In Federalist Paper #28, Hamilton continues his consideration of the necessity of using force in the conduct of national affairs. In Federalist Paper #27, Hamilton implies that a properly run national government should rarely find it necessary to use military force to enact its laws. In Federalist Paper #28, Hamilton admits that on occasion the national government will, indeed, find it necessary to use force. He acknowledges that emergencies will arise and that seditions and insurrections will occur.
In strict regard to the national use of force, however, Hamilton discusses two prospective events that are not at all interwoven. The first of these does largely involve public insurrections and rebellions and he mentions public disorders in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania that required the application of military force. In the concluding half of Federalist #28, however, he describes a second, and completely different reason, for the use of governmental force. That reason may arise when the citizenry's own representatives undertake steps to usurp power.
And Hamilton issues a specific warning here. He stresses that the power of the government must remain in the hands of the true representatives of the people and the forces of the military must always be regulated "by the resources of the country." He goes on to say that while current national conditions did not permit maintenance of a large army, he openly wonders when the federal government would have the capacity to construct an army capable of imposing despotism.
His solution to potential problems emanating from usurpation or from a too powerful military seems to be an abiding faith in the capacity of the citizenry to "understand their rights" and "to defend them." He believes that if the rights of the citizenry are infringed by either a state government or by the national government, the citizens can make use of the powers of the non-offending party to correct the abuses of the party at fault. He supplies neither mechanisms nor instructions whereby such corrective actions will be implemented, but he does contend that it is axiomatic that the states will "afford complete security" against invasions by the national government. And he also contends that the "great extent of the country is a further security." He maintains this has already been demonstrated in regard to attacks by a foreign power. As in Federalist Paper #27, however, Hamilton does mention "the confidence of the people" and he adds that the state legislatures can "combine all the resources of the community." Several contentions in this specific paragraph require an obvious and certain leap of faith.
Comment by Harold Nash:
ReplyDeleteIn reviewing Federalist Paper #28, I found it particularly interesting that Hamilton would address in the same paper the use of force by the government to suppress an unruly citizenry and the use of force by the citizenry to suppress a wayward government. Both uses seem so disparate as to require that they be addressed in separate papers. For my purposes, their inclusion simultaneously caused a certain sense of asymmetrical incompatibility. Neither did I find a number of positions that he's taken here particularly compelling.