigorous and

 persevering defense.

Foreign ministers, says Sir William Temple, who was himself a

 foreign minister, elude matters taken ad referendum, by

 tampering with the provinces and cities. In 1726, the treaty of

 Hanover was delayed by these means a whole year. Instances of a

 like nature are numerous and notorious.

In critical emergencies, the States-General are often compelled

 to overleap their constitutional bounds. In 1688, they concluded a

 treaty of themselves at the risk of their heads. The treaty of

 Westphalia, in 1648, by which their independence was formerly and

 finally recognized, was concluded without the consent of Zealand.

 Even as recently as the last treaty of peace with Great Britain,

 the constitutional principle of unanimity was departed from. A weak

 constitution must necessarily terminate in dissolution, for want of

 proper powers, or the usurpation of powers requisite for the public

 safety. Whether the usurpation, when once begun, will stop at the

 salutary point, or go forward to the dangerous extreme, must depend

 on the contingencies of the moment. Tyranny has perhaps oftener

 grown out of the assumptions of power, called for, on pressing

 exigencies, by a defective constitution, than out of the full

 exercise of the largest constitutional authorities.

Notwithstanding the calamities produced by the stadtholdership,

 it has been supposed that without his influence in the individual

 provinces, the causes of anarchy manifest in the confederacy would

 long ago have dissolved it. ``Under such a government,'' says the

 Abbe Mably, ``the Union could never have subsisted, if the provinces

 had not a spring within themselves, capable of quickening their

 tardiness, and compelling them to the same way of thinking. This

 spring is the stadtholder.'' It is remarked by Sir William Temple,

 ``that in the intermissions of the stadtholdership, Holland, by her

 riches and her authority, which drew the others into a sort of

 dependence, supplied the place.''

These are not the only circumstances which have controlled the

 tendency to anarchy and dissolution. The surrounding powers impose

 an absolute necessity of union to a certain degree, at the same time

 that they nourish by their intrigues the constitutional vices which

 keep the republic in some degree always at their mercy.

The true patriots have long bewailed the fatal tendency of these

 vices, and have made no less than four regular experiments by

 EXTRAORDINARY ASSEMBLIES, convened for the special purpose, to apply

 a remedy. As many times has their laudable zeal found it impossible

 to UNITE THE PUBLIC COUNCILS in reforming the known, the

 acknowledged, the fatal evils of the existing constitution. Let us

 pause, my fellow-citizens, for one moment, over this melancholy and

 monitory lesson of history; and with the tear that drops for the

 calamities brought on mankind by their adverse opinions and selfish

 passions, let our gratitude mingle an ejaculation to Heaven, for the

 propitious concord which has distinguished the consultations for our

 political happiness.

A design was also conceived of establishing a general tax to be

 administered by the federal authority. This also had its

 adversaries and failed.

This unhappy people seem to be now suffering from popular

 convulsions, from dissensions among the states, and from the actual

 invasion of foreign arms, the crisis of their distiny. All nations

 have their eyes fixed on the awful spectacle. The first wish

 prompted by humanity is, that this severe trial may issue in such a

 revolution of their government as will establish their union, and

 render it the parent of tranquillity, freedom and happiness: The

 next, that the asylum under which, we trust, the enjoyment of these

 blessings will speedily be secured in this country, may receive and

 console them for the catastrophe of their own.

I make no apology for having dwelt so long on the contemplation

 of these federal precedents. Experience is the oracle of truth;

 and where its responses are unequivocal, they ought to be

 conclusive and sacred. The important truth, which it unequivocally

 pronounces in the present case, is that a sovereignty over

 sovereigns, a government over governments, a legislation for

 communities, as contradistinguished from individuals, as it is a

 solecism in theory, so in practice it is subversive of the order and

 ends of civil polity, by substituting VIOLENCE in place of LAW, or

 the destructive COERCION of the SWORD in place of the mild and

 salutary COERCION of the MAGISTRACY.

PUBLIUS.





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