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fp28.txt
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THAT there may happen cases in which the national government may be necessitated
to resort to force, cannot be denied. Our own experience has corroborated
the lessons taught by the examples of other nations; that emergencies
of this sort will sometimes arise in all societies, however constituted;
that seditions and insurrections are, unhappily, maladies as inseparable
from the body politic as tumors and eruptions from the natural body; that
the idea of governing at all times by the simple force of law (which we
have been told is the only admissible principle of republican government),
has no place but in the reveries of those political doctors whose sagacity
disdains the admonitions of experimental instruction. Should such emergencies at any time happen under the national government,
there could be no remedy but force. The means to be employed must be proportioned
to the extent of the mischief. If it should be a slight commotion in a
small part of a State, the militia of the residue would be adequate to
its suppression; and the national presumption is that they would be ready
to do their duty. An insurrection, whatever may be its immediate cause,
eventually endangers all government. Regard to the public peace, if not
to the rights of the Union, would engage the citizens to whom the contagion
had not communicated itself to oppose the insurgents; and if the general
government should be found in practice conducive to the prosperity and
felicity of the people, it were irrational to believe that they would
be disinclined to its support. If, on the contrary, the insurrection should pervade a whole State, or
a principal part of it, the employment of a different kind of force might
become unavoidable. It appears that Massachusetts found it necessary to
raise troops for repressing the disorders within that State; that Pennsylvania,
from the mere apprehension of commotions among a part of her citizens,
has thought proper to have recourse to the same measure. Suppose the State
of New York had been inclined to re-establish her lost jurisdiction over
the inhabitants of Vermont, could she have hoped for success in such an
enterprise from the efforts of the militia alone? Would she not have been
compelled to raise and to maintain a more regular force for the execution
of her design? If it must then be admitted that the necessity of recurring
to a force different from the militia, in cases of this extraordinary
nature, is applicable to the State governments themselves, why should
the possibility, that the national government might be under a like necessity,
in similar extremities, be made an objection to its existence? Is it not
surprising that men who declare an attachment to the Union in the abstract,
should urge as an objection to the proposed Constitution what applies
with tenfold weight to the plan for which they contend; and what, as far
as it has any foundation in truth, is an inevitable consequence of civil
society upon an enlarged scale? Who would not prefer that possibility
to the unceasing agitations and frequent revolutions which are the continual
scourges of petty republics? Let us pursue this examination in another light. Suppose, in lieu of
one general system, two, or three, or even four Confederacies were to
be formed, would not the same difficulty oppose itself to the operations
of either of these Confederacies? Would not each of them be exposed to
the same casualties; and when these happened, be obliged to have recourse
to the same expedients for upholding its authority which are objected
to in a government for all the States? Would the militia, in this supposition,
be more ready or more able to support the federal authority than in the
case of a general union? All candid and intelligent men must, upon due
consideration, acknowledge that the principle of the objection is equally
applicable to either of the two cases; and that whether we have one government
for all the States, or different governments for different parcels of
them, or even if there should be an entire separation of the States, there
might sometimes be a necessity to make use of a force constituted differently
from the militia, to preserve the peace of the community and to maintain
the just authority of the laws against those violent invasions of them
which amount to insurrections and rebellions. Independent of all other reasonings upon the subject, it is a full answer
to those who require a more peremptory provision against military establishments
in time of peace, to say that the whole power of the proposed government
is to be in the hands of the representatives of the people. This is the
essential, and, after all, only efficacious security for the rights and
privileges of the people, which is attainable in civil society. [1] If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there
is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of
self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and
which against the usurpations of the national rulers, may be exerted with
infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers
of an individual state. In a single state, if the persons intrusted with
supreme power become usurpers, the different parcels, subdivisions, or
districts of which it consists, having no distinct government in each,
can take no regular measures for defense. The citizens must rush tumultuously
to arms, without concert, without system, without resource; except in
their courage and despair. The usurpers, clothed with the forms of legal
authority, can too often crush the opposition in embryo. The smaller the
extent of the territory, the more difficult will it be for the people
to form a regular or systematic plan of opposition, and the more easy
will it be to defeat their early efforts. Intelligence can be more speedily
obtained of their preparations and movements, and the military force in
the possession of the usurpers can be more rapidly directed against the
part where the opposition has begun. In this situation there must be a
peculiar coincidence of circumstances to insure success to the popular
resistance. The obstacles to usurpation and the facilities of resistance increase
with the increased extent of the state, provided the citizens understand
their rights and are disposed to defend them. The natural strength of
the people in a large community, in proportion to the artificial strength
of the government, is greater than in a small, and of course more competent
to a struggle with the attempts of the government to establish a tyranny.
But in a confederacy the people, without exaggeration, may be said to
be entirely the masters of their own fate. Power being almost always the
rival of power, the general government will at all times stand ready to
check the usurpations of the state governments, and these will have the
same disposition towards the general government. The people, by throwing
themselves into either scale, will infallibly make it preponderate. If
their rights are invaded by either, they can make use of the other as
the instrument of redress. How wise will it be in them by cherishing the
union to preserve to themselves an advantage which can never be too highly
prized! It may safely be received as an axiom in our political system, that the
State governments will, in all possible contingencies, afford complete
security against invasions of the public liberty by the national authority.
Projects of usurpation cannot be masked under pretenses so likely to escape
the penetration of select bodies of men, as of the people at large. The
legislatures will have better means of information. They can discover
the danger at a distance; and possessing all the organs of civil power,
and the confidence of the people, they can at once adopt a regular plan
of opposition, in which they can combine all the resources of the community.
They can readily communicate with each other in the different States,
and unite their common forces for the protection of their common liberty. The great extent of the country is a further security. We have already
experienced its utility against the attacks of a foreign power. And it
would have precisely the same effect against the enterprises of ambitious
rulers in the national councils. If the federal army should be able to
quell the resistance of one State, the distant States would have it in
their power to make head with fresh forces. The advantages obtained in
one place must be abandoned to subdue the opposition in others; and the
moment the part which had been reduced to submission was left to itself,
its efforts would be renewed, and its resistance revive. We should recollect that the extent of the military force must, at all
events, be regulated by the resources of the country. For a long time
to come, it will not be possible to maintain a large army; and as the
means of doing this increase, the population and natural strength of the
community will proportionably increase. When will the time arrive that
the federal government can raise and maintain an army capable of erecting
a despotism over the great body of the people of an immense empire, who
are in a situation, through the medium of their State governments, to
take measures for their own defense, with all the celerity, regularity,
and system of independent nations? The apprehension may be considered
as a disease, for which there can be found no cure in the resources of
argument and reasoning.