>FEDERALIST No. 21 (Hamilton)                                  .



Other Defects of the Present Confederation

For the Independent Journal.



HAMILTON



To the People of the State of New York:

HAVING in the three last numbers taken a summary review of the

 principal circumstances and events which have depicted the genius

 and fate of other confederate governments, I shall now proceed in

 the enumeration of the most important of those defects which have

 hitherto disappointed our hopes from the system established among

 ourselves. To form a safe and satisfactory judgment of the proper

 remedy, it is absolutely necessary that we should be well acquainted

 with the extent and malignity of the disease.

The next most palpable defect of the subsisting Confederation,

 is the total want of a SANCTION to its laws. The United States, as

 now composed, have no powers to exact obedience, or punish

 disobedience to their resolutions, either by pecuniary mulcts, by a

 suspension or divestiture of privileges, or by any other

 constitutional mode. There is no express delegation of authority to

 them to use force against delinquent members; and if such a right

 should be ascribed to the federal head, as resulting from the nature

 of the social compact between the States, it must be by inference

 and construction, in the face of that part of the second article, by

 which it is declared, ``that each State shall retain every power,

 jurisdiction, and right, not EXPRESSLY delegated to the United

 States in Congress assembled.'' There is, doubtless, a striking

 absurdity in supposing that a right of this kind does not exist, but

 we are reduced to the dilemma either of embracing that supposition,

 preposterous as it may seem, or of contravening or explaining away a

 provision, which has been of late a repeated theme of the eulogies

 of those who oppose the new Constitution; and the want of which, in

 that plan, has been the subject of much plausible animadversion, and

 severe criticism. If we are unwilling to impair the force of this

 applauded provision, we shall be obliged to conclude, that the

 United States afford the extraordinary spectacle of a government

 destitute even of the shadow of constitutional power to enforce the

 execution of its own laws. It will appear, from the specimens which

 have been cited, that the American Confederacy, in this particular,

 stands discriminated from every other institution of a similar kind,

 and exhibits a new and unexampled phenomenon in the political world.

The want of a mutual guaranty of the State governments is

 another capital imperfection in the federal plan. There is nothing

 of this kind declared in the articles that compose it; and to imply

 a tacit guaranty from considerations of utility, would be a still

 more flagrant departure from the clause which has been mentioned,

 than to imply a tacit power of coercion from the like considerations

. The want of a guaranty, though it might in its consequences

 endanger the Union, does not so immediately attack its existence as

 the want of a constitutional sanction to its laws.

Without a guaranty the assistance to be derived from the Union

 in repelling those domestic dangers which may sometimes threaten the

 existence of the State constitutions, must be renounced. Usurpation

 may rear its crest in each State, and trample upon the liberties of

 the people, while the national government could legally do nothing

 more than behold its encroachments with indignation and regret. A

 successful faction may erect a tyranny on the ruins of order and

 law, while no succor could constitutionally be afforded by the Union

 to the friends and supporters of the government. The tempestuous

 situation from which Massachusetts has scarcely emerged, evinces

 that dangers of this kind are not merely speculative. Who can

 determine what might have been the issue of her late convulsions, if

 the malcontents had been headed by a Caesar or by a Cromwell? Who

 can predict what effect a despotism, established in Massachusetts,

 would have upon the liberties of New Hampshire or Rhode Island, of

 Connecticut or New York?

The inordinate pride of State importance has suggested to some

 minds an objection to the principle of a guaranty in the federal

 government, as involving an officious interference in the domestic

 concerns of the members. A scruple of this kind would deprive us of

 one of the principal advantages to be expected from union, and can

 only flow from a misapprehension of the nature of the provision

 itself. It could be no impediment to reforms of the State

 constitution by a majority of the people in a legal and peaceable

 mode. This right would remain undiminished. The guaranty could

 only operate against changes to be effected by violence. Towards

 the preventions of calamities of this kind, too many checks cannot

 be provided. The peace of society and the stability of government

 depend absolutely on the efficacy of the precautions adopted on this

 head. Where the whole power of the government is in the hands of

 the people, there is the less pretense for the use of violent

 remedies in partial or occasional distempers of the State. The

 natural cure for an ill-administration, in a popular or

 representative constitution, is a change of men. A guaranty by the

 national authority would be as much levelled against the usurpations

 of rulers as against the ferments and outrages of faction and

 sedition in the community.

The principle of regulating the contributions of the States to

 the common treasury by QUOTAS is another fundamental error in the

 Confederation. Its repugnancy to an adequate supply of the national

 exigencies has been already pointed out, and has sufficiently

 appeared from the trial which has been made of it. I speak of it

 now solely with a view to equality among the States. Those who have

 been accustomed to contemplate the circumstances which produce and

 constitute national wealth, must be satisfied that there is no

 common standard or barometer by which the degrees of it can be

 ascertained. Neither the value of lands, nor the numbers of the

 people, which have been successively proposed as the rule of State

 contributions, has any pretension to being a just representative.

 If we compare the wealth of the United Netherlands with that of

 Russia or Germany, or even of France, and if we at the same time

 compare the total value of the lands and the aggregate population of

 that contracted district with the total value of the lands and the

 aggregate population of the immense regions of either of the three

 last-mentioned countries, we shall at once discover that there is no

 comparison between the proportion of either of these two objects and

 that of the relative wealth of those nations. If the like parallel

 were to be run between several of the American States, it would

 furnish a like result. Let Virginia be contrasted with North

 Carolina, Pennsylvania with Connecticut, or Maryland with New

 Jersey, and we shall be convinced that the respective abilities of

 those States, in relation to revenue, bear little or no analogy to

 their comparative stock in lands or to their comparative population.

 The position may be equally illustrated by a similar process

 between the counties of the same State. No man who is acquainted

 with the State of New York will doubt that the active wealth of

 King's County bears a much greater proportion to that of Montgomery

 than it would appear to be if we should take either the total value

 of the lands or the total number of the people as a criterion!

The wealth of nations depends upon an infinite variety of causes.

 Situation, soil, climate, the nature of the productions, the

 nature of the government, the genius of the citizens, the degree of

 information they possess, the state of commerce, of arts, of

 industry,gthese circumstances and many more, too complex, minute, or

 adventitious to admit of a particular specification, occasion

 differences hardly conceivable in the relative opulence and riches

 of different countries. The consequence clearly is that there can

 be no common measure of national wealth, and, of course, no general

 or stationary rule by which the ability of a state to pay taxes can

 be determined. The attempt, therefore, to regulate the

 contributions of the members of a confederacy by any such rule,

 cannot fail to be productive of glaring inequality and extreme

 oppression.

This inequality would of itself be sufficient in America to work

 the eventual destruction of the Union, if any mode of enforcing a

 compliance with its requisitions could be devised. The suffering

 States would not long consent to remain associated upon a principle

 which distributes the public burdens with so unequal a hand, and

 which was calculated to impoverish and oppress the citizens of some

 States, while those of others would scarcely be conscious of the

 small proportion of the weight they were required to sustain. This,

 however, is an evil inseparable from the principle of quotas and

 requisitions.

There is no method of steering clear of this inconvenience, but

 by authorizing the national government to raise its own revenues in

 its own way. Imposts, excises, and, in general, all duties upon

 articles of consumption, may be compared to a fluid, which will, in

 time, find its level with the means of paying them. The amount to

 be contributed by each citizen will in a degree be at his own

 option, and can be regulated by an attention to his resources. The

 rich may be extravagant, the poor can be frugal; and private

 oppression may always be avoided by a judicious selection of objects

 proper for such impositions. If inequalities should arise in some

 States from duties on particular objects, these will, in all

 probability, be counterbalanced by proportional inequalities in

 other States, from the duties on other objects. In the course of

 time and things, an equilibrium, as far as it is attainable in so

 complicated a subject, will be established everywhere. Or, if

 inequalities should still exist, they would neither be so great in

 their degree, so uniform in their operation, nor so odious in their

 appearance, as those which would necessarily spring from quotas,

 upon any scale that can possibly be devised.

It is a signal advantage of taxes on articles of consumption,

 that they contain in their own nature a security against excess.

 They prescribe their own limit; which cannot be exceeded without

 defeating the end proposed, gthat is, an extension of the revenue.

 When applied to this object, the saying is as just as it is witty,

 that, ``in political arithmetic, two and two do not always make four

.'' If duties are too high, they lessen the consumption; the

 collection is eluded; and the product to the treasury is not so

 great as when they are confined within proper and moderate bounds.

 This forms a complete barrier against any material oppression of

 the citizens by taxes of this class, and is itself a natural

 limitation of the power of imposing them.

Impositions of this kind usually fall under the denomination of

 indirect taxes, and must for a long time constitute the chief part

 of the revenue raised in this country. Those of the direct kind,

 which principally relate to land and buildings, may admit of a rule

 of apportionment. Either the value of land, or the number of the

 people, may serve as a standard. The state of agriculture and the

 populousness of a country have been considered as nearly connected

 with each other. And, as a rule, for the purpose intended, numbers,

 in the view of simplicity and certainty, are entitled to a

 preference. In every country it is a herculean task to obtain a

 valuation of the land; in a country imperfectly settled and

 progressive in improvement, the difficulties are increased almost to

 impracticability. The expense of an accurate valuation is, in all

 situations, a formidable objection. In a branch of taxation where

 no limits to the discretion of the government are to be found in the

 nature of things, the establishment of a fixed rule, not

 incompatible with the end, may be attended with fewer inconveniences

 than to leave that discretion altogether at large.

PUBLIUS.





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