Federalist #16

The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union (cont.)  (Hamilton)

Alexander Hamilton begins Federalist No. 16 by stating that the inevitable result of the Articles of Confederation will be a state of anarchy and civil war.  Alexander Hamilton also remarks that several examples of this principle are available by examining various confederacies in history, and notes that the only two exceptions are the Lycian League in present day southern Turkey, which survived for nearly two hundred years, and the Achaean League in southern Greece which survived until the Third Macedonian War when it was conquered by Rome.  Hamilton then goes on to argue that the only way to prevent a fate of anarchy and civil war is to allow for the creation of a strong national army capable of keeping the ambitions of the various states on check.  It is worth remembering here that both the Lycian and Achaean League survived for as long as they did because they created strong centralized governing bodies and each maintained a united standing army.  It is also worth remembering, even parenthetically, that both were eventually absorbed by an even stronger centrally governed force in the Roman Empire.

Hamilton points out that in the absence of such a force, the resulting anarchy would result in one of two “deaths” for the United States under the Articles of Confederation.  First, in cases of conflict between the states, the most powerful within the confederacy would simply use their might to dominate the weaker states.  Hamilton calls this hypothetical end the violent death of the United States.  Secondly, even if civil war were not to break out, the various states would simply continue to ignore the weak central government until it had essentially ceased to function.  Hamilton calls this the natural death of the United States and asserts that there was real danger of this death occurring at the time of No. 16’s publication.

 
Hamilton concludes by admitting that a federal government founded upon force alone would be nothing more than mere despotism.  At this point in the essay Hamilton returns the discussion to the need for a constitution which is capable of regulating the behavior of individuals an states alike, thus espousing the principle of the contract theorists Hobbes and Locke (to a much greater extent) that true liberty comes only in the willingness of the individual to submit to government, provided of course that this government ruled to preserve the interests of the governed (even Hobbes concedes this point).  Hamilton continues that such a constitution would have to locate power at the federal level, and that such a federal government would have to be strong enough to act without the ascent of the individual states, lest the United States suffer one of the two deaths previously alluded to.  Hamilton concludes by saying that the only way for states to assert superior power under such a constitution would be through the use violent rebellion: “But if the execution of the laws of the national government should not require the intervention of the State legislatures, if they were to pass into immediate operation upon the citizens themselves, the particular governments could not interrupt their progress without an open and violent exertion of an unconstitutional power” (No. 16).