Answer question

What arguments did Hamilton make against the Articles of Confederation and the continuation of a Confederation-type government?
The Federalist 23
“The Necessity of a Government as Energetic as the One Proposed to the
Preservation of the Union”
Hamilton for the New York Packet. Tuesday, December 18, 1787.
To the People of the State of New York:
THE necessity of a Constitution, at least equally energetic with the one proposed, to
the preservation of the Union, is the point at the examination of which we are now
arrived.
This inquiry will naturally divide itself into three branches the objects to be provided
for by the federal government, the quantity of power necessary to the
accomplishment of those objects, the persons upon whom that power ought to
operate. Its distribution and organization will more properly claim our attention
under the succeeding head.
The principal purposes to be answered by union are these the common defense of
the members; the preservation of the public peace as well against internal
convulsions as external attacks; the regulation of commerce with other nations and
between the States; the superintendence of our intercourse, political and
commercial, with foreign countries.
The authorities essential to the common defense are these: to raise armies; to build
and equip fleets; to prescribe rules for the government of both; to direct their
operations; to provide for their support. These powers ought to exist without
limitation, because it is impossible to foresee or define the extent and
variety of national exigencies, or the correspondent extent and variety of
the means which may be necessary to satisfy them. The circumstances that
endanger the safety of nations are infinite, and for this reason no constitutional
shackles can wisely be imposed on the power to which the care of it is committed.
This power ought to be coextensive with all the possible combinations of such
circumstances; and ought to be under the direction of the same councils which are
appointed to preside over the common defense.
This is one of those truths which, to a correct and unprejudiced mind, carries its
own evidence along with it; and may be obscured, but cannot be made plainer by
argument or reasoning. It rests upon axioms as simple as they are universal;
the means ought to be proportioned to the end; the persons, from whose agency
the attainment of any end is expected, ought to possess the means by which it is
to be attained.
Whether there ought to be a federal government intrusted with the care of the
common defense, is a question in the first instance, open for discussion; but the
moment it is decided in the affirmative, it will follow, that that government ought to
be clothed with all the powers requisite to complete execution of its trust. And
unless it can be shown that the circumstances which may affect the public safety
are reducible within certain determinate limits; unless the contrary of this position
can be fairly and rationally disputed, it must be admitted, as a necessary
consequence, that there can be no limitation of that authority which is to provide
for the defense and protection of the community, in any matter essential to its
efficacy that is, in any matter essential to the formation, direction, or support of
the national forces.
Defective as the present Confederation has been proved to be, this principle
appears to have been fully recognized by the framers of it; though they have not
made proper or adequate provision for its exercise. Congress have an unlimited
discretion to make requisitions of men and money; to govern the army and navy;
to direct their operations. As their requisitions are made constitutionally binding
upon the States, who are in fact under the most solemn obligations to furnish the
supplies required of them, the intention evidently was that the United States should
command whatever resources were by them judged requisite to the “common
defense and general welfare.” It was presumed that a sense of their true interests,
and a regard to the dictates of good faith, would be found sufficient pledges for the
punctual performance of the duty of the members to the federal head.
The experiment has, however, demonstrated that this expectation was ill-founded
and illusory; and the observations, made under the last head, will, I imagine, have
sufficed to convince the impartial and discerning, that there is an absolute necessity
for an entire change in the first principles of the system; that if we are in earnest
about giving the Union energy and duration, we must abandon the vain project of
legislating upon the States in their collective capacities; we must extend the laws of
the federal government to the individual citizens of America; we must discard the
fallacious scheme of quotas and requisitions, as equally impracticable and unjust.
The result from all this is that the Union ought to be invested with full power to levy
troops; to build and equip fleets; and to raise the revenues which will be required
for the formation and support of an army and navy, in the customary and ordinary
modes practiced in other governments.
If the circumstances of our country are such as to demand a compound instead of a
simple, a confederate instead of a sole, government, the essential point which will
remain to be adjusted will be to discriminate the objects, as far as it can be done,
which shall appertain to the different provinces or departments of power; allowing
to each the most ample authority for fulfilling the objects committed to its charge.
Shall the Union be constituted the guardian of the common safety? Are fleets and
armies and revenues necessary to this purpose? The government of the Union must
be empowered to pass all laws, and to make all regulations which have relation to
them. The same must be the case in respect to commerce, and to every other
matter to which its jurisdiction is permitted to extend. Is the administration of
justice between the citizens of the same State the proper department of the local
governments? These must possess all the authorities which are connected with this
object, and with every other that may be allotted to their particular cognizance and
direction. Not to confer in each case a degree of power commensurate to the end,
would be to violate the most obvious rules of prudence and propriety, and
improvidently to trust the great interests of the nation to hands which are disabled
from managing them with vigor and success.
Who is likely to make suitable provisions for the public defense, as that body to
which the guardianship of the public safety is confided; which, as the centre of
information, will best understand the extent and urgency of the dangers that
threaten; as the representative of the whole, will feel itself most deeply interested
in the preservation of every part; which, from the responsibility implied in the duty
assigned to it, will be most sensibly impressed with the necessity of proper
exertions; and which, by the extension of its authority throughout the States, can
alone establish uniformity and concert in the plans and measures by which the
common safety is to be secured? Is there not a manifest inconsistency in devolving
upon the federal government the care of the general defense, and leaving in the
State governments theeffective powers by which it is to be provided for? Is not a
want of co-operation the infallible consequence of such a system? And will not
weakness, disorder, an undue distribution of the burdens and calamities of war, an
unnecessary and intolerable increase of expense, be its natural and inevitable
concomitants? Have we not had unequivocal experience of its effects in the course
of the revolution which we have just accomplished?
Every view we may take of the subject, as candid inquirers after truth, will serve to
convince us, that it is both unwise and dangerous to deny the federal government
an unconfined authority, as to all those objects which are intrusted to its
management. It will indeed deserve the most vigilant and careful attention of the
people, to see that it be modeled in such a manner as to admit of its being safely
vested with the requisite powers. If any plan which has been, or may be, offered to
our consideration, should not, upon a dispassionate inspection, be found to answer
this description, it ought to be rejected. A government, the constitution of which
renders it unfit to be trusted with all the powers which a free people ought to
delegate to any government, would be an unsafe and improper depositary of
the national interests. Wherever these can with propriety be confided, the
coincident powers may safely accompany them. This is the true result of all just
reasoning upon the subject. And the adversaries of the plan promulgated by the
convention ought to have confined themselves to showing, that the internal
structure of the proposed government was such as to render it unworthy of the
confidence of the people. They ought not to have wandered into inflammatory
declamations and unmeaning cavils about the extent of the powers.
The powers are not too extensive for the objects of federal administration, or, in
other words, for the management of our national interests; nor can any
satisfactory argument be framed to show that they are chargeable with such an
excess. If it be true, as has been insinuated by some of the writers on the other
side, that the difficulty arises from the nature of the thing, and that the extent of
the country will not permit us to form a government in which such ample powers
can safely be reposed, it would prove that we ought to contract our views, and
resort to the expedient of separate confederacies, which will move within more
practicable spheres. For the absurdity must continually stare us in the face of
confiding to a government the direction of the most essential national interests,
without daring to trust it to the authorities which are indispensible to their proper
and efficient management. Let us not attempt to reconcile contradictions, but firmly
embrace a rational alternative.
I trust, however, that the impracticability of one general system cannot be shown. I
am greatly mistaken, if any thing of weight has yet been advanced of this
tendency; and I flatter myself, that the observations which have been made in the
course of these papers have served to place the reverse of that position in as clear
a light as any matter still in the womb of time and experience can be susceptible of.
This, at all events, must be evident, that the very difficulty itself, drawn from the
extent of the country, is the strongest argument in favor of an energetic
government; for any other can certainly never preserve the Union of so large an
empire. If we embrace the tenets of those who oppose the adoption of the
proposed Constitution, as the standard of our political creed, we cannot fail to verify
the gloomy doctrines which predict the impracticability of a national system
pervading entire limits of the present Confederacy.
Publius.
This was one of the Federalist Papers used to try to persuade the 13 states to ratify
the Constitution, beginning in 1787. Please answer the following questions about
the document:
1. First, in your own words, what is this document saying? What argument is
Hamilton trying to make to persuade the people concerning the purpose of
government and the Constitution?
2. What did Hamilton consider were the three main goals of government and
how does he define them? Why does he think a stronger central government
is necessary?
3. In the beginning, Hamilton specifically mentions New York. Why would he
do that? During the time of the Constitutional Convention, why would New
York be hesitant to ratify the new Constitution?
4. What arguments did Hamilton make against the Articles of Confederation
and the continuation of a Confederation-type government?
5. Do you as a group, think his argument was sound or particularly effective?
Do you believe he was correct in his assumptions? Explain.