Federalist Papers #16-20

These are all basically subheds under Federalist #15: The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union, so let's tick 'em off one by one:

FEDERALIST No. 16. The Same Subject Continued (The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union)

Alexander Hamilton sets out a series of arguments explaining why a confederation of states might be less effective than a strong central government, all of which essentially come down to "the states would fight with each other" and/or "we'd get factions."

The result of these observations to an intelligent mind must be clearly this, that if it be possible at any rate to construct a federal government capable of regulating the common concerns and preserving the general tranquillity, it must be founded, as to the objects committed to its care, upon the reverse of the principle contended for by the opponents of the proposed Constitution. It must carry its agency to the persons of the citizens. It must stand in need of no intermediate legislations; but must itself be empowered to employ the arm of the ordinary magistrate to execute its own resolutions. The majesty of the national authority must be manifested through the medium of the courts of justice. The government of the Union, 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. It must, in short, possess all the means, and have aright to resort to all the methods, of executing the powers with which it is intrusted, that are possessed and exercised by the government of the particular States.

By the by, we need more writing that includes complex phrases like "upon the reverse of the principle contended for by the opponents of the proposed Constitution." Things that make you think are more memorable than things that do not make you think, which is to say that things that make you do the work of understanding them allow you to keep the results of your work.

FEDERALIST No. 17. The Same Subject Continued (The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union)

Hamilton gets excited again, which means we get sentences like this one:

Allowing the utmost latitude to the love of power which any reasonable man can require, I confess I am at a loss to discover what temptation the persons intrusted with the administration of the general government could ever feel to divest the States of the authorities of that description.

Then he explains that since most people are most interested in what immediately affects their lives, it seems reasonable to assume that most people would be more interested in what goes on at the state level than what goes on at the federal level unless the federal government were so strong that individual citizens no longer had to worry about it.

It is a known fact in human nature, that its affections are commonly weak in proportion to the distance or diffusiveness of the object. Upon the same principle that a man is more attached to his family than to his neighborhood, to his neighborhood than to the community at large, the people of each State would be apt to feel a stronger bias towards their local governments than towards the government of the Union; unless the force of that principle should be destroyed by a much better administration of the latter.

This would give the federal government enough freedom to be staffed by its most competent representatives – vs. the factious, biased representatives we might get if every citizen felt obligated to take an active interest in federal processes, PUT A PIN IN THAT – and to manage the nation in such a way as to allow maximum agency at the individual level. State governments could settle local disputes and police the streets and so on.

In fact, Hamilton writes, the average citizen should not take an interest in the federal government at all. The only people who may be likely to bother themselves with the operations of the federal government, aside from its administrators, are "speculative men:"

The operations of the national government, on the other hand, falling less immediately under the observation of the mass of the citizens, the benefits derived from it will chiefly be perceived and attended to by speculative men. Relating to more general interests, they will be less apt to come home to the feelings of the people; and, in proportion, less likely to inspire an habitual sense of obligation, and an active sentiment of attachment.

Unfortunately, several major shifts in the more recent part of our history encouraged us to become a nation of speculators. One of these shifts involved the transition from defined pension plans to the 401(k) model, which forced many people to take an interest in investments; another was the invention of the like button and the corresponding algorithmic ranking; you may discover the rest on your own.

I've written about this before, specifically in the philosophy book I put together in 2022, and when I told Larry that Federalist #17 had just proved me right, he agreed.

You may take the pin out now.

FEDERALIST No. 18. The Same Subject Continued (The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union)

At the end of Federalist #17 Hamilton explains that he is going to use the next few papers to review historical confederacies that failed, and so Federalist #18 gives both Hamilton and Madison the opportunity to write about ancient Greece.

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.

FEDERALIST No. 19. The Same Subject Continued (The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union)

And now Hamilton and Madison write about Europe:

From such a parade of constitutional powers, in the representatives and head of this confederacy, the natural supposition would be, that it must form an exception to the general character which belongs to its kindred systems. Nothing would be further from the reality. The fundamental principle on which it rests, that the empire is a community of sovereigns, that the diet is a representation of sovereigns and that the laws are addressed to sovereigns, renders the empire a nerveless body, incapable of regulating its own members, insecure against external dangers, and agitated with unceasing fermentations in its own bowels.

Confederations give you gas, in other words.

FEDERALIST No. 20. The Same Subject Continued (The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union)

More European failures, and then Hamilton and Madison reach their conclusion:

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.

I have to imagine Hamilton adding the ALL CAPS, and I'd bet money that he coined "experience is the oracle of truth."