FEDERALIST No. 6

Concerning Dangers from Dissensions Between the States

For the Independent Journal.

HAMILTON

To the People of the State of New York:

THE three last numbers of this paper have been dedicated to an

enumeration of the dangers to which we should be exposed, in a state

of disunion, from the arms and arts of foreign nations. I shall now

proceed to delineate dangers of a different and, perhaps, still more

alarming kind--those which will in all probability flow from

dissensions between the States themselves, and from domestic

factions and convulsions. These have been already in some instances

slightly anticipated; but they deserve a more particular and more

full investigation.

A man must be far gone in Utopian speculations who can seriously

doubt that, if these States should either be wholly disunited, or

only united in partial confederacies, the subdivisions into which

they might be thrown would have frequent and violent contests with

each other. To presume a want of motives for such contests as an

argument against their existence, would be to forget that men are

ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious. To look for a continuation of

harmony between a number of independent, unconnected sovereignties

in the same neighborhood, would be to disregard the uniform course

of human events, and to set at defiance the accumulated experience

of ages.

The causes of hostility among nations are innumerable. There

are some which have a general and almost constant operation upon the

collective bodies of society. Of this description are the love of

power or the desire of pre-eminence and dominion--the jealousy of

power, or the desire of equality and safety. There are others which

have a more circumscribed though an equally operative influence

within their spheres. Such are the rivalships and competitions of

commerce between commercial nations. And there are others, not less

numerous than either of the former, which take their origin entirely

in private passions; in the attachments, enmities, interests,

hopes, and fears of leading individuals in the communities of which

they are members. Men of this class, whether the favorites of a

king or of a people, have in too many instances abused the

confidence they possessed; and assuming the pretext of some public

motive, have not scrupled to sacrifice the national tranquillity to

personal advantage or personal gratification.

The celebrated Pericles, in compliance with the resentment of a

prostitute,1 at the expense of much of the blood and treasure of

his countrymen, attacked, vanquished, and destroyed the city of the

SAMNIANS. The same man, stimulated by private pique against the

MEGARENSIANS,2 another nation of Greece, or to avoid a

prosecution with which he was threatened as an accomplice of a

supposed theft of the statuary Phidias,3 or to get rid of the

accusations prepared to be brought against him for dissipating the

funds of the state in the purchase of popularity,4 or from a

combination of all these causes, was the primitive author of that

famous and fatal war, distinguished in the Grecian annals by the

name of the PELOPONNESIAN war; which, after various vicissitudes,

intermissions, and renewals, terminated in the ruin of the Athenian

commonwealth.

The ambitious cardinal, who was prime minister to Henry VIII.,

permitting his vanity to aspire to the triple crown,5

entertained hopes of succeeding in the acquisition of that splendid

prize by the influence of the Emperor Charles V. To secure the

favor and interest of this enterprising and powerful monarch, he

precipitated England into a war with France, contrary to the

plainest dictates of policy, and at the hazard of the safety and

independence, as well of the kingdom over which he presided by his

counsels, as of Europe in general. For if there ever was a

sovereign who bid fair to realize the project of universal monarchy,

it was the Emperor Charles V., of whose intrigues Wolsey was at once

the instrument and the dupe.

The influence which the bigotry of one female,6 the

petulance of another,7 and the cabals of a third,8 had in

the contemporary policy, ferments, and pacifications, of a

considerable part of Europe, are topics that have been too often

descanted upon not to be generally known.

To multiply examples of the agency of personal considerations in

the production of great national events, either foreign or domestic,

according to their direction, would be an unnecessary waste of time.

Those who have but a superficial acquaintance with the sources from

which they are to be drawn, will themselves recollect a variety of

instances; and those who have a tolerable knowledge of human nature

will not stand in need of such lights to form their opinion either

of the reality or extent of that agency. Perhaps, however, a

reference, tending to illustrate the general principle, may with

propriety be made to a case which has lately happened among

ourselves. If Shays had not been a DESPERATE DEBTOR, it is much to

be doubted whether Massachusetts would have been plunged into a

civil war.

But notwithstanding the concurring testimony of experience, in

this particular, there are still to be found visionary or designing

men, who stand ready to advocate the paradox of perpetual peace

between the States, though dismembered and alienated from each other.

The genius of republics (say they) is pacific; the spirit of

commerce has a tendency to soften the manners of men, and to

extinguish those inflammable humors which have so often kindled into

wars. Commercial republics, like ours, will never be disposed to

waste themselves in ruinous contentions with each other. They will

be governed by mutual interest, and will cultivate a spirit of

mutual amity and concord.

Is it not (we may ask these projectors in politics) the true

interest of all nations to cultivate the same benevolent and

philosophic spirit? If this be their true interest, have they in

fact pursued it? Has it not, on the contrary, invariably been found

that momentary passions, and immediate interest, have a more active

and imperious control over human conduct than general or remote

considerations of policy, utility or justice? Have republics in

practice been less addicted to war than monarchies? Are not the

former administered by MEN as well as the latter? Are there not

aversions, predilections, rivalships, and desires of unjust

acquisitions, that affect nations as well as kings? Are not popular

assemblies frequently subject to the impulses of rage, resentment,

jealousy, avarice, and of other irregular and violent propensities?

Is it not well known that their determinations are often governed

by a few individuals in whom they place confidence, and are, of

course, liable to be tinctured by the passions and views of those

individuals? Has commerce hitherto done anything more than change

the objects of war? Is not the love of wealth as domineering and

enterprising a passion as that of power or glory? Have there not

been as many wars founded upon commercial motives since that has

become the prevailing system of nations, as were before occasioned

by the cupidity of territory or dominion? Has not the spirit of

commerce, in many instances, administered new incentives to the

appetite, both for the one and for the other? Let experience, the

least fallible guide of human opinions, be appealed to for an answer

to these inquiries.

Sparta, Athens, Rome, and Carthage were all republics; two of

them, Athens and Carthage, of the commercial kind. Yet were they as

often engaged in wars, offensive and defensive, as the neighboring

monarchies of the same times. Sparta was little better than a

wellregulated camp; and Rome was never sated of carnage and

conquest.

Carthage, though a commercial republic, was the aggressor in the

very war that ended in her destruction. Hannibal had carried her

arms into the heart of Italy and to the gates of Rome, before

Scipio, in turn, gave him an overthrow in the territories of

Carthage, and made a conquest of the commonwealth.

Venice, in later times, figured more than once in wars of

ambition, till, becoming an object to the other Italian states, Pope

Julius II. found means to accomplish that formidable league,9

which gave a deadly blow to the power and pride of this haughty

republic.

The provinces of Holland, till they were overwhelmed in debts

and taxes, took a leading and conspicuous part in the wars of Europe.

They had furious contests with England for the dominion of the

sea, and were among the most persevering and most implacable of the

opponents of Louis XIV.

In the government of Britain the representatives of the people

compose one branch of the national legislature. Commerce has been

for ages the predominant pursuit of that country. Few nations,

nevertheless, have been more frequently engaged in war; and the

wars in which that kingdom has been engaged have, in numerous

instances, proceeded from the people.

There have been, if I may so express it, almost as many popular

as royal wars. The cries of the nation and the importunities of

their representatives have, upon various occasions, dragged their

monarchs into war, or continued them in it, contrary to their

inclinations, and sometimes contrary to the real interests of the

State. In that memorable struggle for superiority between the rival

houses of AUSTRIA and BOURBON, which so long kept Europe in a flame,

it is well known that the antipathies of the English against the

French, seconding the ambition, or rather the avarice, of a favorite

leader,10 protracted the war beyond the limits marked out by

sound policy, and for a considerable time in opposition to the views

of the court.

The wars of these two last-mentioned nations have in a great

measure grown out of commercial considerations,--the desire of

supplanting and the fear of being supplanted, either in particular

branches of traffic or in the general advantages of trade and

navigation.

From this summary of what has taken place in other countries,

whose situations have borne the nearest resemblance to our own, what

reason can we have to confide in those reveries which would seduce

us into an expectation of peace and cordiality between the members

of the present confederacy, in a state of separation? Have we not

already seen enough of the fallacy and extravagance of those idle

theories which have amused us with promises of an exemption from the

imperfections, weaknesses and evils incident to society in every

shape? Is it not time to awake from the deceitful dream of a golden

age, and to adopt as a practical maxim for the direction of our

political conduct that we, as well as the other inhabitants of the

globe, are yet remote from the happy empire of perfect wisdom and

perfect virtue?

Let the point of extreme depression to which our national

dignity and credit have sunk, let the inconveniences felt everywhere

from a lax and ill administration of government, let the revolt of a

part of the State of North Carolina, the late menacing disturbances

in Pennsylvania, and the actual insurrections and rebellions in

Massachusetts, declare--!

So far is the general sense of mankind from corresponding with

the tenets of those who endeavor to lull asleep our apprehensions of

discord and hostility between the States, in the event of disunion,

that it has from long observation of the progress of society become

a sort of axiom in politics, that vicinity or nearness of situation,

constitutes nations natural enemies. An intelligent writer

expresses himself on this subject to this effect: ``NEIGHBORING

NATIONS (says he) are naturally enemies of each other unless their

common weakness forces them to league in a CONFEDERATE REPUBLIC, and

their constitution prevents the differences that neighborhood

occasions, extinguishing that secret jealousy which disposes all

states to aggrandize themselves at the expense of their

neighbors.''11 This passage, at the same time, points out the

EVIL and suggests the REMEDY.

PUBLIUS.

1 Aspasia, vide ``Plutarch's Life of Pericles.''

2 Ibid.

3 Ibid.

4 ] Ibid. Phidias was supposed to have stolen some public

gold, with the connivance of Pericles, for the embellishment of the

statue of Minerva.

5 P Worn by the popes.

6 Madame de Maintenon.

7 Duchess of Marlborough.

8 Madame de Pompadour.

9 The League of Cambray, comprehending the Emperor, the King of

France, the King of Aragon, and most of the Italian princes and

states.

10 The Duke of Marlborough.

11 Vide ``Principes des Negociations'' par 1'Abbe de Mably.