fp41.txt

THE Constitution proposed by the convention may be considered under two 
        general points of view. The FIRST relates to the sum or quantity of power 
        which it vests in the government, including the restraints imposed on 
        the States. The SECOND, to the particular structure of the government, 
        and the distribution of this power among its several branches. Under the 
        FIRST view of the subject, two important questions arise: 1. Whether any 
        part of the powers transferred to the general government be unnecessary 
        or improper? 2. Whether the entire mass of them be dangerous to the portion 
        of jurisdiction left in the several States? Is the aggregate power of 
        the general government greater than ought to have been vested in it? This 
        is the FIRST question. It cannot have escaped those who have attended 
        with candor to the arguments employed against the extensive powers of 
        the government, that the authors of them have very little considered how 
        far these powers were necessary means of attaining a necessary end. They 
        have chosen rather to dwell on the inconveniences which must be unavoidably 
        blended with all political advantages; and on the possible abuses which 
        must be incident to every power or trust, of which a beneficial use can 
        be made. This method of handling the subject cannot impose on the good 
        sense of the people of America. It may display the subtlety of the writer; 
        it may open a boundless field for rhetoric and declamation; it may inflame 
        the passions of the unthinking, and may confirm the prejudices of the 
        misthinking: but cool and candid people will at once reflect, that the 
        purest of human blessings must have a portion of alloy in them; that the 
        choice must always be made, if not of the lesser evil, at least of the 
        GREATER, not the PERFECT, good; and that in every political institution, 
        a power to advance the public happiness involves a discretion which may 
        be misapplied and abused. They will see, therefore, that in all cases 
        where power is to be conferred, the point first to be decided is, whether 
        such a power be necessary to the public good; as the next will be, in 
        case of an affirmative decision, to guard as effectually as possible against 
        a perversion of the power to the public detriment. That we may form a 
        correct judgment on this subject, it will be proper to review the several 
        powers conferred on the government of the Union; and that this may be 
        the more conveniently done they may be reduced into different classes 
        as they relate to the following different objects: 1. Security against 
        foreign danger; 2. Regulation of the intercourse with foreign nations; 
        3. Maintenance of harmony and proper intercourse among the States; 4. 
        Certain miscellaneous objects of general utility; 5. Restraint of the 
        States from certain injurious acts; 6. Provisions for giving due efficacy 
        to all these powers. The powers falling within the FIRST class are those 
        of declaring war and granting letters of marque; of providing armies and 
        fleets; of regulating and calling forth the militia; of levying and borrowing 
        money. Security against foreign danger is one of the primitive objects 
        of civil society. It is an avowed and essential object of the American 
        Union. The powers requisite for attaining it must be effectually confided 
        to the federal councils. Is the power of declaring war necessary? No man 
        will answer this question in the negative. It would be superfluous, therefore, 
        to enter into a proof of the affirmative. The existing Confederation establishes 
        this power in the most ample form. Is the power of raising armies and 
        equipping fleets necessary? This is involved in the foregoing power. It 
        is involved in the power of self-defense. But was it necessary to give 
        an INDEFINITE POWER of raising TROOPS, as well as providing fleets; and 
        of maintaining both in PEACE, as well as in war? The answer to these questions 
        has been too far anticipated in another place to admit an extensive discussion 
        of them in this place. The answer indeed seems to be so obvious and conclusive 
        as scarcely to justify such a discussion in any place. With what color 
        of propriety could the force necessary for defense be limited by those 
        who cannot limit the force of offense? If a federal Constitution could 
        chain the ambition or set bounds to the exertions of all other nations, 
        then indeed might it prudently chain the discretion of its own government, 
        and set bounds to the exertions for its own safety. How could a readiness for war in time of peace be safely prohibited, 
        unless we could prohibit, in like manner, the preparations and establishments 
        of every hostile nation? The means of security can only be regulated by 
        the means and the danger of attack. They will, in fact, be ever determined 
        by these rules, and by no others. It is in vain to oppose constitutional 
        barriers to the impulse of self-preservation. It is worse than in vain; 
        because it plants in the Constitution itself necessary usurpations of 
        power, every precedent of which is a germ of unnecessary and multiplied 
        repetitions. If one nation maintains constantly a disciplined army, ready 
        for the service of ambition or revenge, it obliges the most pacific nations 
        who may be within the reach of its enterprises to take corresponding precautions. The fifteenth century was the unhappy epoch of military establishments 
        in the time of peace. They were introduced by Charles VII. of France. 
        All Europe has followed, or been forced into, the example. Had the example 
        not been followed by other nations, all Europe must long ago have worn 
        the chains of a universal monarch. Were every nation except France now 
        to disband its peace establishments, the same event might follow. The 
        veteran legions of Rome were an overmatch for the undisciplined valor 
        of all other nations and rendered her the mistress of the world. Not the 
        less true is it, that the liberties of Rome proved the final victim to 
        her military triumphs; and that the liberties of Europe, as far as they 
        ever existed, have, with few exceptions, been the price of her military 
        establishments. A standing force, therefore, is a dangerous, at the same 
        time that it may be a necessary, provision. On the smallest scale it has 
        its inconveniences. On an extensive scale its consequences may be fatal. 
        On any scale it is an object of laudable circumspection and precaution. 
        A wise nation will combine all these considerations; and, whilst it does 
        not rashly preclude itself from any resource which may become essential 
        to its safety, will exert all its prudence in diminishing both the necessity 
        and the danger of resorting to one which may be inauspicious to its liberties. 
        The clearest marks of this prudence are stamped on the proposed Constitution. 
        The Union itself, which it cements and secures, destroys every pretext 
        for a military establishment which could be dangerous. America united, 
        with a handful of troops, or without a single soldier, exhibits a more 
        forbidding posture to foreign ambition than America disunited, with a 
        hundred thousand veterans ready for combat. It was remarked, on a former 
        occasion, that the want of this pretext had saved the liberties of one 
        nation in Europe. Being rendered by her insular situation and her maritime 
        resources impregnable to the armies of her neighbors, the rulers of Great 
        Britain have never been able, by real or artificial dangers, to cheat 
        the public into an extensive peace establishment. The distance of the 
        United States from the powerful nations of the world gives them the same 
        happy security. A dangerous establishment can never be necessary or plausible, 
        so long as they continue a united people. But let it never, for a moment, 
        be forgotten that they are indebted for this advantage to the Union alone. 
        The moment of its dissolution will be the date of a new order of things. 
        The fears of the weaker, or the ambition of the stronger States, or Confederacies, 
        will set the same example in the New, as Charles VII. did in the Old World. 
        The example will be followed here from the same motives which produced 
        universal imitation there. Instead of deriving from our situation the 
        precious advantage which Great Britain has derived from hers, the face 
        of America will be but a copy of that of the continent of Europe. It will 
        present liberty everywhere crushed between standing armies and perpetual 
        taxes. The fortunes of disunited America will be even more disastrous 
        than those of Europe. The sources of evil in the latter are confined to 
        her own limits. No superior powers of another quarter of the globe intrigue 
        among her rival nations, inflame their mutual animosities, and render 
        them the instruments of foreign ambition, jealousy, and revenge. In America 
        the miseries springing from her internal jealousies, contentions, and 
        wars, would form a part only of her lot. A plentiful addition of evils 
        would have their source in that relation in which Europe stands to this 
        quarter of the earth, and which no other quarter of the earth bears to 
        Europe. This picture of the consequences of disunion cannot be too highly 
        colored, or too often exhibited. Every man who loves peace, every man 
        who loves his country, every man who loves liberty, ought to have it ever 
        before his eyes, that he may cherish in his heart a due attachment to 
        the Union of America, and be able to set a due value on the means of preserving 
        it. Next to the effectual establishment of the Union, the best possible precaution 
        against danger from standing armies is a limitation of the term for which 
        revenue may be appropriated to their support. This precaution the Constitution 
        has prudently added. I will not repeat here the observations which I flatter 
        myself have placed this subject in a just and satisfactory light. But 
        it may not be improper to take notice of an argument against this part 
        of the Constitution, which has been drawn from the policy and practice 
        of Great Britain. It is said that the continuance of an army in that kingdom 
        requires an annual vote of the legislature; whereas the American Constitution 
        has lengthened this critical period to two years. This is the form in 
        which the comparison is usually stated to the public: but is it a just 
        form? Is it a fair comparison? Does the British Constitution restrain 
        the parliamentary discretion to one year? Does the American impose on 
        the Congress appropriations for two years? On the contrary, it cannot 
        be unknown to the authors of the fallacy themselves, that the British 
        Constitution fixes no limit whatever to the discretion of the legislature, 
        and that the American ties down the legislature to two years, as the longest 
        admissible term. Had the argument from the British example been truly 
        stated, it would have stood thus: The term for which supplies may be appropriated 
        to the army establishment, though unlimited by the British Constitution, 
        has nevertheless, in practice, been limited by parliamentary discretion 
        to a single year. Now, if in Great Britain, where the House of Commons 
        is elected for seven years; where so great a proportion of the members 
        are elected by so small a proportion of the people; where the electors 
        are so corrupted by the representatives, and the representatives so corrupted 
        by the Crown, the representative body can possess a power to make appropriations 
        to the army for an indefinite term, without desiring, or without daring, 
        to extend the term beyond a single year, ought not suspicion herself to 
        blush, in pretending that the representatives of the United States, elected 
        FREELY by the WHOLE BODY of the people, every SECOND YEAR, cannot be safely 
        intrusted with the discretion over such appropriations, expressly limited 
        to the short period of TWO YEARS? A bad cause seldom fails to betray itself. 
        Of this truth, the management of the opposition to the federal government 
        is an unvaried exemplification. But among all the blunders which have 
        been committed, none is more striking than the attempt to enlist on that 
        side the prudent jealousy entertained by the people, of standing armies. 
        The attempt has awakened fully the public attention to that important 
        subject; and has led to investigations which must terminate in a thorough 
        and universal conviction, not only that the constitution has provided 
        the most effectual guards against danger from that quarter, but that nothing 
        short of a Constitution fully adequate to the national defense and the 
        preservation of the Union, can save America from as many standing armies 
        as it may be split into States or Confederacies, and from such a progressive 
        augmentation, of these establishments in each, as will render them as 
        burdensome to the properties and ominous to the liberties of the people, 
        as any establishment that can become necessary, under a united and efficient 
        government, must be tolerable to the former and safe to the latter. The 
        palpable necessity of the power to provide and maintain a navy has protected 
        that part of the Constitution against a spirit of censure, which has spared 
        few other parts. It must, indeed, be numbered among the greatest blessings 
        of America, that as her Union will be the only source of her maritime 
        strength, so this will be a principal source of her security against danger 
        from abroad. In this respect our situation bears another likeness to the 
        insular advantage of Great Britain. The batteries most capable of repelling 
        foreign enterprises on our safety, are happily such as can never be turned 
        by a perfidious government against our liberties. The inhabitants of the 
        Atlantic frontier are all of them deeply interested in this provision 
        for naval protection, and if they have hitherto been suffered to sleep 
        quietly in their beds; if their property has remained safe against the 
        predatory spirit of licentious adventurers; if their maritime towns have 
        not yet been compelled to ransom themselves from the terrors of a conflagration, 
        by yielding to the exactions of daring and sudden invaders, these instances 
        of good fortune are not to be ascribed to the capacity of the existing 
        government for the protection of those from whom it claims allegiance, 
        but to causes that are fugitive and fallacious. If we except perhaps Virginia 
        and Maryland, which are peculiarly vulnerable on their eastern frontiers, 
        no part of the Union ought to feel more anxiety on this subject than New 
        York. Her seacoast is extensive. A very important district of the State 
        is an island. The State itself is penetrated by a large navigable river 
        for more than fifty leagues. The great emporium of its commerce, the great 
        reservoir of its wealth, lies every moment at the mercy of events, and 
        may almost be regarded as a hostage for ignominious compliances with the 
        dictates of a foreign enemy, or even with the rapacious demands of pirates 
        and barbarians. Should a war be the result of the precarious situation 
        of European affairs, and all the unruly passions attending it be let loose 
        on the ocean, our escape from insults and depredations, not only on that 
        element, but every part of the other bordering on it, will be truly miraculous. 
        In the present condition of America, the States more immediately exposed 
        to these calamities have nothing to hope from the phantom of a general 
        government which now exists; and if their single resources were equal 
        to the task of fortifying themselves against the danger, the object to 
        be protected would be almost consumed by the means of protecting them. 
        The power of regulating and calling forth the militia has been already 
        sufficiently vindicated and explained. The power of levying and borrowing 
        money, being the sinew of that which is to be exerted in the national 
        defense, is properly thrown into the same class with it. This power, also, 
        has been examined already with much attention, and has, I trust, been 
        clearly shown to be necessary, both in the extent and form given to it 
        by the Constitution. I will address one additional reflection only to 
        those who contend that the power ought to have been restrained to external 
        taxation by which they mean, taxes on articles imported from other countries. 
        It cannot be doubted that this will always be a valuable source of revenue; 
        that for a considerable time it must be a principal source; that at this 
        moment it is an essential one. But we may form very mistaken ideas on 
        this subject, if we do not call to mind in our calculations, that the 
        extent of revenue drawn from foreign commerce must vary with the variations, 
        both in the extent and the kind of imports; and that these variations 
        do not correspond with the progress of population, which must be the general 
        measure of the public wants. As long as agriculture continues the sole 
        field of labor, the importation of manufactures must increase as the consumers 
        multiply. As soon as domestic manufactures are begun by the hands not 
        called for by agriculture, the imported manufactures will decrease as 
        the numbers of people increase. In a more remote stage, the imports may 
        consist in a considerable part of raw materials, which will be wrought 
        into articles for exportation, and will, therefore, require rather the 
        encouragement of bounties, than to be loaded with discouraging duties. 
        A system of government, meant for duration, ought to contemplate these 
        revolutions, and be able to accommodate itself to them. Some, who have 
        not denied the necessity of the power of taxation, have grounded a very 
        fierce attack against the Constitution, on the language in which it is 
        defined. It has been urged and echoed, that the power "to lay and collect 
        taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for 
        the common defense and general welfare of the United States," amounts 
        to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged 
        to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare. No stronger 
        proof could be given of the distress under which these writers labor for 
        objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction. Had no other 
        enumeration or definition of the powers of the Congress been found in 
        the Constitution, than the general expressions just cited, the authors 
        of the objection might have had some color for it; though it would have 
        been difficult to find a reason for so awkward a form of describing an 
        authority to legislate in all possible cases. A power to destroy the freedom 
        of the press, the trial by jury, or even to regulate the course of descents, 
        or the forms of conveyances, must be very singularly expressed by the 
        terms "to raise money for the general welfare. "But what color can the 
        objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these 
        general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer 
        pause than a semicolon? If the different parts of the same instrument 
        ought to be so expounded, as to give meaning to every part which will 
        bear it, shall one part of the same sentence be excluded altogether from 
        a share in the meaning; and shall the more doubtful and indefinite terms 
        be retained in their full extent, and the clear and precise expressions 
        be denied any signification whatsoever? For what purpose could the enumeration 
        of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to 
        be included in the preceding general power? Nothing is more natural nor 
        common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify 
        it by a recital of particulars. But the idea of an enumeration of particulars 
        which neither explain nor qualify the general meaning, and can have no 
        other effect than to confound and mislead, is an absurdity, which, as 
        we are reduced to the dilemma of charging either on the authors of the 
        objection or on the authors of the Constitution, we must take the liberty 
        of supposing, had not its origin with the latter. The objection here is 
        the more extraordinary, as it appears that the language used by the convention 
        is a copy from the articles of Confederation. The objects of the Union 
        among the States, as described in article third, are "their common defense, 
        security of their liberties, and mutual and general welfare. " The terms 
        of article eighth are still more identical: "All charges of war and all 
        other expenses that shall be incurred for the common defense or general 
        welfare, and allowed by the United States in Congress, shall be defrayed 
        out of a common treasury," etc. A similar language again occurs in article 
        ninth. Construe either of these articles by the rules which would justify 
        the construction put on the new Constitution, and they vest in the existing 
        Congress a power to legislate in all cases whatsoever. But what would have been thought of that assembly, if, attaching themselves 
        to these general expressions, and disregarding the specifications which 
        ascertain and limit their import, they had exercised an unlimited power 
        of providing for the common defense and general welfare? I appeal to the 
        objectors themselves, whether they would in that case have employed the 
        same reasoning in justification of Congress as they now make use of against 
        the convention. How difficult it is for error to escape its own condemnation!