fp07.txt

IT IS sometimes asked, with an air of seeming triumph, what inducements 
        could the States have, if disunited, to make war upon each other? It would 
        be a full answer to this question to say--precisely the same inducements 
        which have, at different times, deluged in blood all the nations in the 
        world. But, unfortunately for us, the question admits of a more particular 
        answer. There are causes of differences within our immediate contemplation, 
        of the tendency of which, even under the restraints of a federal constitution, 
        we have had sufficient experience to enable us to form a judgment of what 
        might be expected if those restraints were removed. Territorial disputes have at all times been found one of the most fertile 
        sources of hostility among nations. Perhaps the greatest proportion of 
        wars that have desolated the earth have sprung from this origin. This 
        cause would exist among us in full force. We have a vast tract of unsettled 
        territory within the boundaries of the United States. There still are 
        discordant and undecided claims between several of them, and the dissolution 
        of the Union would lay a foundation for similar claims between them all. 
        It is well known that they have heretofore had serious and animated discussion 
        concerning the rights to the lands which were ungranted at the time of 
        the Revolution, and which usually went under the name of crown lands. 
        The States within the limits of whose colonial governments they were comprised 
        have claimed them as their property, the others have contended that the 
        rights of the crown in this article devolved upon the Union; especially 
        as to all that part of the Western territory which, either by actual possession, 
        or through the submission of the Indian proprietors, was subjected to 
        the jurisdiction of the king of Great Britain, till it was relinquished 
        in the treaty of peace. This, it has been said, was at all events an acquisition 
        to the Confederacy by compact with a foreign power. It has been the prudent 
        policy of Congress to appease this controversy, by prevailing upon the 
        States to make cessions to the United States for the benefit of the whole. 
        This has been so far accomplished as, under a continuation of the Union, 
        to afford a decided prospect of an amicable termination of the dispute. 
        A dismemberment of the Confederacy, however, would revive this dispute, 
        and would create others on the same subject. At present, a large part 
        of the vacant Western territory is, by cession at least, if not by any 
        anterior right, the common property of the Union. If that were at an end, 
        the States which made the cession, on a principle of federal compromise, 
        would be apt when the motive of the grant had ceased, to reclaim the lands 
        as a reversion. The other States would no doubt insist on a proportion, 
        by right of representation. Their argument would be, that a grant, once 
        made, could not be revoked; and that the justice of participating in territory 
        acquired or secured by the joint efforts of the Confederacy, remained 
        undiminished. If, contrary to probability, it should be admitted by all 
        the States, that each had a right to a share of this common stock, there 
        would still be a difficulty to be surmounted, as to a proper rule of apportionment. 
        Different principles would be set up by different States for this purpose; 
        and as they would affect the opposite interests of the parties, they might 
        not easily be susceptible of a pacific adjustment. In the wide field of Western territory, therefore, we perceive an ample 
        theatre for hostile pretensions, without any umpire or common judge to 
        interpose between the contending parties. To reason from the past to the 
        future, we shall have good ground to apprehend, that the sword would sometimes 
        be appealed to as the arbiter of their differences. The circumstances 
        of the dispute between Connecticut and Pennsylvania, respecting the land 
        at Wyoming, admonish us not to be sanguine in expecting an easy accommodation 
        of such differences. The articles of confederation obliged the parties 
        to submit the matter to the decision of a federal court. The submission 
        was made, and the court decided in favor of Pennsylvania. But Connecticut 
        gave strong indications of dissatisfaction with that determination; nor 
        did she appear to be entirely resigned to it, till, by negotiation and 
        management, something like an equivalent was found for the loss she supposed 
        herself to have sustained. Nothing here said is intended to convey the 
        slightest censure on the conduct of that State. She no doubt sincerely 
        believed herself to have been injured by the decision; and States, like 
        individuals, acquiesce with great reluctance in determinations to their 
        disadvantage. Those who had an opportunity of seeing the inside of the transactions 
        which attended the progress of the controversy between this State and 
        the district of Vermont, can vouch the opposition we experienced, as well 
        from States not interested as from those which were interested in the 
        claim; and can attest the danger to which the peace of the Confederacy 
        might have been exposed, had this State attempted to assert its rights 
        by force. Two motives preponderated in that opposition: one, a jealousy 
        entertained of our future power; and the other, the interest of certain 
        individuals of influence in the neighboring States, who had obtained grants 
        of lands under the actual government of that district. Even the States 
        which brought forward claims, in contradiction to ours, seemed more solicitous 
        to dismember this State, than to establish their own pretensions. These 
        were New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. New Jersey and Rhode 
        Island, upon all occasions, discovered a warm zeal for the independence 
        of Vermont; and Maryland, till alarmed by the appearance of a connection 
        between Canada and that State, entered deeply into the same views. These 
        being small States, saw with an unfriendly eye the perspective of our 
        growing greatness. In a review of these transactions we may trace some 
        of the causes which would be likely to embroil the States with each other, 
        if it should be their unpropitious destiny to become disunited. The competitions of commerce would be another fruitful source of contention. 
        The States less favorably circumstanced would be desirous of escaping 
        from the disadvantages of local situation, and of sharing in the advantages 
        of their more fortunate neighbors. Each State, or separate confederacy, 
        would pursue a system of commercial policy peculiar to itself. This would 
        occasion distinctions, preferences, and exclusions, which would beget 
        discontent. The habits of intercourse, on the basis of equal privileges, 
        to which we have been accustomed since the earliest settlement of the 
        country, would give a keener edge to those causes of discontent than they 
        would naturally have independent of this circumstance. WE SHOULD BE READY 
        TO DENOMINATE INJURIES THOSE THINGS WHICH WERE IN REALITY THE JUSTIFIABLE 
        ACTS OF INDEPENDENT SOVEREIGNTIES CONSULTING A DISTINCT INTEREST. The 
        spirit of enterprise, which characterizes the commercial part of America, 
        has left no occasion of displaying itself unimproved. It is not at all 
        probable that this unbridled spirit would pay much respect to those regulations 
        of trade by which particular States might endeavor to secure exclusive 
        benefits to their own citizens. The infractions of these regulations, 
        on one side, the efforts to prevent and repel them, on the other, would 
        naturally lead to outrages, and these to reprisals and wars. The opportunities which some States would have of rendering others tributary 
        to them by commercial regulations would be impatiently submitted to by 
        the tributary States. The relative situation of New York, Connecticut, 
        and New Jersey would afford an example of this kind. New York, from the 
        necessities of revenue, must lay duties on her importations. A great part 
        of these duties must be paid by the inhabitants of the two other States 
        in the capacity of consumers of what we import. New York would neither 
        be willing nor able to forego this advantage. Her citizens would not consent 
        that a duty paid by them should be remitted in favor of the citizens of 
        her neighbors; nor would it be practicable, if there were not this impediment 
        in the way, to distinguish the customers in our own markets. Would Connecticut 
        and New Jersey long submit to be taxed by New York for her exclusive benefit? 
        Should we be long permitted to remain in the quiet and undisturbed enjoyment 
        of a metropolis, from the possession of which we derived an advantage 
        so odious to our neighbors, and, in their opinion, so oppressive? Should 
        we be able to preserve it against the incumbent weight of Connecticut 
        on the one side, and the co-operating pressure of New Jersey on the other? 
        These are questions that temerity alone will answer in the affirmative. The public debt of the Union would be a further cause of collision between 
        the separate States or confederacies. The apportionment, in the first 
        instance, and the progressive extinguishment afterward, would be alike 
        productive of ill-humor and animosity. How would it be possible to agree 
        upon a rule of apportionment satisfactory to all? There is scarcely any 
        that can be proposed which is entirely free from real objections. These, 
        as usual, would be exaggerated by the adverse interest of the parties. 
        There are even dissimilar views among the States as to the general principle 
        of discharging the public debt. Some of them, either less impressed with 
        the importance of national credit, or because their citizens have little, 
        if any, immediate interest in the question, feel an indifference, if not 
        a repugnance, to the payment of the domestic debt at any rate. These would 
        be inclined to magnify the difficulties of a distribution. Others of them, 
        a numerous body of whose citizens are creditors to the public beyond proportion 
        of the State in the total amount of the national debt, would be strenuous 
        for some equitable and effective provision. The procrastinations of the 
        former would excite the resentments of the latter. The settlement of a 
        rule would, in the meantime, be postponed by real differences of opinion 
        and affected delays. The citizens of the States interested would clamour; 
        foreign powers would urge for the satisfaction of their just demands, 
        and the peace of the States would be hazarded to the double contingency 
        of external invasion and internal contention. Suppose the difficulties of agreeing upon a rule surmounted, and the 
        apportionment made. Still there is great room to suppose that the rule 
        agreed upon would, upon experiment, be found to bear harder upon some 
        States than upon others. Those which were sufferers by it would naturally 
        seek for a mitigation of the burden. The others would as naturally be 
        disinclined to a revision, which was likely to end in an increase of their 
        own incumbrances. Their refusal would be too plausible a pretext to the 
        complaining States to withhold their contributions, not to be embraced 
        with avidity; and the non-compliance of these States with their engagements 
        would be a ground of bitter discussion and altercation. If even the rule 
        adopted should in practice justify the equality of its principle, still 
        delinquencies in payments on the part of some of the States would result 
        from a diversity of other causes--the real deficiency of resources; the 
        mismanagement of their finances; accidental disorders in the management 
        of the government; and, in addition to the rest, the reluctance with which 
        men commonly part with money for purposes that have outlived the exigencies 
        which produced them, and interfere with the supply of immediate wants. 
        Delinquencies, from whatever causes, would be productive of complaints, 
        recriminations, and quarrels. There is, perhaps, nothing more likely to 
        disturb the tranquillity of nations than their being bound to mutual contributions 
        for any common object that does not yield an equal and coincident benefit. 
        For it is an observation, as true as it is trite, that there is nothing 
        men differ so readily about as the payment of money. Laws in violation of private contracts, as they amount to aggressions 
        on the rights of those States whose citizens are injured by them, may 
        be considered as another probable source of hostility. We are not authorized 
        to expect that a more liberal or more equitable spirit would preside over 
        the legislations of the individual States hereafter, if unrestrained by 
        any additional checks, than we have heretofore seen in too many instances 
        disgracing their several codes. We have observed the disposition to retaliation 
        excited in Connecticut in consequence of the enormities perpetrated by 
        the Legislature of Rhode Island; and we reasonably infer that, in similar 
        cases, under other circumstances, a war, not of PARCHMENT, but of the 
        sword, would chastise such atrocious breaches of moral obligation and 
        social justice. The probability of incompatible alliances between the different States 
        or confederacies and different foreign nations, and the effects of this 
        situation upon the peace of the whole, have been sufficiently unfolded 
        in some preceding papers. From the view they have exhibited of this part 
        of the subject, this conclusion is to be drawn, that America, if not connected 
        at all, or only by the feeble tie of a simple league, offensive and defensive, 
        would, by the operation of such jarring alliances, be gradually entangled 
        in all the pernicious labyrinths of European politics and wars; and by 
        the destructive contentions of the parts into which she was divided, would 
        be likely to become a prey to the artifices and machinations of powers 
        equally the enemies of them all. Divide et impera [1] 
        must be the motto of every nation that either hates or fears us. [2]