THE FEDERALIST PAPERS PROJECT - A Commitment to Critical Thinking About Political Origins in the Presence of Specious Argument (Paper No. 17)

THE FEDERALIST PAPERS PROJECT - Part 15. 

With the 2020 Federal election still not called, and the integrity of the electoral process challenged by the incumbent president, not for a legal reason but because he cannot stand losing, I see nothing to do but soldier on with Alexander Hamilton's arguments for principled and practical government.  Read along here: Project Gutenberg's free source edition of The Federalist Papers.

Hamilton continues to argue against confederacy and for union in Paper No.17, claiming that the federal government could not likely be bothered to usurp the state,

THE FEDERALIST PAPERS PROJECT - A Commitment to Deep Thinking About Political Origins in the Presence of Noise (Paper No. 16)

THE FEDERALIST PAPERS PROJECT - Part 14. 

As the election count continues unresolved today, political writers observe that we are polarized.  We are two Americas, one wrote this morning - ya think? The split is embodied by what could end up being tied party representation in the Senate. Any tied vote will be broken by the Vice President, as yet unknown, according to Article I, Section 3, Clause 4 of the Constitution so avidly advanced in The Federalist Papers. In fact, in Paper No. 16 Alexander Hamilton writes about the disadvantages of splitting the Union into smaller confederacies.  Read along here: Project Gutenberg's free source edition of The Federalist Papers. 

 Hamilton gets on a hyperbolic horse with this paper; something we so rarely see in politics today. Confederacies are the parent of anarchy, he writes, and when the components of the Union don't fall in line the only remedy is to use force. Apparently, Donald Trump and William Barr may have read Paper No. 16, as discussed in Episode 7. 

THE FEDERALIST PAPERS PROJECT - A Commitment to Deep Thinking About Our Political Origins in the Presence of Noise (Paper No. 15)

THE FEDERALIST PAPERS PROJECT - Part 13.  Uncannily, Hamilton opens his 15th paper, which I read on a U.S. election day of historical proportion, saying - look, I've told you how important the union is to our safety and happiness.  The opposition to union amounts to either personal ambition, greed, jealousy, or outright lying. If you still need convincing, remember this:

...you are in quest of information on a subject the most momentous which can engage the attention of a free people:...and that the difficulties of the journey have been unnecessarily increased by the mazes with which sophistry has beset the way. It will be my aim to remove the obstacles to your progress in as compendious a manner, as it can be done...

 But for the words compendious and sophistry, that could have been written today. A journey "unnecessarily increased by the mazes with which sophistry has beset the way." So that's why the last four years have felt so long. Alexander, please! Remove those obstacles.  And in case you wish to read along...  A link to Project Gutenberg's free source edition of The Federalist Papers.
 

THE FEDERALIST PAPERS PROJECT - A Commitment to Deep Thinking About Our Political Origins in the Presence of Noise (Paper No. 14)

 

THE FEDERALIST PAPERS PROJECT - Part 12.    A link to Project Gutenberg's free source edition of The Federalist Papers. 

We have seen the necessity of the union as our bulwark against foreign danger, as the conservator of peace among ourselves, as the guardian of commerce and other common interests, as the only substitute for those military establishments which have subverted the liberties of the old world; and as the proper antidote for the diseases of faction, which have proved fatal to other popular governments, and of which have been betrayed by our own. 

So, what argument remains? James Madison is not yet done in refuting the objection to union that republics are only effective in governing a small number of people living within a restricted region. Not so, he claims. That is only true of a democracy, in which people must assemble themselves to administer their government, whereas republics assign that duty to representatives.   

Europe has created a mechanism of representation, Madison acknowledges, but within the context of a monarchy, so not within a government controlled by the people.  Governments in antiquity were populist, but small.  America is the innovator of a popular government, but within separate republics. Why not let the experiment go all the way, he asks, and allow for the comprehensivness of a central government functioning representatively?

THE FEDERALIST PAPERS PROJECT - A Commitment to Deep Thinking About our Political Origins in the Presence of Noise (Paper Nos. 12 & 13)

THE FEDERALIST PAPERS PROJECT - Part 11.    A link to Project Gutenberg's free source edition of The Federalist Papers.

A nation cannot long exist without revenue. Destitute of this essential support, it must resign its independence and sink into the degraded condition of a province. 

The Emperor of Germany, Hamilton writes, despite vast amounts of fertile land, silver, and gold mines his country boasts, lacked the power to sustain a war and, at times, had to borrow from other countries to meet his financial obligations. This is because his country failed to transform their wealth so that it supplied the treasury, something accomplished through taxes. 

Given the American colony's history of taxation by the British, Americans were not well disposed towards direct taxation. Hamilton advises that excises - levied on particular goods - were a more likely means of funding the treasury.  Given disunited states, he cautions, there was potential for each state to levy duties on the other both discouraging trade and requiring the expense of armed personnel to police infringements. Whereas a single government could put combined resources towards patrolling the greater amount of commerce between the united states and foreign nations. And what does Hamilton suggest being one commodity subject to duties - liquor! Not only to raise a considerable sum, but to discourage its being drunk to excess.

In Paper No. 13, we see Hamilton consider revenue from another angle.  It's the economy, stupid! Actually, it's not the economy he writes of but economy, in other words, the prudent management of resources. Multiple states means multiple governments.  Multiple governments means keeping track of multiple people who must be paid by each government.  Moreover, states or confederacies of a certain size, require the same energy to administer as a large one.

The supposition, that each confederacy into which the States would be likely to be divided, would require a government not less comprehensive, than the one proposed...Nothing can be more evident than that the thirteen States will be able to support a national government, better than one half, or one third, or any number less than the whole. 

As clear as the economic and administrative arguments in favor of the proposed union, in our own time so fraught with disagreement, I wonder if the Constitution uniting our 50 states were put to a vote on Tuesday, if it would pass? I think not.