The Federalist

Contents

1. No. 1 General Introduction 10 min 9

   Hamilton opens the series by framing ratification as a test of whether people can create good government “from reflection and choice” rather than accident and force. He warns that many will oppose the Constitution from interest, especially state officeholders and men hoping to rise in separate confederacies, but urges moderation, since good men stand on both sides. He openly declares himself for adoption and sets out a plan: the utility of union, the Confederation’s insufficiency, the need for energetic government, the Constitution’s republican character, its analogy to the state constitution, and its security for liberty and property.

2. No. 2 Concerning Dangers from Foreign Force and Influence 11 min 3

   Jay argues that Americans should remain one nation under one federal government rather than divide into several confederacies. He describes a connected country of navigable rivers given to “one united people” of common ancestry, language, religion and principles, who fought the war together. The first Confederation, formed amid war, proved defective, so the people convened the Philadelphia Convention. Its plan is only recommended, and should be judged calmly; as with the Congress of 1774, the people should trust experienced delegates over critics. Disunion would mean the end of American greatness.

3. No. 3 The Same Subject Continued (Concerning Dangers From Foreign Force and Influence) 10 min 3

   Jay begins the case that union best protects Americans against foreign hostility. Wars arise from just causes, chiefly treaty violations and direct violence. A national government will draw abler men, interpret treaties and the law of nations uniformly through national courts, and resist local temptations to break faith, as states had done with the peace treaty with Britain. Border states and individual states have provoked Indian wars and could provoke Spain or Britain. A strong nation can also settle quarrels on better terms, as Genoa’s humiliation by Louis XIV shows.

4. No. 4 The Same Subject Continued (Concerning Dangers From Foreign Force and Influence) 11 min 2

   Jay turns from just causes of war to pretended ones. Nations make war when they expect gain, and America’s rivalry with France and Britain in the fisheries, the carrying trade and the China trade, and Spain’s and Britain’s closure of the Mississippi and St. Lawrence, will breed jealousy. Only a united government can command the nation’s talents and resources, organize the militia under one plan, and build a navy, as Britain’s union shows. Foreign powers will judge America by its unity and treat a divided America with contempt.

5. No. 5 The Same Subject Continued (Concerning Dangers From Foreign Force and Influence) 9 min 2

   Jay quotes Queen Anne’s 1706 letter urging the union of England and Scotland, and recalls how Britain’s three kingdoms, long divided, were set against each other by continental powers. Three or four American confederacies would suffer the same fate: they could not stay equal in strength, and envy and fear would make the strongest, probably the northern, a threat to the rest. Different trades and markets would give them different foreign attachments, so that each would seek foreign allies against its neighbours, inviting foreign fleets and armies that would not easily leave.

6. No. 6 Concerning Dangers from Dissensions Between the States 14 min 15

   Hamilton turns to dangers from conflicts among the states themselves. Men are ambitious, vindictive and rapacious, and neighbouring sovereignties have always fought, often for the private motives of leaders, as with Pericles, Wolsey and, nearer home, Shays. He rejects the view that republics and commercial peoples are naturally peaceful: Athens, Carthage, Venice, Holland and Britain fought constantly, often for commercial reasons and at popular demand, as in Britain’s war with Spain over illicit trade. Recent disturbances in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts show that neighbouring states are natural enemies unless confederated.

7. No. 7 The Same Subject Continued (Concerning Dangers from Dissensions Between the States) 15 min 6

   Hamilton lists specific causes of war among disunited states. Disputed western lands, now largely ceded to the Union, would be reclaimed and fought over, as the Wyoming and Vermont controversies foreshadow. Commercial regulations would breed retaliation, and New York’s import duties, paid partly by consumers in Connecticut and New Jersey, would be resented. Apportioning and paying the public debt would set debtor states against creditor states. State laws violating private contracts, like Rhode Island’s, would provoke reprisals. Separate alliances would entangle America in European wars, and foreign enemies would divide and rule.

8. No. 8 The Consequences of Hostilities Between the States 13 min 5

   Hamilton describes the consequences of war among separated states. Lacking Europe’s fortresses and disciplined armies, American wars would be destructive raids. Constant danger would drive even liberty-loving peoples to standing armies and stronger executives, since war enlarges the executive at the legislature’s expense. Commercial peoples cannot be citizen-soldiers as the Greeks were. Britain kept its liberty because, as an island, it needed only a small army; continental states living under arms subordinate the civil power to the military. Union would give America a similarly insulated situation; disunion would bring Europe’s engines of despotism.

9. No. 9 The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection 13 min 4

   Hamilton argues that a firm union guards against faction and insurrection, the vices that kept the Greek and Italian republics oscillating between tyranny and anarchy. Modern political science offers remedies the ancients lacked: separation of powers, checks and balances, judges holding office during good behaviour, representation, and the enlargement of the republic’s orbit. Opponents cite Montesquieu on small republics, but his standard would shatter even the existing states, and he himself recommended the confederate republic, quoted at length. The distinction between confederacy and consolidation is arbitrary, as the Lycian league shows.

10. No. 10 The Same Subject Continued (The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection) 20 min 10

    Madison argues that a large republic is the best cure for faction, a group of citizens, majority or minority, united by passion or interest against others’ rights or the common good. Its causes cannot be removed without destroying liberty, since opinions differ and unequal faculties produce unequal property, the most durable source of faction. Only its effects can be controlled. A minority faction is outvoted, but a majority faction is the real danger. Representation refines public views, and an extended republic contains so many interests that a factious majority will rarely form or act together.

11. No. 11 The Utility of the Union in Respect to Commercial Relations and a Navy 16 min 5

    Hamilton argues that union is essential to American commerce and a navy. European maritime powers fear American competition in the carrying trade and would foster division. A united government could exclude British ships and force commercial concessions, and a federal navy could make America the arbiter of European conflicts in the West Indies and protect its neutrality. Disunion would reduce America to a passive commerce. The fisheries and western navigation are rights of the Union, and free trade among the states would enrich all. United, America could resist European domination and build “one great American system”.

12. No. 12 The Utility of the Union In Respect to Revenue 14 min 5

    Hamilton argues that union will improve public revenue. Commerce increases money in circulation and the value of land, and so the capacity to pay taxes. Direct taxes have failed in America, excises are unpopular, and personal property can be reached only through taxes on consumption, so the national revenue must come chiefly from import duties. Separate states could not collect them, since smuggling across land borders and rivers would be easy, as France’s twenty thousand customs guards show. One government guarding the Atlantic coast could triple the duties; otherwise the burden would fall on land.

13. No. 13 Advantage of the Union in Respect to Economy in Government 6 min 2

    Hamilton argues that union is also cheaper. Separate confederacies would each need a full national civil establishment, as large as that proposed for the whole Union. Disunion would most likely produce a northern confederacy, including New York and New Jersey and perhaps Pennsylvania, and a southern one, divided by their interests in navigation. Customs officers and military establishments would add further costs.

14. No. 14 Objections to the Proposed Constitution From Extent of Territory Answered 14 min 3

    Madison answers the objection that the country is too large for a republic. The objection confuses a democracy, where citizens meet in person and which must be small, with a republic governed by representatives, which can extend as far as representatives can meet. The Union’s dimensions are comparable to Germany or Poland, and members from distant states have attended Congress. The general government has only enumerated powers; new states can be added; roads and canals will shorten distances; and frontier states most need the Union. He closes by defending the American capacity for political innovation.

15. No. 15 The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union 20 min 6

    Hamilton begins the review of the Confederation’s defects. Its failures are admitted by all: treaties violated, debts unpaid, western posts held by Britain, the Mississippi closed, credit and commerce collapsed. The radical vice is legislation for states in their collective capacity rather than for individuals, which makes Congress’s resolutions mere recommendations. A law needs a sanction, enforced either by courts on individuals or by arms on states, and the latter means war. Men in groups behave worse than individuals, and sovereign members always resist control, so the states’ delinquencies have brought the government to a halt.

16. No. 16 The Same Subject Continued (The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union) 13 min 4

    Hamilton argues that legislation for states, attested by all confederacies except partly the Lycian and Achaean leagues, leads to anarchy. Enforcing federal decrees against delinquent states would mean civil war, as states would combine and seek foreign help, and would require an army that could only become a military despotism. The Union must instead act directly on citizens through its own courts and officers. States could then obstruct it only by open resistance, which courts would declare void and the people would oppose. No government can prevent true revolutions.

17. No. 17 The Same Subject Continued (The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union) 11 min 3

    Hamilton answers the fear that a government acting on individuals would absorb the states’ powers. National officials will have little interest in local affairs, and the states will always find it easier to encroach on the Union than the reverse, because people’s affections are stronger for nearer objects and because states administer ordinary civil and criminal justice. Feudal history shows the same pattern: barons usually defeated their kings unless they oppressed their own dependents, as Scotland’s clan aristocracy did until the Union. Confederate members are like such barons.

18. No. 18 The Same Subject Continued (The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union) 15 min 4

    The first of three essays surveying confederacies examines the Greek leagues. The Amphictyonic council had ample powers on paper but acted through city deputies, so the strongest cities dominated, members betrayed the common cause to Persia and Macedon, and Philip of Macedon exploited the Sacred War to master Greece. The Achaean league was closer and wiser, with a senate controlling war and diplomacy and a single chief magistrate, and its cities were more orderly. Yet foreign intrigue, Macedonian and then Roman, divided and destroyed it, showing federations tend to anarchy, not tyranny.

19. No. 19 The Same Subject Continued (The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union) 14 min 5

    The survey turns to modern confederacies. The Holy Roman Empire grew out of feudal anarchy; despite an impressive diet, emperor and courts, its laws addressed sovereigns, and its history is one of wars between emperor and princes, ignored requisitions and abortive enforcement, as when Bavaria seized Donauwörth under colour of the imperial ban. Poland has been partitioned by its neighbours. The Swiss cantons are held together mainly by weakness, geography and fear, and their religious wars split them into separate diets with opposed foreign alliances.

20. No. 20 The Same Subject Continued (The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union) 11 min 4

    Hamilton and Madison close the survey of confederacies with the Dutch Republic. On paper the States-General and the stadtholder had wide powers. In practice unanimity, provincial jealousy and unpaid quotas produced weakness, foreign intrigue and repeated breaches of the constitution, held together only by the stadtholder, the wealth of Holland and the pressure of hostile neighbours. Four assemblies called to reform the system failed. The essay ends with the lesson of Nos. 15–20: a government over governments, legislating for states rather than individuals, must replace law with the sword.

21. No. 21 Other Defects of the Present Confederation 13 min 4

    Hamilton lists further defects of the Confederation. Congress has no sanction to enforce its laws, since the Articles reserve every power not expressly delegated. There is no federal guarantee of state governments against insurrection, as Shays's Rebellion showed. Quotas for contributions cannot be fair, because national wealth has too many causes to be measured by land or population. The remedy is a federal power to raise its own revenue, chiefly through taxes on consumption, which limit themselves, with direct taxes apportioned by population.

22. No. 22 The Same Subject Continued (Other Defects of the Present Confederation) 23 min 9

    Hamilton completes his catalogue. Without a power over commerce the Union cannot win trade treaties, and the states raise barriers against one another. Requisitions for troops created bidding wars and unequal burdens. Equal state suffrage lets a minority of the people govern, and supermajority rules hand a veto to small factions and foreign bribery. With no supreme court, treaties are at the mercy of thirteen judiciaries. A single-chamber Congress cannot safely hold larger powers, and the Articles, never ratified by the people, need a deeper foundation in popular consent.

23. No. 23 The Necessity of a Government as Energetic as the One Proposed to the Preservation of the Union 12 min 2

    Hamilton begins the case for an energetic government. The Union's purposes are common defence, internal peace, commerce and foreign relations. Because the dangers to a nation cannot be foreseen, the powers to raise and support armies and fleets must be unlimited, and must belong to the body responsible for defence. Requisitions have failed, so federal law must reach individuals directly. The safeguard lies in structuring the government so that it can be trusted, not in restricting its powers. The extent of the country is itself an argument for vigour.

24. No. 24 The Powers Necessary to the Common Defense Further Considered 12 min 4

    Hamilton answers the objection that the Constitution does not forbid standing armies in peacetime. Only two state constitutions do, and the Articles impose no such limit on Congress. The Constitution places the army under a popular legislature and limits army appropriations to two years. British and Spanish possessions, their Indian allies and the western posts make small frontier garrisons indispensable, and a future navy will need dock-yards and garrisons.

25. No. 25 The Same Subject Continued (The Powers Necessary to the Common Defense Further Considered) 13 min 3

    Hamilton argues that defence cannot be left to the states. The danger from Britain, Spain and the Indian nations surrounds the whole Union, and separate provision would burden exposed states like New York while tempting states to build armies against the national authority. A ban on peacetime armies would be evaded or would leave the country defenceless until invaded. Militia alone nearly lost the war. Pennsylvania and Massachusetts have raised troops in peacetime, and Sparta's evasion with Lysander shows that rules contrary to necessity are broken.

26. No. 26 The Idea of Restraining the Legislative Authority in Regard to the Common Defense Considered 15 min 3

    Hamilton traces the fear of standing armies to English history. The Bill of Rights of 1689 forbade a peacetime army without Parliament's consent but never restrained the legislature itself. American states carried that jealousy too far. The Constitution's two-year limit on army appropriations forces Congress to deliberate openly and regularly, under the watch of opposition members and jealous state legislatures. A conspiracy to build an army against liberty would need years of collusion and could not be concealed.

27. No. 27 The Same Subject Continued (The Idea of Restraining the Legislative Authority in Regard to the Common Defense Considered) 9 min 3

    Hamilton denies that the new government will need military force to execute its laws. The people's obedience follows good administration, and a larger sphere of election promises better administration. A government that operates on individuals and appears in ordinary life will win attachment and need less force. Federal laws made under the Constitution will be the supreme law, and state officers bound by oath will help enforce them. A league acting only on states, by contrast, can enforce nothing except by war.

28. No. 28 The Same Subject Continued (The Idea of Restraining the Legislative Authority in Regard to the Common Defense Considered) 10 min 3

    Hamilton concedes that any government may sometimes need force against insurrection, as Massachusetts and Pennsylvania have found. The objection applies equally to separate confederacies or states. The true security is that all power rests with the people's representatives. If they betray their trust, the right of self-defence remains, and federalism strengthens it: state governments can detect usurpation, organise resistance and combine, while the country's size and limited resources make a military despotism impracticable.

29. No. 29 Concerning the Militia 14 min 3

    Hamilton defends federal power over the militia. Uniform organisation and discipline require national regulation, while the states appoint the officers. Federal command of the militia makes a standing army less necessary. Calling the posse comitatus is implied by the necessary and proper clause. Training the whole population would waste productive labour, so he would favour a select, well-trained corps. Fears that the militia will be marched across the continent to oppress distant states are ridiculed as fantasies.

30. No. 30 Concerning the General Power of Taxation 13 min 3

    Hamilton opens the discussion of taxation. Money is the vital principle of the body politic, and a government without its own revenue either plunders or decays, as in the Ottoman Empire or under the Confederation's requisitions. The proposed split between external taxes for the Union and internal taxes for the states would leave the Union underfunded and dependent. In war it would have to divert funds pledged to its creditors, destroying the public credit on which modern war finance depends.

31. No. 31 The Same Subject Continued (Concerning the General Power of Taxation) 11 min 2

    Hamilton states first principles: a government must possess every power needed for its objects, and defence, being unlimited, requires an unlimited power of revenue. He restates the objection that a federal taxing power could swallow the states' resources. Fears of usurpation, he answers, concern the structure of government, not the extent of its powers. Encroachment by the states on the Union is at least as likely as the reverse, and the people will hold the balance.

32. No. 32 The Same Subject Continued (Concerning the General Power of Taxation) 10 min 3

    Hamilton argues that the states keep full power to tax everything except imports and exports. The states lose sovereignty only where the Constitution gives the Union exclusive authority, forbids the states to act, or grants a power that state action would directly contradict. The prohibition on state duties on imports implies, as a negative pregnant, that states may tax everything else. Concurrent jurisdiction over taxation follows from the division of sovereignty.

33. No. 33 The Same Subject Continued (Concerning the General Power of Taxation) 11 min 3

    Hamilton defends the necessary and proper clause and the supremacy clause against the charge that they will destroy the states. Both, he argues, only declare what would follow anyway from granting powers to a government. The national government must judge its powers in the first instance and the people in the last. Laws made in pursuance of the Constitution are supreme, and usurpations, such as abolishing a state land tax, are not. The states keep an independent taxing power except over imports and exports.

34. No. 34 The Same Subject Continued (Concerning the General Power of Taxation) 14 min 3

    Hamilton argues that concurrent taxing power is workable, citing the coexistence of two Roman assemblies. Federal needs are unlimited because they arise chiefly from war and debt, as Britain's budget shows. State needs, once their war debts are paid, will be small, perhaps £200,000 a year each. Any fixed division of revenue sources would give the states too much or too little, so concurrent jurisdiction is the only alternative to subordinating the states.

35. No. 35 The Same Subject Continued (Concerning the General Power of Taxation) 14 min 2

    Hamilton argues that confining federal revenue to import duties would push them to excess, encouraging smuggling, favouring manufacturers, hurting merchants and burdening importing states like New York. He then answers the objection that the House is too small to represent every class. Artisans will choose merchants, the learned professions are neutral, and landholders share one interest, so a representation of landholders, merchants and professional men will understand all classes and the business of taxation.

36. No. 36 The Same Subject Continued (Concerning the General Power of Taxation) 18 min 4

    Hamilton continues: representatives will be landholders, merchants and professional men, though the door stays open to talent. He denies that Congress lacks local knowledge for internal taxes, since it can adopt each state's system and must apportion direct taxes by census. Double sets of officers can be avoided by using state officers. Double taxation is a myth, since the total burden is the same. He disapproves of poll taxes but would not deny the government a resource for emergencies.

37. No. 37 Concerning the Difficulties of the Convention in Devising a Proper Form of Government 18 min 5

    Madison turns from the Confederation's defects to the Constitution itself and asks for candour. The convention faced a novel task. It had to combine energy and stability with republican liberty, and to draw the line between federal and state power when nature, language and law all resist exact definition. It also had to reconcile large and small states and other regional interests. That it agreed at all, with nearly unprecedented unanimity, is remarkable, and suggests freedom from faction and a shared sense of necessity.

38. No. 38 The Same Subject Continued, and the Incoherence of the Objections to the New Plan Exposed 21 min 6

    Madison notes that ancient governments were framed by single lawgivers, not assemblies, and that the Articles' flaws went unnoticed until tried. Like a patient whose doctors agree on a remedy, America should not heed critics who cannot agree among themselves, and he lists their contradictory objections. Most of these objections apply more strongly to the Confederation. Its Congress already holds unlimited powers of requisition and has assumed, without authority, control of the vast Western territory.

39. No. 39 The Conformity of the Plan to Republican Principles 17 min 6

    Madison opens the survey of the plan by asking whether it is truly republican. He defines a republic as a government deriving its powers from the great body of the people and run by officers serving for limited terms or during good behaviour, and finds every branch of the proposed government conforms. He then answers the charge that the convention created a consolidated national government instead of a federal one. Testing the Constitution by its foundation, sources of power, operation, extent and amendment, he concludes it is neither wholly national nor wholly federal, but a composition of both.

40. No. 40 On the Powers of the Convention to Form a Mixed Government Examined and Sustained 20 min 6

    Madison asks whether the convention had authority to propose the Constitution. Reading the Annapolis recommendation and the congressional resolution of February 1787 together, he argues that their end, an adequate national government, outweighs the means named, revision of the Articles. Most of the plan expands principles already in the Confederation. The one real departure, ratification by nine states, answers the absurdity of letting Rhode Island block twelve. In any case the convention's powers were only advisory, the Revolution itself rested on informal initiatives, and the people's ratification will cure any irregularity: good advice should be accepted whoever offers it.

41. No. 41 General View of the Powers Conferred by The Constitution 23 min 5

    Madison begins reviewing the quantity of power given to the Union, sorting it into six classes. This paper covers the first, security against foreign danger: declaring war, raising armies and navies, and taxing and borrowing. Since no constitution can limit the force of foreign enemies, it cannot safely limit the means of defence. Standing armies are dangerous, but union and distance from Europe make a large one unnecessary, while two-year appropriations restrain it. Disunion would bring European militarism to America. He closes by rejecting the reading of the general welfare clause as an unlimited power.

42. No. 42 The Powers Conferred by the Constitution Further Considered 18 min 5

    Madison reviews the second and third classes of federal powers. The powers over foreign relations (treaties, ambassadors and consuls, piracies and offences against the law of nations, foreign commerce) belong naturally to the Union; he regrets that the slave trade cannot be banned before 1808 but calls the clause a gain for humanity. The powers that keep harmony among the states include regulating interstate and Indian commerce, coinage, weights and measures, naturalization, bankruptcy, the recognition of state records and the post office, each correcting a defect in the Articles of Confederation.

43. No. 43 The Same Subject Continued (The Powers Conferred by the Constitution Further Considered) 23 min 5

    Madison covers the fourth class of miscellaneous powers: copyrights and patents, the seat of government and federal forts, treason, the admission of new states, the territories, the guarantee of republican government and protection against invasion and domestic violence, the validity of existing debts, and amendment. On the guarantee he recalls Shays's Rebellion and warns that armed minorities, aided by money, foreigners or the enslaved, may overpower majorities. He ends by defending ratification by nine states, arguing that the Confederation, broken by its members, no longer binds the others.

44. No. 44 Restrictions on the Authority of the Several States 19 min 3

    Madison examines the fifth class of provisions, restraints on the states. He welcomes the bans on state coinage, paper money and legal-tender laws, and on bills of attainder, ex post facto laws and laws impairing contracts, blaming such measures for the instability of the 1780s. In the sixth class he defends the necessary and proper clause, arguing that a grant of an end implies the means, and the supremacy clause, without which the Union's laws would yield to thirteen state constitutions. He concludes that no power granted is unnecessary.

45. No. 45 The Alleged Danger From the Powers of the Union to the State Governments Considered 14 min 3

    Madison asks whether the mass of federal power endangers the states. The states' sovereignty matters only as a means to the people's welfare. History suggests the members of confederacies, like feudal barons, tend to overpower the centre. The states will be indispensable to electing federal officers, will employ far more officials, and will keep the powers touching daily life, while the Union's few and defined powers concern war, peace and commerce. The Constitution mainly invigorates powers the Confederation already held, above all taxation.

46. No. 46 The Influence of the State and Federal Governments Compared 17 min 3

    Madison continues the comparison of state and federal governments, both agents of the same people. People will be attached first to their states, which control most offices and personal interests; members of Congress will carry local loyalties with them. If the Union encroached, the states could obstruct it, and a general encroachment would prompt coordinated resistance like that against Britain. Even a federal army of twenty-five or thirty thousand would face half a million armed militiamen led by officers chosen by the states.

47. No. 47 The Particular Structure of the New Government and the Distribution of Power Among Its Different Parts 19 min 4

    Madison begins the examination of the government's structure by answering the charge that it violates the separation of powers. He agrees that uniting all powers in the same hands is the definition of tyranny, but argues that Montesquieu, whose model was the British constitution, meant only that the whole power of one department must not be held by the same hands as the whole power of another. A survey of the state constitutions shows that none keeps the departments wholly separate.

48. No. 48 These Departments Should Not Be So Far Separated as to Have No Constitutional Control Over Each Other 12 min 3

    Madison argues that the separation of powers cannot be maintained by written boundaries alone. In a representative republic the legislature, with its broad and ill-defined powers and its control of money, is the branch most likely to encroach. He cites Jefferson's account in the Notes on the State of Virginia of an assembly that absorbed executive and judicial power, and the Pennsylvania Council of Censors' finding of repeated legislative violations of that state's constitution.

49. No. 49 Method of Guarding Against the Encroachments of Any One Department of Government by Appealing to the People Through a Convention 11 min 2

    Madison examines Jefferson's proposal that two branches, by two-thirds votes, could call a popular convention to correct breaches of the constitution. Recourse to the people is sound in principle for great occasions, but as a regular remedy it would erode the veneration governments need, stir dangerous passions, and generally favour the legislature, whose members are numerous and well connected and would likely sit in judgment on their own cause. The passions rather than the reason of the public would decide.

50. No. 50 Periodical Appeals to the People Considered 8 min 2

    Madison considers periodical rather than occasional appeals to the people to enforce the constitution. Reviews at short intervals would carry recent passions; at long intervals they would come too late. Pennsylvania's Council of Censors shows the problem: its leading members had been partisans of the measures under review, it split into fixed parties, and its rulings changed nothing. Parties cannot be removed without destroying liberty, and excluding former officeholders would not help.

51. No. 51 The Structure of the Government Must Furnish the Proper Checks and Balances Between the Different Departments 13 min 7

    Madison concludes that the separation of powers must be secured by the internal structure of government: each department needs its own will, independent appointment and pay, and the means and motives to resist encroachment, so that ambition counteracts ambition. Because the legislature predominates, it is divided into two branches, while the weaker executive is fortified. The compound republic adds a double security by dividing power between the Union and the states, and the extended republic's multiplicity of interests and sects protects minorities from majority factions.

52. No. 52 The House of Representatives 12 min 2

    Madison begins examining the House of Representatives. Voters' qualifications follow those for each state's larger legislative house; members must be twenty-five, seven years citizens and inhabitants of their state, with no property or religious test. On the two-year term, he surveys the history of English and Irish parliaments and colonial assemblies to show that liberty survived far longer terms, and argues that the limited powers of Congress and the watchfulness of the states make biennial elections safe.

53. No. 53 The Same Subject Continued (The House of Representatives) 14 min 2

    Madison rejects the maxim that tyranny begins where annual elections end. It made sense in Britain, where Parliament can change its own term, but not under a written constitution that fixes the term beyond the government's reach. Two-year terms are also useful: federal legislators need knowledge of many states' laws, commerce and foreign affairs, must travel far, and should be able to stand against experienced colleagues; longer terms also discourage fraudulent elections.

54. No. 54 The Apportionment of Members Among the States 13 min 5

    Madison defends apportioning representatives and direct taxes by the same rule, counting three-fifths of enslaved people. He voices an imagined Southern argument: slaves are by law partly persons and partly property, so the Constitution rightly treats them as both; states already count disfranchised inhabitants; and property deserves some weight in representation. Admitting the reasoning is strained, he accepts it, adding that tying representation to taxation gives states opposite incentives that should keep the census honest.

55. No. 55 The Total Number of the House of Representatives 13 min 3

    Madison begins answering four charges against the House of Representatives: that it is too small to be trusted, too small to know local interests, drawn from a class remote from the people, and unlikely to grow with population. On the first he argues that no arithmetic rule fixes the size of an assembly, that too large a body becomes a mob, and that sixty-five members, rising with the census, are safe given the limited powers of Congress, the vigilance of the state legislatures and the character of the American people.

56. No. 56 The Same Subject Continued (The Total Number of the House of Representatives) 10 min 4

    Madison answers the charge that the House will be too small to know its constituents’ interests. Federal legislation concerns chiefly commerce, taxation and the militia, which require limited local knowledge, much of it already gathered in state laws and brought by members who have served in state legislatures. He expects economic development to make the states more complex and to need a larger House. Britain, where one real representative stands for almost 29,000 people, has kept a measure of liberty.

57. No. 57 The Alleged Tendency of the New Plan to Elevate the Few at the Expense of the Many Considered in Connection with Representation 14 min 3

    Madison answers the charge that the House will be drawn from a few wealthy men hostile to the many. Electors are the same as for each state’s larger house, and no property, birth or religious qualification limits who may be chosen. Gratitude, ambition, frequent elections and laws binding on members themselves tie representatives to the people. Large districts are no danger, as election experience in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania and Connecticut shows.

58. No. 58 Objection That The Number of Members Will Not Be Augmented as the Progress of Population Demands Considered 14 min 3

    Madison answers the charge that the House will not grow with population. The Constitution requires a census every ten years; the large states, dominant in the House, will press for enlargement, and the House’s control of money bills gives it the means to prevail over a reluctant Senate. He warns that beyond a certain size an assembly comes under the control of a few, and rejects quorums or majorities larger than a simple majority as handing power to minorities and encouraging walkouts.

59. No. 59 Concerning the Power of Congress to Regulate the Election of Members 12 min 3

    Hamilton defends Congress’s power to override state regulation of the times, places and manner of federal elections. Every government must contain the means of its own preservation; if state legislatures alone controlled elections, they could destroy the Union by not holding them. He admits the states’ role in choosing senators carries the same risk, but defends it as a necessary concession, and warns that state rulers’ interests may differ from their people’s.

60. No. 60 The Same Subject Continued (Concerning the Power of Congress to Regulate the Election of Members) 14 min 3

    Hamilton denies that Congress could use its power over elections to favour a class. Any such attempt would provoke revolt led by the states; the differently chosen House, Senate and President would not agree on it; and landed and mercantile interests are more balanced nationally than in any state. Property qualifications, the only real means of favouring “the wealthy and the well-born,” are fixed by the Constitution and outside Congress’s power. A government able to do this would rather simply usurp.

61. No. 61 The Same Subject Continued (Concerning the Power of Congress to Regulate the Election of Members) 9 min 3

    Hamilton answers critics who want federal elections confined to each elector’s county. Most state constitutions, including New York’s, allow their legislatures as much latitude over election places as the Constitution gives Congress, and an inconvenient polling place deters voters equally whatever its distance. He names a positive benefit of federal power: a single national election day, renewing the whole House at once and keeping the Senate’s rotation regular.

62. No. 62 The Senate 15 min 5

    Madison begins on the Senate: senators’ higher age and citizenship requirements, their choice by state legislatures, and the equal vote of each state, which he treats as a compromise and a safeguard of state sovereignty. A senate guards against representatives’ betrayal, the passions of large assemblies, inexperience in legislation, and above all the instability of laws, which damages credit abroad, favours speculators at home, discourages enterprise and lessens popular attachment to government.

63. No. 63 The Senate Continued 20 min 5

    Madison adds that a senate supplies a sense of national character and responsibility for long-term policy, and can check the people’s own temporary passions, as Athens lacked. Every long-lived republic had a senate. Ancient states knew representation, but America uniquely excludes the people in their collective capacity from government. A Senate could not become a tyrannical aristocracy without corrupting legislatures, House and people; Maryland, Britain, Sparta, Rome and Carthage show popular branches prevailing.

64. No. 64 The Powers of the Senate 15 min 3

    Jay defends the treaty power, given to the President with the consent of two-thirds of the Senate. Choice by electors and state legislatures will produce able, informed men; the Senate’s long terms give continuity, and the President can manage negotiations with the secrecy and speed they need. Treaties properly bind as supreme law because they are bargains between nations. The equal representation of states and the impeachment power guard against corrupt or partial treaties.

65. No. 65 The Powers of the Senate Continued 13 min 2

    Hamilton defends the Senate as the court for impeachments. Impeachable offences are political abuses of public trust, and trials will stir up factions. Following the British practice of Commons accusing and Lords judging, the Senate is the body dignified and independent enough. The Supreme Court is too small and would also judge the later criminal trial; a separate court would be costly or slow. No plan is perfect, and imperfection is no reason to reject the Constitution.

66. No. 66 Objections to the Power of the Senate To Set as a Court for Impeachments Further Considered 14 min 3

    Hamilton answers four objections to the Senate as court of impeachments. It mixes powers only partially, as the separation of powers permits, and less than New York’s own constitution. The Senate’s influence is balanced by the House’s control of money bills, its power to impeach and its contingent choice of President. Senators will not shield officials they merely confirmed, and for corrupt treaties the safeguard lies in the number and character of those who make them.

67. No. 67 The Executive Department 11 min 4

    Hamilton begins his essays on the executive by attacking opponents who paint the President as a king. As a flagrant example he takes the claim, made by “Cato,” that the President could fill vacancies in the Senate. Reading the appointment clauses together, he shows that the recess-appointment power covers only federal officers created by law, while the Constitution expressly gives state executives the power to fill Senate vacancies temporarily.

68. No. 68 The Mode of Electing the President 9 min 4

    Hamilton praises the electoral college as excellent if not perfect. Electors chosen by the people for this one purpose, meeting separately in each state, will deliberate free of tumult and resist intrigue or foreign influence, and they exclude federal office-holders. The President depends on the people alone for re-election. The process will tend to choose men of real ability. The Vice-President, chosen in the same way, presides over the Senate and substitutes for the President.

69. No. 69 The Real Character of the Executive 17 min 6

    Hamilton compares the President with the king of Great Britain and the governor of New York. Elected for four years, impeachable, with a qualified veto, limited military command, and treaty and appointment powers shared with the Senate, the President resembles the governor far more than the king. The king is hereditary, inviolable, has an absolute veto, declares war, makes treaties alone, creates offices and nobles, regulates commerce and heads the church.

70. No. 70 The Executive Department Further Considered 20 min 8

    Hamilton argues that energy in the executive is essential to good government, against threats from abroad, faction and disorder. Its ingredients are unity, duration, adequate support and competent powers; safety requires dependence on the people and responsibility. Plural executives and executive councils breed dissension, weaken action, and above all conceal responsibility, since blame can be shifted. Rome’s consuls and New York’s council of appointment illustrate the dangers; a single magistrate is easier to watch.

71. No. 71 The Duration in Office of the Executive 11 min 4

    Hamilton defends the four-year presidential term. A man secure in office will be firmer in using his powers and resisting passing popular impulses or legislative pressure, for the people intend the public good but can err about means. The executive must be independent of a legislature that tends to absorb all power. Four years gives firmness without endangering liberty, as the British House of Commons’ triumphs over crown and lords show.

72. No. 72 The Same Subject Continued, and Re-Eligibility of the Executive Considered 13 min 3

    Hamilton defends the President’s unlimited re-eligibility. Stability of administration depends on the President’s continuance, since new Presidents change officials and measures. Excluding a President after a fixed term would weaken his motives to good conduct, tempt him to plunder or usurp, waste his experience, deprive the nation of needed men in crises, and force instability on government, while offering doubtful gains in independence or security.

73. No. 73 The Provision For The Support of the Executive, and the Veto Power 15 min 6

    Hamilton finishes the executive’s “requisites to energy” with adequate support and competent powers. A salary fixed for the whole term protects the President from a legislature that could starve or bribe him, since power over a man’s support is power over his will. He then defends the qualified veto: it lets the executive defend his office and checks hasty or factious laws, and because it can be overridden by two thirds it will be used more readily than an absolute negative. He explains why the convention followed Massachusetts rather than New York’s Council of Revision, which included judges.

74. No. 74 The Command of the Military and Naval Forces, and the Pardoning Power of the Executive 6 min 4

    A short paper on three executive powers. Command of the army, navy and militia in federal service belongs naturally to a single hand, as most state constitutions already provide. The clause letting the President require written opinions from department heads is redundant. The pardoning power is best lodged in one responsible man; even for treason, Hamilton argues, a quick offer of pardon to rebels may restore peace when waiting for the legislature would lose the moment, as the recent troubles in Massachusetts showed.

75. No. 75 The Treaty-Making Power of the Executive 12 min 4

    Hamilton defends making treaties by the President with the consent of two thirds of the senators present. Treaty-making is neither purely legislative nor purely executive, so joining the two is proper. A four-year elected magistrate of modest fortune is too open to foreign corruption to hold the power alone; the Senate alone would lose the President’s agency in negotiation; the House is too large, changeable and slow. Requiring two thirds of all senators would invite minority obstruction like that of the Polish Diet and the Confederation.

76. No. 76 The Appointing Power of the Executive 12 min 4

    The President nominates and, with the Senate’s consent, appoints officers. Hamilton argues that one man chooses better than an assembly, because undivided responsibility sharpens his sense of duty and he has fewer attachments to satisfy, while assemblies trade offices between parties. Nomination gives the President the real choice; the Senate’s power to refuse silently checks favouritism, state prejudice and family connection. Fears that the President will buy the Senate with offices ignore human integrity and the clause barring members of Congress from federal office.

77. No. 77 The Appointing Power Continued and Other Powers of the Executive Considered 12 min 3

    Senate participation in appointments will steady the administration, since the Senate’s consent is needed to displace as well as appoint. The objections that the President would dominate the Senate, or the Senate the President, cancel each other. Hamilton contrasts the open, accountable federal method with New York’s secret council of appointment, a breeding ground of intrigue and family monopoly. He briefly reviews the President’s remaining powers and concludes that the executive combines energy with republican safety through election and impeachment.

78. No. 78 The Judiciary Department 19 min 11

    Opening the judiciary papers, Hamilton defends tenure during good behaviour. The judiciary, holding neither sword nor purse, is the least dangerous branch and needs permanence to defend itself. In a limited constitution the courts must declare void acts contrary to the Constitution; this implies not judicial superiority but the superiority of the people’s fundamental law over their agents’ statutes. Independent judges also guard against passing popular passions and against unjust laws aimed at particular classes, and only permanent tenure will attract the few men learned enough for the bench.

79. No. 79 The Judiciary Continued 6 min 4

    A fixed provision for the judges’ support, which may be raised but never reduced during their tenure, complements their permanence, because power over a man’s subsistence is power over his will. Judges are answerable through impeachment by the House and trial by the Senate. Hamilton rejects removal for inability as unworkable and criticises New York’s compulsory retirement of judges at sixty.

80. No. 80 The Powers of the Judiciary 16 min 4

    Hamilton defines the proper objects of federal jurisdiction: cases under federal laws and the Constitution, cases involving the United States, cases touching peace with foreign nations or between states, admiralty cases, and cases where state courts cannot be impartial. He justifies each, citing the need for uniform interpretation, the Empire’s Imperial Chamber and the states’ “fraudulent laws”, then checks the Constitution’s list of cases against these principles and explains why equity jurisdiction is needed.

81. No. 81 The Judiciary Continued, and the Distribution of the Judicial Authority 24 min 9

    Hamilton defends a Supreme Court separate from the legislature against the charge that it would be uncontrollable. Courts everywhere must prefer the Constitution to statutes; legislators make poor final judges; legislatures cannot reverse judgments anywhere; and impeachment makes judicial usurpation a phantom. He explains inferior courts, the Supreme Court’s narrow original jurisdiction, denies that states could be sued for their securities, and argues that appellate jurisdiction over fact need not abolish jury trial.

82. No. 82 The Judiciary Continued 10 min 5

    Hamilton considers how state and federal courts will relate. Applying the rule that states keep powers not exclusively delegated, he argues that state courts will have concurrent jurisdiction over cases arising under federal law unless Congress excludes them, that appeals will lie from them to the Supreme Court, and that Congress might even allow appeals from state courts to inferior federal courts. Time and practice will settle the meaning of so complex a system.

83. No. 83 The Judiciary Continued in Relation to Trial by Jury 36 min 9

    The longest paper answers the charge that silence on civil juries abolishes them. Hamilton shows that the interpretive maxims invoked do not apply, that most civil cases stay in state courts, and that the criminal jury, which the Constitution guarantees, is what protects liberty. The civil jury guards against corruption but varies so much among the states that no uniform rule was possible. He rejects the Pennsylvania minority’s and Massachusetts’s proposals and argues that juries are unsuited to prize, foreign and equity cases.

84. No. 84 Certain General and Miscellaneous Objections to the Constitution Considered and Answered 25 min 10

    Hamilton answers remaining objections. The Constitution already secures habeas corpus, bans ex post facto laws and titles of nobility, and protects jury trial in crimes. Bills of rights were bargains with kings, unnecessary where the people retain all power, and could even be dangerous by implying powers never granted; the press’s liberty rests on public opinion. The Constitution itself is a bill of rights. He also dismisses complaints about distance from the capital, public debts and expense.

85. No. 85 Concluding Remarks 17 min 8

    In the closing paper Hamilton notes how far the plan resembles New York’s own constitution and lists the securities it adds to republican government, liberty and property. He defends the papers’ temperate tone, admits the plan is imperfect, and argues that amendments will be easier after ratification than before, since each can be proposed singly and Congress must call a convention when two thirds of the states apply. He quotes Hume on time and experience and warns against risking the Union.