FEDERALIST. No. 7

The Same Subject Continued

(Concerning Dangers from Dissensions Between the States)

For the Independent Journal.

HAMILTON

To the People of the State of New York:

IT IS sometimes asked, with an air of seeming triumph, what

inducements could the States have, if disunited, to make war upon

each other? 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. But, unfortunately

for us, the question admits of a more particular answer. 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.

Territorial disputes have at all times been found one of the

most fertile sources of hostility among nations. Perhaps the

greatest proportion of wars that have desolated the earth have

sprung from this origin. This cause would exist among us in full

force. We have a vast tract of unsettled territory within the

boundaries of the United States. 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.

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. 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. This, it has been said, was at all events

an acquisition to the Confederacy by compact with a foreign power.

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. 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. A

dismemberment of the Confederacy, however, would revive this

dispute, and would create others on the same subject. 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. 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. The other

States would no doubt insist on a proportion, by right of

representation. 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. 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. 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.

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. 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. 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. The articles of confederation obliged the parties

to submit the matter to the decision of a federal court. The

submission was made, and the court decided in favor of Pennsylvania.

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. Nothing here said is intended to convey the slightest

censure on the conduct of that State. 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.

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. 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. Even the States

which brought forward claims, in contradiction to ours, seemed more

solicitous to dismember this State, than to establish their own

pretensions. These were New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and

Connecticut. 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. These

being small States, saw with an unfriendly eye the perspective of

our growing greatness. 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.

The competitions of commerce would be another fruitful source of

contention. 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.

Each State, or separate confederacy, would pursue a system of

commercial policy peculiar to itself. This would occasion

distinctions, preferences, and exclusions, which would beget

discontent. 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. WE SHOULD BE READY TO DENOMINATE INJURIES THOSE

THINGS WHICH WERE IN REALITY THE JUSTIFIABLE ACTS OF INDEPENDENT

SOVEREIGNTIES CONSULTING A DISTINCT INTEREST. The spirit of

enterprise, which characterizes the commercial part of America, has

left no occasion of displaying itself unimproved. 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. 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.

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. The relative

situation of New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey would afford an

example of this kind. New York, from the necessities of revenue,

must lay duties on her importations. 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. New York would neither be

willing nor able to forego this advantage. 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. Would Connecticut and New Jersey long submit to be

taxed by New York for her exclusive benefit? 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?

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? These are questions that temerity alone will

answer in the affirmative.

The public debt of the Union would be a further cause of

collision between the separate States or confederacies. The

apportionment, in the first instance, and the progressive

extinguishment afterward, would be alike productive of ill-humor and

animosity. How would it be possible to agree upon a rule of

apportionment satisfactory to all? There is scarcely any that can

be proposed which is entirely free from real objections. These, as

usual, would be exaggerated by the adverse interest of the parties.

There are even dissimilar views among the States as to the general

principle of discharging the public debt. 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. These would be inclined to magnify the

difficulties of a distribution. 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. The procrastinations of

the former would excite the resentments of the latter. The

settlement of a rule would, in the meantime, be postponed by real

differences of opinion and affected delays. 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.

Suppose the difficulties of agreeing upon a rule surmounted, and

the apportionment made. 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. Those which were sufferers by it

would naturally seek for a mitigation of the burden. The others

would as naturally be disinclined to a revision, which was likely to

end in an increase of their own incumbrances. 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. 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. Delinquencies, from

whatever causes, would be productive of complaints, recriminations,

and quarrels. 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. 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.

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.

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. 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.

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. 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. Divide et

impera1 must be the motto of every nation that either hates or

fears us.2 PUBLIUS.

1 Divide and command.

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.