FEDERALIST No. 18

The Same Subject Continued

(The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the

Union)

For the Independent Journal.

HAMILTON AND MADISON

To the People of the State of New York:

AMONG the confederacies of antiquity, the most considerable was

that of the Grecian republics, associated under the Amphictyonic

council. From the best accounts transmitted of this celebrated

institution, it bore a very instructive analogy to the present

Confederation of the American States.

The members retained the character of independent and sovereign

states, and had equal votes in the federal council. This council

had a general authority to propose and resolve whatever it judged

necessary for the common welfare of Greece; to declare and carry on

war; to decide, in the last resort, all controversies between the

members; to fine the aggressing party; to employ the whole force

of the confederacy against the disobedient; to admit new members.

The Amphictyons were the guardians of religion, and of the immense

riches belonging to the temple of Delphos, where they had the right

of jurisdiction in controversies between the inhabitants and those

who came to consult the oracle. As a further provision for the

efficacy of the federal powers, they took an oath mutually to defend

and protect the united cities, to punish the violators of this oath,

and to inflict vengeance on sacrilegious despoilers of the temple.

In theory, and upon paper, this apparatus of powers seems amply

sufficient for all general purposes. In several material instances,

they exceed the powers enumerated in the articles of confederation.

The Amphictyons had in their hands the superstition of the times,

one of the principal engines by which government was then

maintained; they had a declared authority to use coercion against

refractory cities, and were bound by oath to exert this authority on

the necessary occasions.

Very different, nevertheless, was the experiment from the theory.

The powers, like those of the present Congress, were administered

by deputies appointed wholly by the cities in their political

capacities; and exercised over them in the same capacities. Hence

the weakness, the disorders, and finally the destruction of the

confederacy. The more powerful members, instead of being kept in

awe and subordination, tyrannized successively over all the rest.

Athens, as we learn from Demosthenes, was the arbiter of Greece

seventy-three years. The Lacedaemonians next governed it

twenty-nine years; at a subsequent period, after the battle of

Leuctra, the Thebans had their turn of domination.

It happened but too often, according to Plutarch, that the

deputies of the strongest cities awed and corrupted those of the

weaker; and that judgment went in favor of the most powerful party.

Even in the midst of defensive and dangerous wars with Persia

and Macedon, the members never acted in concert, and were, more or

fewer of them, eternally the dupes or the hirelings of the common

enemy. The intervals of foreign war were filled up by domestic

vicissitudes convulsions, and carnage.

After the conclusion of the war with Xerxes, it appears that the

Lacedaemonians required that a number of the cities should be turned

out of the confederacy for the unfaithful part they had acted. The

Athenians, finding that the Lacedaemonians would lose fewer

partisans by such a measure than themselves, and would become

masters of the public deliberations, vigorously opposed and defeated

the attempt. This piece of history proves at once the inefficiency

of the union, the ambition and jealousy of its most powerful

members, and the dependent and degraded condition of the rest. The

smaller members, though entitled by the theory of their system to

revolve in equal pride and majesty around the common center, had

become, in fact, satellites of the orbs of primary magnitude.

Had the Greeks, says the Abbe Milot, been as wise as they were

courageous, they would have been admonished by experience of the

necessity of a closer union, and would have availed themselves of

the peace which followed their success against the Persian arms, to

establish such a reformation. Instead of this obvious policy,

Athens and Sparta, inflated with the victories and the glory they

had acquired, became first rivals and then enemies; and did each

other infinitely more mischief than they had suffered from Xerxes.

Their mutual jealousies, fears, hatreds, and injuries ended in the

celebrated Peloponnesian war; which itself ended in the ruin and

slavery of the Athenians who had begun it.

As a weak government, when not at war, is ever agitated by

internal dissentions, so these never fail to bring on fresh

calamities from abroad. The Phocians having ploughed up some

consecrated ground belonging to the temple of Apollo, the

Amphictyonic council, according to the superstition of the age,

imposed a fine on the sacrilegious offenders. The Phocians, being

abetted by Athens and Sparta, refused to submit to the decree. The

Thebans, with others of the cities, undertook to maintain the

authority of the Amphictyons, and to avenge the violated god. The

latter, being the weaker party, invited the assistance of Philip of

Macedon, who had secretly fostered the contest. Philip gladly

seized the opportunity of executing the designs he had long planned

against the liberties of Greece. By his intrigues and bribes he won

over to his interests the popular leaders of several cities; by

their influence and votes, gained admission into the Amphictyonic

council; and by his arts and his arms, made himself master of the

confederacy.

Such were the consequences of the fallacious principle on which

this interesting establishment was founded. Had Greece, says a

judicious observer on her fate, been united by a stricter

confederation, and persevered in her union, she would never have

worn the chains of Macedon; and might have proved a barrier to the

vast projects of Rome.

The Achaean league, as it is called, was another society of

Grecian republics, which supplies us with valuable instruction.

The Union here was far more intimate, and its organization much

wiser, than in the preceding instance. It will accordingly appear,

that though not exempt from a similar catastrophe, it by no means

equally deserved it.

The cities composing this league retained their municipal

jurisdiction, appointed their own officers, and enjoyed a perfect

equality. The senate, in which they were represented, had the sole

and exclusive right of peace and war; of sending and receiving

ambassadors; of entering into treaties and alliances; of

appointing a chief magistrate or praetor, as he was called, who

commanded their armies, and who, with the advice and consent of ten

of the senators, not only administered the government in the recess

of the senate, but had a great share in its deliberations, when

assembled. According to the primitive constitution, there were two

praetors associated in the administration; but on trial a single

one was preferred.

It appears that the cities had all the same laws and customs,

the same weights and measures, and the same money. But how far this

effect proceeded from the authority of the federal council is left

in uncertainty. It is said only that the cities were in a manner

compelled to receive the same laws and usages. When Lacedaemon was

brought into the league by Philopoemen, it was attended with an

abolition of the institutions and laws of Lycurgus, and an adoption

of those of the Achaeans. The Amphictyonic confederacy, of which

she had been a member, left her in the full exercise of her

government and her legislation. This circumstance alone proves a

very material difference in the genius of the two systems.

It is much to be regretted that such imperfect monuments remain

of this curious political fabric. Could its interior structure and

regular operation be ascertained, it is probable that more light

would be thrown by it on the science of federal government, than by

any of the like experiments with which we are acquainted.

One important fact seems to be witnessed by all the historians

who take notice of Achaean affairs. It is, that as well after the

renovation of the league by Aratus, as before its dissolution by the

arts of Macedon, there was infinitely more of moderation and justice

in the administration of its government, and less of violence and

sedition in the people, than were to be found in any of the cities

exercising SINGLY all the prerogatives of sovereignty. The Abbe

Mably, in his observations on Greece, says that the popular

government, which was so tempestuous elsewhere, caused no disorders

in the members of the Achaean republic, BECAUSE IT WAS THERE

TEMPERED BY THE GENERAL AUTHORITY AND LAWS OF THE CONFEDERACY.

We are not to conclude too hastily, however, that faction did

not, in a certain degree, agitate the particular cities; much less

that a due subordination and harmony reigned in the general system.

The contrary is sufficiently displayed in the vicissitudes and fate

of the republic.

Whilst the Amphictyonic confederacy remained, that of the

Achaeans, which comprehended the less important cities only, made

little figure on the theatre of Greece. When the former became a

victim to Macedon, the latter was spared by the policy of Philip and

Alexander. Under the successors of these princes, however, a

different policy prevailed. The arts of division were practiced

among the Achaeans. Each city was seduced into a separate interest;

the union was dissolved. Some of the cities fell under the tyranny

of Macedonian garrisons; others under that of usurpers springing

out of their own confusions. Shame and oppression erelong awaken

their love of liberty. A few cities reunited. Their example was

followed by others, as opportunities were found of cutting off their

tyrants. The league soon embraced almost the whole Peloponnesus.

Macedon saw its progress; but was hindered by internal dissensions

from stopping it. All Greece caught the enthusiasm and seemed ready

to unite in one confederacy, when the jealousy and envy in Sparta

and Athens, of the rising glory of the Achaeans, threw a fatal damp

on the enterprise. The dread of the Macedonian power induced the

league to court the alliance of the Kings of Egypt and Syria, who,

as successors of Alexander, were rivals of the king of Macedon.

This policy was defeated by Cleomenes, king of Sparta, who was led

by his ambition to make an unprovoked attack on his neighbors, the

Achaeans, and who, as an enemy to Macedon, had interest enough with

the Egyptian and Syrian princes to effect a breach of their

engagements with the league.

The Achaeans were now reduced to the dilemma of submitting to

Cleomenes, or of supplicating the aid of Macedon, its former

oppressor. The latter expedient was adopted. The contests of the

Greeks always afforded a pleasing opportunity to that powerful

neighbor of intermeddling in their affairs. A Macedonian army

quickly appeared. Cleomenes was vanquished. The Achaeans soon

experienced, as often happens, that a victorious and powerful ally

is but another name for a master. All that their most abject

compliances could obtain from him was a toleration of the exercise

of their laws. Philip, who was now on the throne of Macedon, soon

provoked by his tyrannies, fresh combinations among the Greeks. The

Achaeans, though weakenened by internal dissensions and by the

revolt of Messene, one of its members, being joined by the AEtolians

and Athenians, erected the standard of opposition. Finding

themselves, though thus supported, unequal to the undertaking, they

once more had recourse to the dangerous expedient of introducing the

succor of foreign arms. The Romans, to whom the invitation was

made, eagerly embraced it. Philip was conquered; Macedon subdued.

A new crisis ensued to the league. Dissensions broke out among it

members. These the Romans fostered. Callicrates and other popular

leaders became mercenary instruments for inveigling their countrymen.

The more effectually to nourish discord and disorder the Romans

had, to the astonishment of those who confided in their sincerity,

already proclaimed universal liberty1 throughout Greece. With

the same insidious views, they now seduced the members from the

league, by representing to their pride the violation it committed on

their sovereignty. By these arts this union, the last hope of

Greece, the last hope of ancient liberty, was torn into pieces; and

such imbecility and distraction introduced, that the arms of Rome

found little difficulty in completing the ruin which their arts had

commenced. The Achaeans were cut to pieces, and Achaia loaded with

chains, under which it is groaning at this hour.

I have thought it not superfluous to give the outlines of this

important portion of history; both because it teaches more than one

lesson, and because, as a supplement to the outlines of the Achaean

constitution, it emphatically illustrates the tendency of federal

bodies rather to anarchy among the members, than to tyranny in the

head.

PUBLIUS.

1 This was but another name more specious for the independence

of the members on the federal head.