|
Close
End of Federalist Paper No. 41
|
FEDERALIST NO. 41
General View of the Powers Conferred by the Constitution
For the Independent Journal Saturday January 19, 1788
Author: James Madison
To the People of New York
|
|
DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=41- ParaX=1- XthisXParaX=1-
DeB 131 -1-THE Constitution proposed by the convention may be considered under two general points of view.
DeB 131 -2-The FIRST relates to the sum or quantity of power which it vests in the government, including the restraints imposed on the States.
DeB 131 -3-The SECOND, to the particular structure of the government, and the distribution of this power among its several branches.
DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=41- ParaX=2- XthisXParaX=2-
DeB 131 -1-Under the FIRST view of the subject, two important questions arise: 1. Whether any part of the powers transferred to the general government be unnecessary or improper?2. Whether the entire mass of them be dangerous to the portion of jurisdiction left in the several States?
DeB 131 -2-1. Whether any part of the powers transferred to the general government be unnecessary or improper? 2. Whether the entire mass of them be dangerous to the portion of jurisdiction left in the several States?
DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=41- ParaX=3- XthisXParaX=3-
DeB 131 -1-Is the aggregate power of the general government greater than ought to have been vested in it?
DeB 131 -2-This is the FIRST question.
DeB 131 -3-It cannot have escaped those who have attended with candor to the arguments employed against the extensive powers of the government, that the authors of them have very little considered how far these powers were necessary means of attaining a necessary end.
DeB 131 -4-They have chosen rather to dwell on the inconveniences which must be unavoidably blended with all political advantages; and on the possible abuses which must be incident to every power or trust, of which a beneficial use can be made.
DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=41- ParaX=4- XthisXParaX=4-
DeB 131 -2-It may display the subtlety of the writer; it may open a boundless field for rhetoric and declamation; it may inflame the passions of the unthinking, and may confirm the prejudices of the misthinking: but cool and candid people will at once reflect, that the purest of human blessings must have a portion of alloy in them; that the choice must always be made, if not of the lesser evil, at least of the GREATER, not the PERFECT, good; and that in every political institution, a power to advance the public happiness involves a discretion which may be misapplied and abused.
DeB 131 -3-They will see, therefore, that in all cases where power is to be conferred, the point first to be decided is, whether such a power be necessary to the public good; as the next will be, in case of an affirmative decision, to guard as effectually as possible against a perversion of the power to the public detriment.
DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=41- ParaX=5- XthisXParaX=5-
DeB 131 -1-That we may form a correct judgment on this subject, it will be proper to review the several powers conferred on the government of the Union; and that this may be the more conveniently done they may be reduced into different classes as they relate to the following different objects: 1. Security against foreign danger; 2. Regulation of the intercourse with foreign nations; 3. Maintenance of harmony and proper intercourse among the States; 4. Certain miscellaneous objects of general utility; 5. Restraint of the States from certain injurious acts; 6. Provisions for giving due efficacy to all these powers.
DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=41- ParaX=6- XthisXParaX=6-
DeB 131 -1-The powers falling within the FIRST class are those of declaring war and granting letters of marque; of providing armies and fleets; of regulating and calling forth the militia; of levying and borrowing money.
DeB 131 -2-Security against foreign danger is one of the primitive objects of civil society.
DeB 131 -3-It is an avowed and essential object of the American Union.
DeB 131 -4-The powers requisite for attaining it must be effectually confided to the federal councils.
DeB 131 -5-Is the power of declaring war necessary?
DeB 131 -6-No man will answer this question in the negative.
DeB 131 -7-It would be superfluous, therefore, to enter into a proof of the affirmative.
DeB 131 -8-The existing Confederation establishes this power in the most ample form.
DeB 131 -9-Is the power of raising armies and equipping fleets necessary?
DeB 131 -10-This is involved in the foregoing power.
DeB 131 -11-It is involved in the power of self-defense.
DeB 131 -12-But was it necessary to give an INDEFINITE POWER of raising TROOPS, as well as providing fleets; and of maintaining both in PEACE, as well as in war?
DeB 131 -13-The answer to these questions has been too far anticipated in another place to admit an extensive discussion of them in this place.
DeB 131 -14-The answer indeed seems to be so obvious and conclusive as scarcely to justify such a discussion in any place.
DeB 131 -15-With what color of propriety could the force necessary for defense be limited by those who cannot limit the force of offense?
DeB 131 -16-If a federal Constitution could chain the ambition or set bounds to the exertions of all other nations, then indeed might it prudently chain the discretion of its own government, and set bounds to the exertions for its own safety.
DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=41- ParaX=7- XthisXParaX=7-
DeB 131 -1-How could a readiness for war in time of peace be safely prohibited, unless we could prohibit, in like manner, the preparations and establishments of every hostile nation?
DeB 131 -2-The means of security can only be regulated by the means and the danger of attack.
DeB 131 -3-They will, in fact, be ever determined by these rules, and by no others.
DeB 131 -4-It is in vain to oppose constitutional barriers to the impulse of self-preservation.
DeB 131 -5-It is worse than in vain; because it plants in the Constitution itself necessary usurpations of power, every precedent of which is a germ of unnecessary and multiplied repetitions.
DeB 131 -6-If one nation maintains constantly a disciplined army, ready for the service of ambition or revenge, it obliges the most pacific nations who may be within the reach of its enterprises to take corresponding precautions.
DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=41- ParaX=8- XthisXParaX=8-
DeB 131 -1-The fifteenth century was the unhappy epoch of military establishments in the time of peace.
DeB 131 -2-They were introduced by Charles VII. of France.
DeB 131 -3-All Europe has followed, or been forced into, the example.
DeB 131 -4-Had the example not been followed by other nations, all Europe must long ago have worn the chains of a universal monarch.
DeB 131 -5-Were every nation except France now to disband its peace establishments, the same event might follow.
DeB 131 -6-The veteran legions of Rome were an overmatch for the undisciplined valor of all other nations and rendered her the mistress of the world.
DeB 131 -7-Not the less true is it, that the liberties of Rome proved the final victim to her military triumphs; and that the liberties of Europe, as far as they ever existed, have, with few exceptions, been the price of her military establishments.
DeB 131 -8-A standing force, therefore, is a dangerous, at the same time that it may be a necessary, provision.
DeB 131 -9-On the smallest scale it has its inconveniences.
DeB 131 -10-On an extensive scale its consequences may be fatal.
DeB 131 -11-On any scale it is an object of laudable circumspection and precaution.
DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=41- ParaX=9- XthisXParaX=9-
DeB 131 -1-A wise nation will combine all these considerations; and, whilst it does not rashly preclude itself from any resource which may become essential to its safety, will exert all its prudence in diminishing both the necessity and the danger of resorting to one which may be inauspicious to its liberties.
DeB 131 -2-The clearest marks of this prudence are stamped on the proposed Constitution.
DeB 131 -3-The Union itself, which it cements and secures, destroys every pretext for a military establishment which could be dangerous.
DeB 131 -4-America united, with a handful of troops, or without a single soldier, exhibits a more forbidding posture to foreign ambition than America disunited, with a hundred thousand veterans ready for combat.
DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=41- ParaX=10- XthisXParaX=10-
DeB 131 -1-It was remarked, on a former occasion, that the want of this pretext had saved the liberties of one nation in Europe.
DeB 131 -2-Being rendered by her insular situation and her maritime resources impregnable to the armies of her neighbors, the rulers of Great Britain have never been able, by real or artificial dangers, to cheat the public into an extensive peace establishment.
DeB 131 -3-The distance of the United States from the powerful nations of the world gives them the same happy security.
DeB 131 -4-A dangerous establishment can never be necessary or plausible, so long as they continue a united people.
DeB 131 -5-But let it never, for a moment, be forgotten that they are indebted for this advantage to the Union alone.
DeB 131 -6-The moment of its dissolution will be the date of a new order of things.
DeB 131 -7-The fears of the weaker, or the ambition of the stronger States, or Confederacies, will set the same example in the New, as Charles VII. did in the Old World.
DeB 131 -8-The example will be followed here from the same motives which produced universal imitation there.
DeB 131 -9-Instead of deriving from our situation the precious advantage which Great Britain has derived from hers, the face of America will be but a copy of that of the continent of Europe.
DeB 131 -10-It will present liberty everywhere crushed between standing armies and perpetual taxes.
DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=41- ParaX=11- XthisXParaX=11-
DeB 131 -1-The fortunes of disunited America will be even more disastrous than those of Europe.
DeB 131 -2-The sources of evil in the latter are confined to her own limits.
DeB 131 -3-No superior powers of another quarter of the globe intrigue among her rival nations, inflame their mutual animosities, and render them the instruments of foreign ambition, jealousy, and revenge.
DeB 131 -4-In America the miseries springing from her internal jealousies, contentions, and wars, would form a part only of her lot.
DeB 131 -5-A plentiful addition of evils would have their source in that relation in which Europe stands to this quarter of the earth, and which no other quarter of the earth bears to Europe.
DeB 131 -6-This picture of the consequences of disunion cannot be too highly colored, or too often exhibited.
DeB 131 -7-Every man who loves peace, every man who loves his country, every man who loves liberty, ought to have it ever before his eyes, that he may cherish in his heart a due attachment to the Union of America, and be able to set a due value on the means of preserving it.
DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=41- ParaX=12- XthisXParaX=12-
DeB 131 -1-Next to the effectual establishment of the Union, the best possible precaution against danger from standing armies is a limitation of the term for which revenue may be appropriated to their support.
DeB 131 -2-This precaution the Constitution has prudently added.
DeB 131 -3-I will not repeat here the observations which I flatter myself have placed this subject in a just and satisfactory light.
DeB 131 -4-But it may not be improper to take notice of an argument against this part of the Constitution, which has been drawn from the policy and practice of Great Britain.
DeB 131 -5-It is said that the continuance of an army in that kingdom requires an annual vote of the legislature; whereas the American Constitution has lengthened this critical period to two years.
DeB 131 -6-This is the form in which the comparison is usually stated to the public: but is it a just form?
DeB 131 -7-Is it a fair comparison?
DeB 131 -8-Does the British Constitution restrain the parliamentary discretion to one year?
DeB 131 -9-Does the American impose on the Congress appropriations for two years?
DeB 131 -10-On the contrary, it cannot be unknown to the authors of the fallacy themselves, that the British Constitution fixes no limit whatever to the discretion of the legislature, and that the American ties down the legislature to two years, as the longest admissible term.
DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=41- ParaX=13- XthisXParaX=13-
DeB 131 -1-Had the argument from the British example been truly stated, it would have stood thus: The term for which supplies may be appropriated to the army establishment, though unlimited by the British Constitution, has nevertheless, in practice, been limited by parliamentary discretion to a single year.
DeB 131 -2-Now, if in Great Britain, where the House of Commons is elected for seven years; where so great a proportion of the members are elected by so small a proportion of the people; where the electors are so corrupted by the representatives, and the representatives so corrupted by the Crown, the representative body can possess a power to make appropriations to the army for an indefinite term, without desiring, or without daring, to extend the term beyond a single year, ought not suspicion herself to blush, in pretending that the representatives of the United States, elected FREELY by the WHOLE BODY of the people, every SECOND YEAR, cannot be safely intrusted with the discretion over such appropriations, expressly limited to the short period of TWO YEARS?
DeB 131 -3-A bad cause seldom fails to betray itself.
DeB 131 -4-Of this truth, the management of the opposition to the federal government is an unvaried exemplification.
DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=41- ParaX=14- XthisXParaX=14-
DeB 131 -1-But among all the blunders which have been committed, none is more striking than the attempt to enlist on that side the prudent jealousy entertained by the people, of standing armies.
DeB 131 -2-The attempt has awakened fully the public attention to that important subject; and has led to investigations which must terminate in a thorough and universal conviction, not only that the constitution has provided the most effectual guards against danger from that quarter, but that nothing short of a Constitution fully adequate to the national defense and the preservation of the Union, can save America from as many standing armies as it may be split into States or Confederacies, and from such a progressive augmentation, of these establishments in each, as will render them as burdensome to the properties and ominous to the liberties of the people, as any establishment that can become necessary, under a united and efficient government, must be tolerable to the former and safe to the latter.
DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=41- ParaX=15- XthisXParaX=15-
DeB 131 -1-The palpable necessity of the power to provide and maintain a navy has protected that part of the Constitution against a spirit of censure, which has spared few other parts.
DeB 131 -2-It must, indeed, be numbered among the greatest blessings of America, that as her Union will be the only source of her maritime strength, so this will be a principal source of her security against danger from abroad.
DeB 131 -3-In this respect our situation bears another likeness to the insular advantage of Great Britain.
DeB 131 -4-The batteries most capable of repelling foreign enterprises on our safety, are happily such as can never be turned by a perfidious government against our liberties.
DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=41- ParaX=16- XthisXParaX=16-
DeB 131 -1-The inhabitants of the Atlantic frontier are all of them deeply interested in this provision for naval protection, and if they have hitherto been suffered to sleep quietly in their beds; if their property has remained safe against the predatory spirit of licentious adventurers; if their maritime towns have not yet been compelled to ransom themselves from the terrors of a conflagration, by yielding to the exactions of daring and sudden invaders, these instances of good fortune are not to be ascribed to the capacity of the existing government for the protection of those from whom it claims allegiance, but to causes that are fugitive and fallacious.
DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=41- ParaX=17- XthisXParaX=17-
DeB 131 -1-If we except perhaps Virginia and Maryland, which are peculiarly vulnerable on their eastern frontiers, no part of the Union ought to feel more anxiety on this subject than New York.
DeB 131 -2-Her seacoast is extensive.
DeB 131 -3-A very important district of the State is an island.
DeB 131 -4-The State itself is penetrated by a large navigable river for more than fifty leagues.
DeB 131 -5-The great emporium of its commerce, the great reservoir of its wealth, lies every moment at the mercy of events, and may almost be regarded as a hostage for ignominious compliances with the dictates of a foreign enemy, or even with the rapacious demands of pirates and barbarians.
DeB 131 -6-Should a war be the result of the precarious situation of European affairs, and all the unruly passions attending it be let loose on the ocean, our escape from insults and depredations, not only on that element, but every part of the other bordering on it, will be truly miraculous.
DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=41- ParaX=18- XthisXParaX=18-
DeB 131 -1-In the present condition of America, the States more immediately exposed to these calamities have nothing to hope from the phantom of a general government which now exists; and if their single resources were equal to the task of fortifying themselves against the danger, the object to be protected would be almost consumed by the means of protecting them.
DeB 131 -2-The power of regulating and calling forth the militia has been already sufficiently vindicated and explained.
DeB 131 -3-The power of levying and borrowing money, being the sinew of that which is to be exerted in the national defense, is properly thrown into the same class with it.
DeB 131 -4-This power, also, has been examined already with much attention, and has, I trust, been clearly shown to be necessary, both in the extent and form given to it by the Constitution.
DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=41- ParaX=19- XthisXParaX=19-
DeB 131 -1-I will address one additional reflection only to those who contend that the power ought to have been restrained to external taxation by which they mean, taxes on articles imported from other countries.
DeB 131 -2-It cannot be doubted that this will always be a valuable source of revenue; that for a considerable time it must be a principal source; that at this moment it is an essential one.
DeB 131 -3-But we may form very mistaken ideas on this subject, if we do not call to mind in our calculations, that the extent of revenue drawn from foreign commerce must vary with the variations, both in the extent and the kind of imports; and that these variations do not correspond with the progress of population, which must be the general measure of the public wants.
DeB 131 -4-As long as agriculture continues the sole field of labor, the importation of manufactures must increase as the consumers multiply.
DeB 131 -5-As soon as domestic manufactures are begun by the hands not called for by agriculture, the imported manufactures will decrease as the numbers of people increase.
DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=41- ParaX=20- XthisXParaX=20-
DeB 131 -1-In a more remote stage, the imports may consist in a considerable part of raw materials, which will be wrought into articles for exportation, and will, therefore, require rather the encouragement of bounties, than to be loaded with discouraging duties.
DeB 131 -2-A system of government, meant for duration, ought to contemplate these revolutions, and be able to accommodate itself to them.
DeB 131 -3-Some, who have not denied the necessity of the power of taxation, have grounded a very fierce attack against the Constitution, on the language in which it is defined.
DeB 131 -4-It has been urged and echoed, that the power "to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States," amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare.
DeB 131 -5-No stronger proof could be given of the distress under which these writers labor for objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction.
DeB 131 -6-Had no other enumeration or definition of the powers of the Congress been found in the Constitution, than the general expressions just cited, the authors of the objection might have had some color for it; though it would have been difficult to find a reason for so awkward a form of describing an authority to legislate in all possible cases.
DeB 131 -7-A power to destroy the freedom of the press, the trial by jury, or even to regulate the course of descents, or the forms of conveyances, must be very singularly expressed by the terms "to raise money for the general welfare."
DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=41- ParaX=21- XthisXParaX=21-
DeB 131 -1-But what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon?
DeB 131 -2-If the different parts of the same instrument ought to be so expounded, as to give meaning to every part which will bear it, shall one part of the same sentence be excluded altogether from a share in the meaning; and shall the more doubtful and indefinite terms be retained in their full extent, and the clear and precise expressions be denied any signification whatsoever?
DeB 131 -3-For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power?
DeB 131 -4-Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars.
DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=41- ParaX=22- XthisXParaX=22-
DeB 131 -1-But the idea of an enumeration of particulars which neither explain nor qualify the general meaning, and can have no other effect than to confound and mislead, is an absurdity, which, as we are reduced to the dilemma of charging either on the authors of the objection or on the authors of the Constitution, we must take the liberty of supposing, had not its origin with the latter.
DeB 131 -2-The objection here is the more extraordinary, as it appears that the language used by the convention is a copy from the articles of Confederation.
DeB 131 -3-The objects of the Union among the States, as described in article third, are "their common defense, security of their liberties, and mutual and general welfare."
DeB 131 -4-The terms of article eighth are still more identical: "All charges of war and all other expenses that shall be incurred for the common defense or general welfare, and allowed by the United States in Congress, shall be defrayed out of a common treasury," etc.
DeB 131 -5-A similar language again occurs in article ninth.
DeB 131 -6-Construe either of these articles by the rules which would justify the construction put on the new Constitution, and they vest in the existing Congress a power to legislate in all cases whatsoever.
DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=41- ParaX=23- XthisXParaX=23-
DeB 131 -1-But what would have been thought of that assembly, if, attaching themselves to these general expressions, and disregarding the specifications which ascertain and limit their import, they had exercised an unlimited power of providing for the common defense and general welfare?
DeB 131 -2-I appeal to the objectors themselves, whether they would in that case have employed the same reasoning in justification of Congress as they now make use of against the convention.
DeB 131 -3-How difficult it is for error to escape its own condemnation!
Beginning of Federalist Paper No. 41
Close
|
|
|
|