Federalist #20

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

In Federalist Paper #20, Hamilton and Madison employ another example of a deficient confederation.  This time, the object of their attention is the United Netherlands, a confederacy of Republics.  Here, too, they find great fault and then proceed to supply details.  Once again, the cause of systematic malfunction resides in an inadequate central government and in an uncontrolled confederation of independent government units given far too much jurisdictional autonomy. 

In the particular instance of the United Netherlands, the confederation is composed of seven coequal and sovereign states and each state is composed of equal and independent cities.  In deciding matters of importance, there must be unanimity among both the states and the cities.  There is a legislative body and there is an executive magistrate, and each do have well delineated responsibilities, but the pervasive city-state unanimity requirement undermines any potential for real national functionality.

As indicated before, in the estimation of Hamilton and Madison such governmental looseness supplies a ready formula for widespread disharmony and national dysfunction.  To give a precise rendition of their conclusions, they state the United Netherlands' system has produced "Imbecility in the government; discord among the provinces; foreign influence and indignities; a peculiar existence in peace, and peculiar calamities from war." 

Hamilton and Madison then note that in times of crisis the member states have been forced to "overleap their constitutional bounds."  They cite several examples, including several treaties that were concluded only through bypassing of the constitutional unanimity requirement.  Here, they importantly remark that a weak constitution must necessarily result in dissolution.  They further allege that perhaps tyranny has more frequently derived from a deficient constitution than it has from the full exercise of vast constitutional powers.

In the last paragraph of Federalist #20, Hamilton and Madison state they offer no apology for their long contemplation of defective federal experiments.  The essential truth, they conclude, "is that a sovereignty over sovereigns, a government over governments, a legislation for communities, as contradistinguished from individuals…is subversive of the order and ends of civil polity…"  Hamilton and Madison have clearly concluded that greater calamity resides in a too weak central constitution rather than in a too strong one.