fp14.txt

WE HAVE seen the necessity of the Union, as our bulwark against foreign 
        danger, as the conservator of peace among ourselves, as the guardian of 
        our commerce and other common interests, as the only substitute for those 
        military establishments which have subverted the liberties of the Old 
        World, and as the proper antidote for the diseases of faction, which have 
        proved fatal to other popular governments, and of which alarming symptoms 
        have been betrayed by our own. All that remains, within this branch of 
        our inquiries, is to take notice of an objection that may be drawn from 
        the great extent of country which the Union embraces. A few observations 
        on this subject will be the more proper, as it is perceived that the adversaries 
        of the new Constitution are availing themselves of the prevailing prejudice 
        with regard to the practicable sphere of republican administration, in 
        order to supply, by imaginary difficulties, the want of those solid objections 
        which they endeavor in vain to find. The error which limits republican government to a narrow district has 
        been unfolded and refuted in preceding papers. I remark here only that 
        it seems to owe its rise and prevalence chiefly to the confounding of 
        a republic with a democracy, applying to the former reasonings drawn from 
        the nature of the latter. The true distinction between these forms was 
        also adverted to on a former occasion. It is, that in a democracy, the 
        people meet and exercise the government in person; in a republic, they 
        assemble and administer it by their representatives and agents. A democracy, 
        consequently, will be confined to a small spot. A republic may be extended 
        over a large region. To this accidental source of the error may be added the artifice of some 
        celebrated authors, whose writings have had a great share in forming the 
        modern standard of political opinions. Being subjects either of an absolute 
        or limited monarchy, they have endeavored to heighten the advantages, 
        or palliate the evils of those forms, by placing in comparison the vices 
        and defects of the republican, and by citing as specimens of the latter 
        the turbulent democracies of ancient Greece and modern Italy. Under the 
        confusion of names, it has been an easy task to transfer to a republic 
        observations applicable to a democracy only; and among others, the observation 
        that it can never be established but among a small number of people, living 
        within a small compass of territory. Such a fallacy may have been the less perceived, as most of the popular 
        governments of antiquity were of the democratic species; and even in modern 
        Europe, to which we owe the great principle of representation, no example 
        is seen of a government wholly popular, and founded, at the same time, 
        wholly on that principle. If Europe has the merit of discovering this 
        great mechanical power in government, by the simple agency of which the 
        will of the largest political body may be concentred, and its force directed 
        to any object which the public good requires, America can claim the merit 
        of making the discovery the basis of unmixed and extensive republics. 
        It is only to be lamented that any of her citizens should wish to deprive 
        her of the additional merit of displaying its full efficacy in the establishment 
        of the comprehensive system now under her consideration. As the natural limit of a democracy is that distance from the central 
        point which will just permit the most remote citizens to assemble as often 
        as their public functions demand, and will include no greater number than 
        can join in those functions; so the natural limit of a republic is that 
        distance from the centre which will barely allow the representatives to 
        meet as often as may be necessary for the administration of public affairs. 
        Can it be said that the limits of the United States exceed this distance? 
        It will not be said by those who recollect that the Atlantic coast is 
        the longest side of the Union, that during the term of thirteen years, 
        the representatives of the States have been almost continually assembled, 
        and that the members from the most distant States are not chargeable with 
        greater intermissions of attendance than those from the States in the 
        neighborhood of Congress. That we may form a juster estimate with regard to this interesting subject, 
        let us resort to the actual dimensions of the Union. The limits, as fixed 
        by the treaty of peace, are: on the east the Atlantic, on the south the 
        latitude of thirty-one degrees, on the west the Mississippi, and on the 
        north an irregular line running in some instances beyond the forty-fifth 
        degree, in others falling as low as the forty-second. The southern shore 
        of Lake Erie lies below that latitude. Computing the distance between 
        the thirty-first and forty-fifth degrees, it amounts to nine hundred and 
        seventy-three common miles; computing it from thirty-one to forty-two 
        degrees, to seven hundred and sixty-four miles and a half. Taking the 
        mean for the distance, the amount will be eight hundred and sixty-eight 
        miles and three-fourths. The mean distance from the Atlantic to the Mississippi 
        does not probably exceed seven hundred and fifty miles. On a comparison 
        of this extent with that of several countries in Europe, the practicability 
        of rendering our system commensurate to it appears to be demonstrable. 
        It is not a great deal larger than Germany, where a diet representing 
        the whole empire is continually assembled; or than Poland before the late 
        dismemberment, where another national diet was the depositary of the supreme 
        power. Passing by France and Spain, we find that in Great Britain, inferior 
        as it may be in size, the representatives of the northern extremity of 
        the island have as far to travel to the national council as will be required 
        of those of the most remote parts of the Union. Favorable as this view of the subject may be, some observations remain 
        which will place it in a light still more satisfactory. In the first place it is to be remembered that the general government 
        is not to be charged with the whole power of making and administering 
        laws. Its jurisdiction is limited to certain enumerated objects, which 
        concern all the members of the republic, but which are not to be attained 
        by the separate provisions of any. The subordinate governments, which 
        can extend their care to all those other subjects which can be separately 
        provided for, will retain their due authority and activity. Were it proposed 
        by the plan of the convention to abolish the governments of the particular 
        States, its adversaries would have some ground for their objection; though 
        it would not be difficult to show that if they were abolished the general 
        government would be compelled, by the principle of self-preservation, 
        to reinstate them in their proper jurisdiction. A second observation to be made is that the immediate object of the federal 
        Constitution is to secure the union of the thirteen primitive States, 
        which we know to be practicable; and to add to them such other States 
        as may arise in their own bosoms, or in their neighborhoods, which we 
        cannot doubt to be equally practicable. The arrangements that may be necessary 
        for those angles and fractions of our territory which lie on our northwestern 
        frontier, must be left to those whom further discoveries and experience 
        will render more equal to the task. Let it be remarked, in the third place, that the intercourse throughout 
        the Union will be facilitated by new improvements. Roads will everywhere 
        be shortened, and kept in better order; accommodations for travelers will 
        be multiplied and meliorated; an interior navigation on our eastern side 
        will be opened throughout, or nearly throughout, the whole extent of the 
        thirteen States. The communication between the Western and Atlantic districts, 
        and between different parts of each, will be rendered more and more easy 
        by those numerous canals with which the beneficence of nature has intersected 
        our country, and which art finds it so little difficult to connect and 
        complete. A fourth and still more important consideration is, that as almost every 
        State will, on one side or other, be a frontier, and will thus find, in 
        regard to its safety, an inducement to make some sacrifices for the sake 
        of the general protection; so the States which lie at the greatest distance 
        from the heart of the Union, and which, of course, may partake least of 
        the ordinary circulation of its benefits, will be at the same time immediately 
        contiguous to foreign nations, and will consequently stand, on particular 
        occasions, in greatest need of its strength and resources. It may be inconvenient 
        for Georgia, or the States forming our western or northeastern borders, 
        to send their representatives to the seat of government; but they would 
        find it more so to struggle alone against an invading enemy, or even to 
        support alone the whole expense of those precautions which may be dictated 
        by the neighborhood of continual danger. If they should derive less benefit, 
        therefore, from the Union in some respects than the less distant States, 
        they will derive greater benefit from it in other respects, and thus the 
        proper equilibrium will be maintained throughout. I submit to you, my fellow-citizens, these considerations, in full confidence 
        that the good sense which has so often marked your decisions will allow 
        them their due weight and effect; and that you will never suffer difficulties, 
        however formidable in appearance, or however fashionable the error on 
        which they may be founded, to drive you into the gloomy and perilous scene 
        into which the advocates for disunion would conduct you. Hearken not to 
        the unnatural voice which tells you that the people of America, knit together 
        as they are by so many cords of affection, can no longer live together 
        as members of the same family; can no longer continue the mutual guardians 
        of their mutual happiness; can no longer be fellowcitizens of one great, 
        respectable, and flourishing empire. Hearken not to the voice which petulantly 
        tells you that the form of government recommended for your adoption is 
        a novelty in the political world; that it has never yet had a place in 
        the theories of the wildest projectors; that it rashly attempts what it 
        is impossible to accomplish. No, my countrymen, shut your ears against 
        this unhallowed language. Shut your hearts against the poison which it 
        conveys; the kindred blood which flows in the veins of American citizens, 
        the mingled blood which they have shed in defense of their sacred rights, 
        consecrate their Union, and excite horror at the idea of their becoming 
        aliens, rivals, enemies. And if novelties are to be shunned, believe me, 
        the most alarming of all novelties, the most wild of all projects, the 
        most rash of all attempts, is that of rendering us in pieces, in order 
        to preserve our liberties and promote our happiness. But why is the experiment 
        of an extended republic to be rejected, merely because it may comprise 
        what is new? Is it not the glory of the people of America, that, whilst 
        they have paid a decent regard to the opinions of former times and other 
        nations, they have not suffered a blind veneration for antiquity, for 
        custom, or for names, to overrule the suggestions of their own good sense, 
        the knowledge of their own situation, and the lessons of their own experience? 
        To this manly spirit, posterity will be indebted for the possession, and 
        the world for the example, of the numerous innovations displayed on the 
        American theatre, in favor of private rights and public happiness. Had 
        no important step been taken by the leaders of the Revolution for which 
        a precedent could not be discovered, no government established of which 
        an exact model did not present itself, the people of the United States 
        might, at this moment have been numbered among the melancholy victims 
        of misguided councils, must at best have been laboring under the weight 
        of some of those forms which have crushed the liberties of the rest of 
        mankind. Happily for America, happily, we trust, for the whole human race, 
        they pursued a new and more noble course. They accomplished a revolution 
        which has no parallel in the annals of human society. They reared the 
        fabrics of governments which have no model on the face of the globe. They 
        formed the design of a great Confederacy, which it is incumbent on their 
        successors to improve and perpetuate. If their works betray imperfections, 
        we wonder at the fewness of them. If they erred most in the structure 
        of the Union, this was the work most difficult to be executed; this is 
        the work which has been new modelled by the act of your convention, and 
        it is that act on which you are now to deliberate and to decide.