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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.
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End of Federalist Paper No. 7
FEDERALIST NO. 7
The Same Subject Continued: Concerning Dangers from Dissensions Between the States.
For the Independent Journal     Thursday November 15, 1787
Author: Hamilton
To the People of New York


DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=7- ParaX=1- XthisXParaX=1-
DeB 131 -1-IT IS sometimes asked, with an air of seeming triumph, what inducements could the States have, if disunited, to make war upon each other? DeB 131 -2-It would be a full answer to this question to say--precisely the same inducements which have, at different times, deluged in blood all the nations in the world. DeB 131 -2-But, unfortunately for us, the question admits of a more particular answer. DeB 131 -3-There are causes of differences within our immediate contemplation, of the tendency of which, even under the restraints of a federal constitution, we have had sufficient experience to enable us to form a judgment of what might be expected if those restraints were removed.

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DeB 131 -1-Territorial disputes have at all times been found one of the most fertile sources of hostility among nations. DeB 131 -2-Perhaps the greatest proportion of wars that have desolated the earth have sprung from this origin. DeB 131 -3-This cause would exist among us in full force. DeB 131 -4-We have a vast tract of unsettled territory within the boundaries of the United States. DeB 131 -5-There still are discordant and undecided claims between several of them, and the dissolution of the Union would lay a foundation for similar claims between them all. DeB 131 -6-It is well known that they have heretofore had serious and animated discussion concerning the rights to the lands which were ungranted at the time of the Revolution, and which usually went under the name of crown lands. DeB 131 -7-The States within the limits of whose colonial governments they were comprised have claimed them as their property, the others have contended that the rights of the crown in this article devolved upon the Union; especially as to all that part of the Western territory which, either by actual possession, or through the submission of the Indian proprietors, was subjected to the jurisdiction of the king of Great Britain, till it was relinquished in the treaty of peace. DeB 131 -8-This, it has been said, was at all events an acquisition to the Confederacy by compact with a foreign power. DeB 131 -9-It has been the prudent policy of Congress to appease this controversy, by prevailing upon the States to make cessions to the United States for the benefit of the whole. DeB 131 -10-This has been so far accomplished as, under a continuation of the Union, to afford a decided prospect of an amicable termination of the dispute. DeB 131 -11-A dismemberment of the Confederacy, however, would revive this dispute, and would create others on the same subject. DeB 131 -12-At present, a large part of the vacant Western territory is, by cession at least, if not by any anterior right, the common property of the Union. DeB 131 -13-If that were at an end, the States which made the cession, on a principle of federal compromise, would be apt when the motive of the grant had ceased, to reclaim the lands as a reversion. DeB 131 -14-The other States would no doubt insist on a proportion, by right of representation. DeB 131 -15-Their argument would be, that a grant, once made, could not be revoked; and that the justice of participating in territory acquired or secured by the joint efforts of the Confederacy, remained undiminished. DeB 131 -16-If, contrary to probability, it should be admitted by all the States, that each had a right to a share of this common stock, there would still be a difficulty to be surmounted, as to a proper rule of apportionment. DeB 131 -17-Different principles would be set up by different States for this purpose; and as they would affect the opposite interests of the parties, they might not easily be susceptible of a pacific adjustment.

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DeB 131 -1-In the wide field of Western territory, therefore, we perceive an ample theatre for hostile pretensions, without any umpire or common judge to interpose between the contending parties. DeB 131 -2-To reason from the past to the future, we shall have good ground to apprehend, that the sword would sometimes be appealed to as the arbiter of their differences. DeB 131 -3-The circumstances of the dispute between Connecticut and Pennsylvania, respecting the land at Wyoming, admonish us not to be sanguine in expecting an easy accommodation of such differences. DeB 131 -4-The articles of confederation obliged the parties to submit the matter to the decision of a federal court. DeB 131 -5-The submission was made, and the court decided in favor of Pennsylvania. DeB 131 -6-But Connecticut gave strong indications of dissatisfaction with that determination; nor did she appear to be entirely resigned to it, till, by negotiation and management, something like an equivalent was found for the loss she supposed herself to have sustained. DeB 131 -7-Nothing here said is intended to convey the slightest censure on the conduct of that State. DeB 131 -8-She no doubt sincerely believed herself to have been injured by the decision; and States, like individuals, acquiesce with great reluctance in determinations to their disadvantage.

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DeB 131 -1-Those who had an opportunity of seeing the inside of the transactions which attended the progress of the controversy between this State and the district of Vermont, can vouch the opposition we experienced, as well from States not interested as from those which were interested in the claim; and can attest the danger to which the peace of the Confederacy might have been exposed, had this State attempted to assert its rights by force. DeB 131 -2-Two motives preponderated in that opposition: one, a jealousy entertained of our future power; and the other, the interest of certain individuals of influence in the neighboring States, who had obtained grants of lands under the actual government of that district. DeB 131 -3-Even the States which brought forward claims, in contradiction to ours, seemed more solicitous to dismember this State, than to establish their own pretensions. DeB 131 -4-These were New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. DeB 131 -5-New Jersey and Rhode Island, upon all occasions, discovered a warm zeal for the independence of Vermont; and Maryland, till alarmed by the appearance of a connection between Canada and that State, entered deeply into the same views. DeB 131 -6-These being small States, saw with an unfriendly eye the perspective of our growing greatness. DeB 131 -7-In a review of these transactions we may trace some of the causes which would be likely to embroil the States with each other, if it should be their unpropitious destiny to become disunited.

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DeB 131 -1-The competitions of commerce would be another fruitful source of contention. DeB 131 -2-The States less favorably circumstanced would be desirous of escaping from the disadvantages of local situation, and of sharing in the advantages of their more fortunate neighbors. DeB 131 -3-Each State, or separate confederacy, would pursue a system of commercial policy peculiar to itself. DeB 131 -4-This would occasion distinctions, preferences, and exclusions, which would beget discontent. DeB 131 -5-The habits of intercourse, on the basis of equal privileges, to which we have been accustomed since the earliest settlement of the country, would give a keener edge to those causes of discontent than they would naturally have independent of this circumstance. DeB 131 -6-WE SHOULD BE READY TO DENOMINATE INJURIES THOSE THINGS WHICH WERE IN REALITY THE JUSTIFIABLE ACTS OF INDEPENDENT SOVEREIGNTIES CONSULTING A DISTINCT INTEREST. DeB 131 -7-The spirit of enterprise, which characterizes the commercial part of America, has left no occasion of displaying itself unimproved. DeB 131 -8-It is not at all probable that this unbridled spirit would pay much respect to those regulations of trade by which particular States might endeavor to secure exclusive benefits to their own citizens. DeB 131 -9-The infractions of these regulations, on one side, the efforts to prevent and repel them, on the other, would naturally lead to outrages, and these to reprisals and wars.

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DeB 131 -1-The opportunities which some States would have of rendering others tributary to them by commercial regulations would be impatiently submitted to by the tributary States. DeB 131 -2-The relative situation of New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey would afford an example of this kind. DeB 131 -3-New York, from the necessities of revenue, must lay duties on her importations. DeB 131 -4-A great part of these duties must be paid by the inhabitants of the two other States in the capacity of consumers of what we import. DeB 131 -5-New York would neither be willing nor able to forego this advantage. DeB 131 -6-Her citizens would not consent that a duty paid by them should be remitted in favor of the citizens of her neighbors; nor would it be practicable, if there were not this impediment in the way, to distinguish the customers in our own markets. DeB 131 -7-Would Connecticut and New Jersey long submit to be taxed by New York for her exclusive benefit? DeB 131 -8-Should we be long permitted to remain in the quiet and undisturbed enjoyment of a metropolis, from the possession of which we derived an advantage so odious to our neighbors, and, in their opinion, so oppressive? DeB 131 -9-Should we be able to preserve it against the incumbent weight of Connecticut on the one side, and the co-operating pressure of New Jersey on the other? DeB 131 -10-These are questions that temerity alone will answer in the affirmative.

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DeB 131 -1-The public debt of the Union would be a further cause of collision between the separate States or confederacies. DeB 131 -2-The apportionment, in the first instance, and the progressive extinguishment afterward, would be alike productive of ill-humor and animosity. DeB 131 -3-How would it be possible to agree upon a rule of apportionment satisfactory to all? DeB 131 -4-There is scarcely any that can be proposed which is entirely free from real objections. DeB 131 -5-These, as usual, would be exaggerated by the adverse interest of the parties. DeB 131 -6-There are even dissimilar views among the States as to the general principle of discharging the public debt. DeB 131 -7-Some of them, either less impressed with the importance of national credit, or because their citizens have little, if any, immediate interest in the question, feel an indifference, if not a repugnance, to the payment of the domestic debt at any rate. DeB 131 -8-These would be inclined to magnify the difficulties of a distribution. DeB 131 -9-Others of them, a numerous body of whose citizens are creditors to the public beyond proportion of the State in the total amount of the national debt, would be strenuous for some equitable and effective provision. DeB 131 -10-The procrastinations of the former would excite the resentments of the latter. DeB 131 -11-The settlement of a rule would, in the meantime, be postponed by real differences of opinion and affected delays. DeB 131 -12-The citizens of the States interested would clamour; foreign powers would urge for the satisfaction of their just demands, and the peace of the States would be hazarded to the double contingency of external invasion and internal contention.

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DeB 131 -1-Suppose the difficulties of agreeing upon a rule surmounted, and the apportionment made. DeB 131 -2-Still there is great room to suppose that the rule agreed upon would, upon experiment, be found to bear harder upon some States than upon others. DeB 131 -3-Those which were sufferers by it would naturally seek for a mitigation of the burden. DeB 131 -4-The others would as naturally be disinclined to a revision, which was likely to end in an increase of their own incumbrances. DeB 131 -5-Their refusal would be too plausible a pretext to the complaining States to withhold their contributions, not to be embraced with avidity; and the non-compliance of these States with their engagements would be a ground of bitter discussion and altercation. DeB 131 -6-If even the rule adopted should in practice justify the equality of its principle, still delinquencies in payments on the part of some of the States would result from a diversity of other causes--the real deficiency of resources; the mismanagement of their finances; accidental disorders in the management of the government; and, in addition to the rest, the reluctance with which men commonly part with money for purposes that have outlived the exigencies which produced them, and interfere with the supply of immediate wants. DeB 131 -7-Delinquencies, from whatever causes, would be productive of complaints, recriminations, and quarrels. DeB 131 -8-There is, perhaps, nothing more likely to disturb the tranquillity of nations than their being bound to mutual contributions for any common object that does not yield an equal and coincident benefit. DeB 131 -9-For it is an observation, as true as it is trite, that there is nothing men differ so readily about as the payment of money.

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DeB 131 -1-Laws in violation of private contracts, as they amount to aggressions on the rights of those States whose citizens are injured by them, may be considered as another probable source of hostility. DeB 131 -2-We are not authorized to expect that a more liberal or more equitable spirit would preside over the legislations of the individual States hereafter, if unrestrained by any additional checks, than we have heretofore seen in too many instances disgracing their several codes. DeB 131 -3-We have observed the disposition to retaliation excited in Connecticut in consequence of the enormities perpetrated by the Legislature of Rhode Island; and we reasonably infer that, in similar cases, under other circumstances, a war, not of PARCHMENT, but of the sword, would chastise such atrocious breaches of moral obligation and social justice.

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DeB 131 -1-Divide et impera [1] must be the motto of every nation that either hates or fears us. [2] DeB 131 -1-The probability of incompatible alliances between the different States or confederacies and different foreign nations, and the effects of this situation upon the peace of the whole, have been sufficiently unfolded in some preceding papers. DeB 131 -2-From the view they have exhibited of this part of the subject, this conclusion is to be drawn, that America, if not connected at all, or only by the feeble tie of a simple league, offensive and defensive, would, by the operation of such jarring alliances, be gradually entangled in all the pernicious labyrinths of European politics and wars; and by the destructive contentions of the parts into which she was divided, would be likely to become a prey to the artifices and machinations of powers equally the enemies of them all.

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DeB 131 -1-1. Divide and command.

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DeB 131 -1-2. In order that the whole subject of these papers may as soon as possible be laid before the public, it is proposed to publish them four times a week--on Tuesday in the New York Packet and on Thursday in the Daily Advertiser.

Beginning of Federalist Paper No. 7

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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
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   
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