FEDERALIST No. 25

The Same Subject Continued

(The Powers Necessary to the Common Defense Further Considered)

From the New York Packet.

Friday, December 21, 1787.

To the People of the State of New York:

IT MAY perhaps be urged that the objects enumerated in the

preceding number ought to be provided for by the State governments,

under the direction of the Union. But this would be, in reality, an

inversion of the primary principle of our political association, as

it would in practice transfer the care of the common defense from

the federal head to the individual members: a project oppressive to

some States, dangerous to all, and baneful to the Confederacy.

The territories of Britain, Spain, and of the Indian nations in

our neighborhood do not border on particular States, but encircle

the Union from Maine to Georgia. The danger, though in different

degrees, is therefore common. And the means of guarding against it

ought, in like manner, to be the objects of common councils and of a

common treasury. It happens that some States, from local situation,

are more directly exposed. New York is of this class. Upon the

plan of separate provisions, New York would have to sustain the

whole weight of the establishments requisite to her immediate

safety, and to the mediate or ultimate protection of her neighbors.

This would neither be equitable as it respected New York nor safe

as it respected the other States. Various inconveniences would

attend such a system. The States, to whose lot it might fall to

support the necessary establishments, would be as little able as

willing, for a considerable time to come, to bear the burden of

competent provisions. The security of all would thus be subjected

to the parsimony, improvidence, or inability of a part. If the

resources of such part becoming more abundant and extensive, its

provisions should be proportionally enlarged, the other States would

quickly take the alarm at seeing the whole military force of the

Union in the hands of two or three of its members, and those

probably amongst the most powerful. They would each choose to have

some counterpoise, and pretenses could easily be contrived. In this

situation, military establishments, nourished by mutual jealousy,

would be apt to swell beyond their natural or proper size; and

being at the separate disposal of the members, they would be engines

for the abridgment or demolition of the national authcrity.

Reasons have been already given to induce a supposition that the

State governments will too naturally be prone to a rivalship with

that of the Union, the foundation of which will be the love of

power; and that in any contest between the federal head and one of

its members the people will be most apt to unite with their local

government. If, in addition to this immense advantage, the ambition

of the members should be stimulated by the separate and independent

possession of military forces, it would afford too strong a

temptation and too great a facility to them to make enterprises

upon, and finally to subvert, the constitutional authority of the

Union. On the other hand, the liberty of the people would be less

safe in this state of things than in that which left the national

forces in the hands of the national government. As far as an army

may be considered as a dangerous weapon of power, it had better be

in those hands of which the people are most likely to be jealous

than in those of which they are least likely to be jealous. For it

is a truth, which the experience of ages has attested, that the

people are always most in danger when the means of injuring their

rights are in the possession of those of whom they entertain the

least suspicion.

The framers of the existing Confederation, fully aware of the

danger to the Union from the separate possession of military forces

by the States, have, in express terms, prohibited them from having

either ships or troops, unless with the consent of Congress. The

truth is, that the existence of a federal government and military

establishments under State authority are not less at variance with

each other than a due supply of the federal treasury and the system

of quotas and requisitions.

There are other lights besides those already taken notice of, in

which the impropriety of restraints on the discretion of the

national legislature will be equally manifest. The design of the

objection, which has been mentioned, is to preclude standing armies

in time of peace, though we have never been informed how far it is

designed the prohibition should extend; whether to raising armies

as well as to KEEPING THEM UP in a season of tranquillity or not.

If it be confined to the latter it will have no precise

signification, and it will be ineffectual for the purpose intended.

When armies are once raised what shall be denominated ``keeping

them up,'' contrary to the sense of the Constitution? What time

shall be requisite to ascertain the violation? Shall it be a week,

a month, a year? Or shall we say they may be continued as long as

the danger which occasioned their being raised continues? This

would be to admit that they might be kept up IN TIME OF PEACE,

against threatening or impending danger, which would be at once to

deviate from the literal meaning of the prohibition, and to

introduce an extensive latitude of construction. Who shall judge of

the continuance of the danger? This must undoubtedly be submitted

to the national government, and the matter would then be brought to

this issue, that the national government, to provide against

apprehended danger, might in the first instance raise troops, and

might afterwards keep them on foot as long as they supposed the

peace or safety of the community was in any degree of jeopardy. It

is easy to perceive that a discretion so latitudinary as this would

afford ample room for eluding the force of the provision.

The supposed utility of a provision of this kind can only be

founded on the supposed probability, or at least possibility, of a

combination between the executive and the legislative, in some

scheme of usurpation. Should this at any time happen, how easy

would it be to fabricate pretenses of approaching danger! Indian

hostilities, instigated by Spain or Britain, would always be at hand.

Provocations to produce the desired appearances might even be

given to some foreign power, and appeased again by timely

concessions. If we can reasonably presume such a combination to

have been formed, and that the enterprise is warranted by a

sufficient prospect of success, the army, when once raised, from

whatever cause, or on whatever pretext, may be applied to the

execution of the project.

If, to obviate this consequence, it should be resolved to extend

the prohibition to the RAISING of armies in time of peace, the

United States would then exhibit the most extraordinary spectacle

which the world has yet seen, gthat of a nation incapacitated by its

Constitution to prepare for defense, before it was actually invaded.

As the ceremony of a formal denunciation of war has of late fallen

into disuse, the presence of an enemy within our territories must be

waited for, as the legal warrant to the government to begin its

levies of men for the protection of the State. We must receive the

blow, before we could even prepare to return it. All that kind of

policy by which nations anticipate distant danger, and meet the

gathering storm, must be abstained from, as contrary to the genuine

maxims of a free government. We must expose our property and

liberty to the mercy of foreign invaders, and invite them by our

weakness to seize the naked and defenseless prey, because we are

afraid that rulers, created by our choice, dependent on our will,

might endanger that liberty, by an abuse of the means necessary to

its preservation.

Here I expect we shall be told that the militia of the country

is its natural bulwark, and would be at all times equal to the

national defense. This doctrine, in substance, had like to have

lost us our independence. It cost millions to the United States

that might have been saved. The facts which, from our own

experience, forbid a reliance of this kind, are too recent to permit

us to be the dupes of such a suggestion. The steady operations of

war against a regular and disciplined army can only be successfully

conducted by a force of the same kind. Considerations of economy,

not less than of stability and vigor, confirm this position. The

American militia, in the course of the late war, have, by their

valor on numerous occasions, erected eternal monuments to their

fame; but the bravest of them feel and know that the liberty of

their country could not have been established by their efforts

alone, however great and valuable they were. War, like most other

things, is a science to be acquired and perfected by diligence, by

perserverance, by time, and by practice.

All violent policy, as it is contrary to the natural and

experienced course of human affairs, defeats itself. Pennsylvania,

at this instant, affords an example of the truth of this remark.

The Bill of Rights of that State declares that standing armies are

dangerous to liberty, and ought not to be kept up in time of peace.

Pennsylvania, nevertheless, in a time of profound peace, from the

existence of partial disorders in one or two of her counties, has

resolved to raise a body of troops; and in all probability will

keep them up as long as there is any appearance of danger to the

public peace. The conduct of Massachusetts affords a lesson on the

same subject, though on different ground. That State (without

waiting for the sanction of Congress, as the articles of the

Confederation require) was compelled to raise troops to quell a

domestic insurrection, and still keeps a corps in pay to prevent a

revival of the spirit of revolt. The particular constitution of

Massachusetts opposed no obstacle to the measure; but the instance

is still of use to instruct us that cases are likely to occur under

our government, as well as under those of other nations, which will

sometimes render a military force in time of peace essential to the

security of the society, and that it is therefore improper in this

respect to control the legislative discretion. It also teaches us,

in its application to the United States, how little the rights of a

feeble government are likely to be respected, even by its own

constituents. And it teaches us, in addition to the rest, how

unequal parchment provisions are to a struggle with public necessity

.

It was a fundamental maxim of the Lacedaemonian commonwealth,

that the post of admiral should not be conferred twice on the same

person. The Peloponnesian confederates, having suffered a severe

defeat at sea from the Athenians, demanded Lysander, who had before

served with success in that capacity, to command the combined fleets.

The Lacedaemonians, to gratify their allies, and yet preserve the

semblance of an adherence to their ancient institutions, had

recourse to the flimsy subterfuge of investing Lysander with the

real power of admiral, under the nominal title of vice-admiral.

This instance is selected from among a multitude that might be

cited to confirm the truth already advanced and illustrated by

domestic examples; which is, that nations pay little regard to

rules and maxims calculated in their very nature to run counter to

the necessities of society. Wise politicians will be cautious about

fettering the government with restrictions that cannot be observed,

because they know that every breach of the fundamental laws, though

dictated by necessity, impairs that sacred reverence which ought to

be maintained in the breast of rulers towards the constitution of a

country, and forms a precedent for other breaches where the same

plea of necessity does not exist at all, or is less urgent and

palpable.