Federalist Papers
Sorted By Number    |    Sort By Title     |     Search
NO. 1    General Inroduction
NO. 2    Concerning Dangers from Foreign Force and Influence
NO. 3    The Same Subject Continued: Concerning Dangers From Foreign Force and Influence
NO. 4    The Same Subject Continued: Concerning Dangers From Foreign Force and Influence
NO. 5    The Same Subject Continued: Concerning Dangers from Foreign Force and Influence.
NO. 6    Concerning Dangers from Dissensions Between the States
NO. 7    The Same Subject Continued: Concerning Dangers from Dissensions Between the States.
NO. 8    The Consequences of Hostilities Between the States
NO. 9    The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection.
NO. 10    The Same Subject Continued: The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection.
NO. 11    The Utility of the Union in Respect to Commercial Relations and a Navy
NO. 12    The Utility of the Union In Respect to Revenue.
NO. 13    Advantage of the Union in Respect to Economy in Government.
NO. 14    Objections to the Proposed Constitution From Extent of Territory Answered.
NO. 15    The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union.
NO. 16    The Same Subject Continued: The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union
NO. 17    The Same Subject Continued: The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union
NO. 18    The Same Subject Continued: The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union
NO. 19    The Same Subject Continued: The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union
NO. 20    The Same Subject Continued: The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union.
NO. 21    Other Defects of the Present Confederation
NO. 22    The Same Subject Continued: Other Defects of the Present Confederation
NO. 23    The Necessity of a Government as Energetic as the One Proposed to the Preservation of the Union
NO. 24    The Powers Necessary to the Common Defense Further Considered
NO. 25    The Same Subject Continued: The Powers Necessary to the Common Defense Further Considered
NO. 26    The Idea of Restraining the Legislative Authority in Regard to the Common Defense Considered
NO. 27    The Same Subject Continued: The Idea of Restraining the Legislative Authority in Regard to the Common Defense Considered
NO. 28    The Same Subject Continued: The Idea of Restraining the Legislative Authority in Regard to the Common Defense Considered
NO. 29    THE power of regulating the militia, and of commanding its services in times of insurrection and invasion are natural incidents to the duties of superintending the common defense, and of watching over the internal peace of the Confederacy
NO. 30    Concerning the General Power of Taxation
NO. 31    The Same Subject Continued: Concerning the General Power of Taxation
NO. 32    The Same Subject Continued: Concerning the General Power of Taxation
NO. 33    The Same Subject Continued: Concerning the General Power of Taxation
NO. 34    The Same Subject Continued Concerning the General Power of Taxation
NO. 35    The Same Subject Continued: Concerning the General Power of Taxation
NO. 36    The Same Subject Continued: Concerning the General Power of Taxation
NO. 37    Concerning the Difficulties of the Convention in Devising a Proper Form of Government
NO. 38    The Same Subject Continued, and the Incoherence of the Objections to the New Plan Exposed
NO. 39    The Conformity of the Plan to Republican Principles
NO. 40    The Powers of the Convention to Form a Mixed Government Examined and Sustained
NO. 41    General View of the Powers Conferred by the Constitution
NO. 42    The Powers Conferred by the Constitution Further Considered
NO. 43    The Same Subject Continued: The Powers Conferred by the Constitution Further Considered
NO. 44    Restrictions on the Authority of the Several States
NO. 45    The Alleged Danger From the Powers of the Union to the State Governments Considered
NO. 46    The Influence of the State and Federal Governments Compared
Close
End of Federalist Paper No. 46
FEDERALIST NO. 46
The Influence of the State and Federal Governments Compared
From the New York Packet     Tuesday January 29, 1788
Author: James Madison
To the People of New York


DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=46- ParaX=1- XthisXParaX=1-
DeB 131 -1-RESUMING the subject of the last paper, I proceed to inquire whether the federal government or the State governments will have the advantage with regard to the predilection and support of the people. DeB 131 -2-Notwithstanding the different modes in which they are appointed, we must consider both of them as substantially dependent on the great body of the citizens of the United States.

DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=46- ParaX=2- XthisXParaX=2-
DeB 131 -1-I assume this position here as it respects the first, reserving the proofs for another place. DeB 131 -2-The federal and State governments are in fact but different agents and trustees of the people, constituted with different powers, and designed for different purposes. DeB 131 -3-The adversaries of the Constitution seem to have lost sight of the people altogether in their reasonings on this subject; and to have viewed these different establishments, not only as mutual rivals and enemies, but as uncontrolled by any common superior in their efforts to usurp the authorities of each other. DeB 131 -4-These gentlemen must here be reminded of their error. DeB 131 -5-They must be told that the ultimate authority, wherever the derivative may be found, resides in the people alone, and that it will not depend merely on the comparative ambition or address of the different governments, whether either, or which of them, will be able to enlarge its sphere of jurisdiction at the expense of the other.

DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=46- ParaX=3- XthisXParaX=3-
DeB 131 -1-Into the administration of these a greater number of individuals will expect to rise. DeB 131 -1-It was engaged, too, in a course of measures which had for their object the protection of everything that was dear, and the acquisition of everything that could be desirable to the people at large. DeB 131 -2-From the gift of these a greater number of offices and emoluments will flow. DeB 131 -3-By the superintending care of these, all the more domestic and personal interests of the people will be regulated and provided for. DeB 131 -4-With the affairs of these, the people will be more familiarly and minutely conversant. DeB 131 -5-And with the members of these, will a greater proportion of the people have the ties of personal acquaintance and friendship, and of family and party attachments; on the side of these, therefore, the popular bias may well be expected most strongly to incline. DeB 131 -6-Truth, no less than decency, requires that the event in every case should be supposed to depend on the sentiments and sanction of their common constituents. DeB 131 -6-Experience speaks the same language in this case. DeB 131 -7-Many considerations, besides those suggested on a former occasion, seem to place it beyond doubt that the first and most natural attachment of the people will be to the governments of their respective States. DeB 131 -7-The federal administration, though hitherto very defective in comparison with what may be hoped under a better system, had, during the war, and particularly whilst the independent fund of paper emissions was in credit, an activity and importance as great as it can well have in any future circumstances whatever.

DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=46- ParaX=4- XthisXParaX=4-
DeB 131 -2-It was, nevertheless, invariably found, after the transient enthusiasm for the early Congresses was over, that the attention and attachment of the people were turned anew to their own particular governments; that the federal council was at no time the idol of popular favor; and that opposition to proposed enlargements of its powers and importance was the side usually taken by the men who wished to build their political consequence on the prepossessions of their fellow-citizens. DeB 131 -3-If, therefore, as has been elsewhere remarked, the people should in future become more partial to the federal than to the State governments, the change can only result from such manifest and irresistible proofs of a better administration, as will overcome all their antecedent propensities. DeB 131 -4-And in that case, the people ought not surely to be precluded from giving most of their confidence where they may discover it to be most due; but even in that case the State governments could have little to apprehend, because it is only within a certain sphere that the federal power can, in the nature of things, be advantageously administered. DeB 131 -5-The remaining points on which I propose to compare the federal and State governments, are the disposition and the faculty they may respectively possess, to resist and frustrate the measures of each other. DeB 131 -6-It has been already proved that the members of the federal will be more dependent on the members of the State governments, than the latter will be on the former. DeB 131 -7-It has appeared also, that the prepossessions of the people, on whom both will depend, will be more on the side of the State governments, than of the federal government. DeB 131 -8-So far as the disposition of each towards the other may be influenced by these causes, the State governments must clearly have the advantage.

DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=46- ParaX=5- XthisXParaX=5-
DeB 131 -1-But in a distinct and very important point of view, the advantage will lie on the same side. DeB 131 -2-The prepossessions, which the members themselves will carry into the federal government, will generally be favorable to the States; whilst it will rarely happen, that the members of the State governments will carry into the public councils a bias in favor of the general government. DeB 131 -3-A local spirit will infallibly prevail much more in the members of Congress, than a national spirit will prevail in the legislatures of the particular States. DeB 131 -4-Every one knows that a great proportion of the errors committed by the State legislatures proceeds from the disposition of the members to sacrifice the comprehensive and permanent interest of the State, to the particular and separate views of the counties or districts in which they reside. DeB 131 -5-And if they do not sufficiently enlarge their policy to embrace the collective welfare of their particular State, how can it be imagined that they will make the aggregate prosperity of the Union, and the dignity and respectability of its government, the objects of their affections and consultations? DeB 131 -6-For the same reason that the members of the State legislatures will be unlikely to attach themselves sufficiently to national objects, the members of the federal legislature will be likely to attach themselves too much to local objects. DeB 131 -7-The States will be to the latter what counties and towns are to the former. DeB 131 -8-Measures will too often be decided according to their probable effect, not on the national prosperity and happiness, but on the prejudices, interests, and pursuits of the governments and people of the individual States. DeB 131 -9-What is the spirit that has in general characterized the proceedings of Congress? DeB 131 -10-A perusal of their journals, as well as the candid acknowledgments of such as have had a seat in that assembly, will inform us, that the members have but too frequently displayed the character, rather of partisans of their respective States, than of impartial guardians of a common interest; that where on one occasion improper sacrifices have been made of local considerations, to the aggrandizement of the federal government, the great interests of the nation have suffered on a hundred, from an undue attention to the local prejudices, interests, and views of the particular States.

DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=46- ParaX=6- XthisXParaX=6-
DeB 131 -11-I mean not by these reflections to insinuate, that the new federal government will not embrace a more enlarged plan of policy than the existing government may have pursued; much less, that its views will be as confined as those of the State legislatures; but only that it will partake sufficiently of the spirit of both, to be disinclined to invade the rights of the individual States, or the preorgatives of their governments. DeB 131 -12-The motives on the part of the State governments, to augment their prerogatives by defalcations from the federal government, will be overruled by no reciprocal predispositions in the members. DeB 131 -13-Were it admitted, however, that the Federal government may feel an equal disposition with the State governments to extend its power beyond the due limits, the latter would still have the advantage in the means of defeating such encroachments. DeB 131 -14-If an act of a particular State, though unfriendly to the national government, be generally popular in that State and should not too grossly violate the oaths of the State officers, it is executed immediately and, of course, by means on the spot and depending on the State alone. DeB 131 -15-The opposition of the federal government, or the interposition of federal officers, would but inflame the zeal of all parties on the side of the State, and the evil could not be prevented or repaired, if at all, without the employment of means which must always be resorted to with reluctance and difficulty.

DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=46- ParaX=7- XthisXParaX=7-
DeB 131 -1-On the other hand, should an unwarrantable measure of the federal government be unpopular in particular States, which would seldom fail to be the case, or even a warrantable measure be so, which may sometimes be the case, the means of opposition to it are powerful and at hand. DeB 131 -2-The disquietude of the people; their repugnance and, perhaps, refusal to co-operate with the officers of the Union; the frowns of the executive magistracy of the State; the embarrassments created by legislative devices, which would often be added on such occasions, would oppose, in any State, difficulties not to be despised; would form, in a large State, very serious impediments; and where the sentiments of several adjoining States happened to be in unison, would present obstructions which the federal government would hardly be willing to encounter. DeB 131 -3-But ambitious encroachments of the federal government, on the authority of the State governments, would not excite the opposition of a single State, or of a few States only. DeB 131 -4-They would be signals of general alarm. DeB 131 -5-Every government would espouse the common cause. DeB 131 -6-A correspondence would be opened. DeB 131 -7-Plans of resistance would be concerted. DeB 131 -8-One spirit would animate and conduct the whole. DeB 131 -9-The same combinations, in short, would result from an apprehension of the federal, as was produced by the dread of a foreign, yoke; and unless the projected innovations should be voluntarily renounced, the same appeal to a trial of force would be made in the one case as was made in the other. DeB 131 -10-But what degree of madness could ever drive the federal government to such an extremity. DeB 131 -11-In the contest with Great Britain, one part of the empire was employed against the other. DeB 131 -12-The more numerous part invaded the rights of the less numerous part. DeB 131 -13-The attempt was unjust and unwise; but it was not in speculation absolutely chimerical. DeB 131 -14-But what would be the contest in the case we are supposing? DeB 131 -15-Who would be the parties? DeB 131 -16-A few representatives of the people would be opposed to the people themselves; or rather one set of representatives would be contending against thirteen sets of representatives, with the whole body of their common constituents on the side of the latter.

DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=46- ParaX=8- XthisXParaX=8-
DeB 131 -1-The only refuge left for those who prophesy the downfall of the State governments is the visionary supposition that the federal government may previously accumulate a military force for the projects of ambition. DeB 131 -2-The reasonings contained in these papers must have been employed to little purpose indeed, if it could be necessary now to disprove the reality of this danger. DeB 131 -3-That the people and the States should, for a sufficient period of time, elect an uninterupted succession of men ready to betray both; that the traitors should, throughout this period, uniformly and systematically pursue some fixed plan for the extension of the military establishment; that the governments and the people of the States should silently and patiently behold the gathering storm, and continue to supply the materials, until it should be prepared to burst on their own heads, must appear to every one more like the incoherent dreams of a delirious jealousy, or the misjudged exaggerations of a counterfeit zeal, than like the sober apprehensions of genuine patriotism.

DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=46- ParaX=9- XthisXParaX=9-
DeB 131 -1-Extravagant as the supposition is, let it however be made. DeB 131 -2-Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going too far to say, that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger. DeB 131 -3-The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. DeB 131 -4-This proportion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. DeB 131 -5-To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. DeB 131 -6-It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops. DeB 131 -7-Those who are best acquainted with the last successful resistance of this country against the British arms, will be most inclined to deny the possibility of it. DeB 131 -8-Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. DeB 131 -9-Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. DeB 131 -10-And it is not certain, that with this aid alone they would not be able to shake off their yokes. DeB 131 -11-But were the people to possess the additional advantages of local governments chosen by themselves, who could collect the national will and direct the national force, and of officers appointed out of the militia, by these governments, and attached both to them and to the militia, it may be affirmed with the greatest assurance, that the throne of every tyranny in Europe would be speedily overturned in spite of the legions which surround it.

DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=46- ParaX=10- XthisXParaX=10-
DeB 131 -1-Let us not insult the free and gallant citizens of America with the suspicion, that they would be less able to defend the rights of which they would be in actual possession, than the debased subjects of arbitrary power would be to rescue theirs from the hands of their oppressors. DeB 131 -2-Let us rather no longer insult them with the supposition that they can ever reduce themselves to the necessity of making the experiment, by a blind and tame submission to the long train of insidious measures which must precede and produce it. DeB 131 -3-The argument under the present head may be put into a very concise form, which appears altogether conclusive. DeB 131 -4-Either the mode in which the federal government is to be constructed will render it sufficiently dependent on the people, or it will not. DeB 131 -5-On the first supposition, it will be restrained by that dependence from forming schemes obnoxious to their constituents. DeB 131 -6-On the other supposition, it will not possess the confidence of the people, and its schemes of usurpation will be easily defeated by the State governments, who will be supported by the people. DeB 131 -7-On summing up the considerations stated in this and the last paper, they seem to amount to the most convincing evidence, that the powers proposed to be lodged in the federal government are as little formidable to those reserved to the individual States, as they are indispensably necessary to accomplish the purposes of the Union; and that all those alarms which have been sounded, of a meditated and consequential annihilation of the State governments, must, on the most favorable interpretation, be ascribed to the chimerical fears of the authors of them.

Beginning of Federalist Paper No. 46

Close

NO. 47    The Particular Structure of the New Government and the Distribution of Power Among Its Different Parts
NO. 48    These Departments Should Not Be So Far Separated as to Have No Constitutional Control Over Each Other
NO. 49    Method of Guarding Against the Encroachments of Any One Department of Government by Appealing to the People Through a Convention
NO. 50    Periodic Appeals to the People Considered
NO. 51    The Structure of the Government Must Furnish the Proper Checks and Balances Between the Different Departments
NO. 52    The House of Representatives
NO. 53    The Same Subject Continued: The House of Representatives
NO. 54    The Apportionment of Members Among the States
NO. 55    The Total Number of the House of Representatives
NO. 56    The Total Number of the House of Representatives
NO. 57    The Alleged Tendency of the New Plan to Elevate the Few at the Expense of the Many Considered in Connection with Representation
NO. 58    Objection That The Number of Members Will Not Be Augmented as the Progress of Population Demands Considered
NO. 59    Concerning the Power of Congress to Regulate the Election of Members
NO. 60    The Same Subject Continued: Concerning the Power of Congress to Regulate the Election of Members
NO. 61    The Same Subject Continued (Concerning the Power of Congress to Regulate the Election of Members)
NO. 62    The Senate
NO. 63    The Senate Continued
NO. 64    The Powers of the Senate
NO. 65    The Powers of the Senate Continued
NO. 66    Objections to the Power of the Senate To Set as a Court for Impeachments Further Considered
NO. 67    The Executive Department
NO. 68    The Mode of Electing the President
NO. 69    The Real Character of the Executive
NO. 70    The Executive Department Further Considered
NO. 71    The Duration in Office of the Executive.
NO. 72    The Same Subject Continued, and Re-Eligibility of the Executive Considered
NO. 73    The Provision For The Support of the Executive, and the Veto Power
NO. 74    The Command of the Military and Naval Forces, and the Pardoning Power of the Executive
NO. 75    The Treaty Making Power of the Executive
NO. 76    The Appointing Power of the Executive
NO. 77    The Appointing Power Continued and Other Powers of the Executive Considered
NO. 78    The Judiciary Department
NO. 79    The Judiciary Department Continued
NO. 80    The Powers of the Judiciary
NO. 81    The Judiciary Continued, and the Distribution of the Judicial Authority
NO. 82    The Judiciary Continued
NO. 83    The Judiciary Continued in Relation to Trial by Jury
NO. 84    Certain General and Miscellaneous Objections to the Constitution Considered and Answered.
NO. 85    Concluding Remarks
NO. 449   
X