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<h1 class="entry-title"><a rel="bookmark" href="21">Federalist № 21</a></h1>
<h2 class="entry-summary">Other Defects of the Present Confederation</h2>
<div class="entry-content">
<p id="salutation">To the People of the State of New York:</p>
<p id="p1"><span class="initial">Having</span> in the <a
href="18">three</a> <a href="19">last</a> <a href="20">numbers</a>
taken a summary review of the principal circumstances and events
which have depicted the genius and fate of other confederate
governments, I shall now proceed in the enumeration of the most
important of those defects which have hitherto disappointed our
hopes from <a href="articles">the system established among
ourselves</a>. To form a safe and satisfactory judgment of the
proper remedy, it is absolutely necessary that we should be well
acquainted with the extent and malignity of the disease. <a
class="permalink" href="#p1">¶</a></p>
<p id="p2">The next most palpable defect of the subsisting
Confederation, is the total want of a <em>sanction</em> to its
laws. The United States, as now composed, have no powers to exact
obedience, or punish disobedience to their resolutions, either by
pecuniary mulcts, by a suspension or divestiture of privileges, or
by any other constitutional mode. There is no express delegation
of authority to them to use force against delinquent members; and
if such a right should be ascribed to the federal head, as
resulting from the nature of the social compact between the
States, it must be by inference and construction, in the face of
<a href="articles#a2">that part of the second article</a>, by
which it is declared, <q cite="articles#a2">that each State shall
retain every power, jurisdiction, and right, not
<em>expressly</em> delegated to the United States in Congress
assembled.</q> There is, doubtless, a striking absurdity in
supposing that a right of this kind does not exist, but we are
reduced to the dilemma either of embracing that supposition,
preposterous as it may seem, or of contravening or explaining away
a provision, which has been of late a repeated theme of the
eulogies of those who oppose the new Constitution; and the want of
which, in that plan, has been the subject of much plausible
animadversion, and severe criticism. If we are unwilling to impair
the force of this applauded provision, we shall be obliged to
conclude, that the United States afford the extraordinary
spectacle of a government destitute even of the shadow of
constitutional power to enforce the execution of its own laws. It
will appear, from the specimens which have been cited, that the
American Confederacy, in this particular, stands discriminated
from every other institution of a similar kind, and exhibits a new
and unexampled phenomenon in the political world. <a
class="permalink" href="#p2">¶</a></p>
<p id="p3">The want of a mutual guaranty of the State governments
is another capital imperfection in the federal plan. There is
nothing of this kind declared in the articles that compose it; and
to imply a tacit guaranty from considerations of utility, would be
a still more flagrant departure from the clause which has been
mentioned, than to imply a tacit power of coercion from the like
considerations. The want of a guaranty, though it might in its
consequences endanger the Union, does not so immediately attack
its existence as the want of a constitutional sanction to its
laws. <a class="permalink" href="#p3">¶</a></p>
<p id="p4">Without a guaranty the assistance to be derived from
the Union in repelling those domestic dangers which may sometimes
threaten the existence of the State constitutions, must be
renounced. Usurpation may rear its crest in each State, and
trample upon the liberties of the people, while the national
government could legally do nothing more than behold its
encroachments with indignation and regret. A successful faction
may erect a tyranny on the ruins of order and law, while no succor
could constitutionally be afforded by the Union to the friends and
supporters of the government. The <a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shays'_Rebellion">tempestuous
situation from which Massachusetts has scarcely emerged</a>,
evinces that dangers of this kind are not merely speculative. Who
can determine what might have been the issue of her late
convulsions, if the malcontents had been headed by a Caesar or by
a Cromwell? Who can predict what effect a despotism, established
in Massachusetts, would have upon the liberties of New Hampshire
or Rhode Island, of Connecticut or New York? <a class="permalink"
href="#p4">¶</a></p>
<p id="p5">The inordinate pride of State importance has suggested
to some minds an objection to the principle of a guaranty in the
federal government, as involving an officious interference in the
domestic concerns of the members. A scruple of this kind would
deprive us of one of the principal advantages to be expected from
union, and can only flow from a misapprehension of the nature of
the provision itself. It could be no impediment to reforms of the
State constitution by a majority of the people in a legal and
peaceable mode. This right would remain undiminished. The guaranty
could only operate against changes to be effected by violence.
Towards the preventions of calamities of this kind, too many
checks cannot be provided. The peace of society and the stability
of government depend absolutely on the efficacy of the precautions
adopted on this head. Where the whole power of the government is
in the hands of the people, there is the less pretense for the use
of violent remedies in partial or occasional distempers of the
State. The natural cure for an ill-administration, in a popular or
representative constitution, is a change of men. A guaranty by the
national authority would be as much levelled against the
usurpations of rulers as against the ferments and outrages of
faction and sedition in the community. <a class="permalink"
href="#p5">¶</a></p>
<p id="p6">The principle of <a href="articles#a8">regulating the
contributions of the States to the common treasury by
<em>quotas</em></a> is another fundamental error in the
Confederation. Its repugnancy to an adequate supply of the
national exigencies has been already pointed out, and has
sufficiently appeared from the trial which has been made of it. I
speak of it now solely with a view to equality among the States.
Those who have been accustomed to contemplate the circumstances
which produce and constitute national wealth, must be satisfied
that there is no common standard or barometer by which the degrees
of it can be ascertained. Neither the value of lands, nor the
numbers of the people, which have been successively proposed as
the rule of State contributions, has any pretension to being a
just representative. If we compare the wealth of the United
Netherlands with that of Russia or Germany, or even of France, and
if we at the same time compare the total value of the lands and
the aggregate population of that contracted district with the
total value of the lands and the aggregate population of the
immense regions of either of the three last-mentioned countries,
we shall at once discover that there is no comparison between the
proportion of either of these two objects and that of the relative
wealth of those nations. If the like parallel were to be run
between several of the American States, it would furnish a like
result. Let Virginia be contrasted with North Carolina,
Pennsylvania with Connecticut, or Maryland with New Jersey, and we
shall be convinced that the respective abilities of those States,
in relation to revenue, bear little or no analogy to their
comparative stock in lands or to their comparative population. The
position may be equally illustrated by a similar process between
the counties of the same State. No man who is acquainted with the
State of New York will doubt that the active wealth of King's
County bears a much greater proportion to that of Montgomery than
it would appear to be if we should take either the total value of
the lands or the total number of the people as a criterion! <a
class="permalink" href="#p6">¶</a></p>
<p id="p7">The wealth of nations depends upon an infinite variety
of causes. Situation, soil, climate, the nature of the
productions, the nature of the government, the genius of the
citizens, the degree of information they possess, the state of
commerce, of arts, of industry, these circumstances and many more,
too complex, minute, or adventitious to admit of a particular
specification, occasion differences hardly conceivable in the
relative opulence and riches of different countries. The
consequence clearly is that there can be no common measure of
national wealth, and, of course, no general or stationary rule by
which the ability of a state to pay taxes can be determined. The
attempt, therefore, to regulate the contributions of the members
of a confederacy by any such rule, cannot fail to be productive of
glaring inequality and extreme oppression. <a class="permalink"
href="#p7">¶</a></p>
<p id="p8">This inequality would of itself be sufficient in
America to work the eventual destruction of the Union, if any mode
of enforcing a compliance with its requisitions could be devised.
The suffering States would not long consent to remain associated
upon a principle which distributes the public burdens with so
unequal a hand, and which was calculated to impoverish and oppress
the citizens of some States, while those of others would scarcely
be conscious of the small proportion of the weight they were
required to sustain. This, however, is an evil inseparable from
the principle of quotas and requisitions. <a class="permalink"
href="#p8">¶</a></p>
<p id="p9">There is no method of steering clear of this
inconvenience, but by authorizing the national government to raise
its own revenues in its own way. Imposts, excises, and, in
general, all duties upon articles of consumption, may be compared
to a fluid, which will, in time, find its level with the means of
paying them. The amount to be contributed by each citizen will in
a degree be at his own option, and can be regulated by an
attention to his resources. The rich may be extravagant, the poor
can be frugal; and private oppression may always be avoided by a
judicious selection of objects proper for such impositions. If
inequalities should arise in some States from duties on particular
objects, these will, in all probability, be counterbalanced by
proportional inequalities in other States, from the duties on
other objects. In the course of time and things, an equilibrium,
as far as it is attainable in so complicated a subject, will be
established everywhere. Or, if inequalities should still exist,
they would neither be so great in their degree, so uniform in
their operation, nor so odious in their appearance, as those which
would necessarily spring from quotas, upon any scale that can
possibly be devised. <a class="permalink" href="#p9">¶</a></p>
<p id="p10">It is a signal advantage of taxes on articles of
consumption, that they contain in their own nature a security
against excess. They prescribe their own limit; which cannot be
exceeded without defeating the end proposed, that is, an extension
of the revenue. When applied to this object, the saying is as just
as it is witty, that, <q>in political arithmetic, two and two do
not always make four.</q> If duties are too high, they lessen the
consumption; the collection is eluded; and the product to the
treasury is not so great as when they are confined within proper
and moderate bounds. This forms a complete barrier against any
material oppression of the citizens by taxes of this class, and is
itself a natural limitation of the power of imposing them. <a
class="permalink" href="#p10">¶</a></p>
<p id="p11">Impositions of this kind usually fall under the
denomination of indirect taxes, and must for a long time
constitute the chief part of the revenue raised in this country.
Those of the direct kind, which principally relate to land and
buildings, may admit of a rule of apportionment. Either the value
of land, or the number of the people, may serve as a standard. The
state of agriculture and the populousness of a country have been
considered as nearly connected with each other. And, as a rule,
for the purpose intended, numbers, in the view of simplicity and
certainty, are entitled to a preference. In every country it is a
herculean task to obtain a valuation of the land; in a country
imperfectly settled and progressive in improvement, the
difficulties are increased almost to impracticability. The expense
of an accurate valuation is, in all situations, a formidable
objection. In a branch of taxation where no limits to the
discretion of the government are to be found in the nature of
things, the establishment of a fixed rule, not incompatible with
the end, may be attended with fewer inconveniences than to leave
that discretion altogether at large. <a class="permalink"
href="#p11">¶</a></p>
<address class="vcard author">
<span class="nickname">Publius</span>.
[<span class="fn">Alexander Hamilton</span>]
</address>
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<div class="meta">
<p>
First published in the <abbr class="published updated"
title="1787-12-12">Wednesday, December 12, 1787</abbr> issue of
the <span class="publication">Independent Journal</span>.
</p>
<p class="rights">
This work is in <a rel="copyright license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/">the public domain</a>.
</p>
<p>
Read about this
paper <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_No._21">on
Wikipedia</a>, read the <a rel="prev" href="20">previous</a> or
<a rel="next" href="22">next</a> Federalist Paper, or go
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