FEDERALIST No. 14

Friday, November 30, 1787.

To the People of the State of New York:

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.