Introduction
There are too many references to the "collective" in the Federalist papers [I counted 26] for me to do anything but laugh when I hear the sophistry of the Randian types in their collective equation of collective and democracy and the collective animosity of insults aimed at the concept of collective action. Now the collective in their writings is an ideology, but that is a strawman because we Americans have never seen our government as a false choice between collective and individual except under the influence of foreign writers like Rand or Nietzche. To prepare for this post I downloaded the entire Federalist papers in text form so I could do word searches and word counts. I counted 26 references to collective and collective actions in the Federalist Papers. I would prefer to go into a detailed explanation of each of the references in context. But for this post I'll try to cover all 26. This is for future reference so don't stress too much in reading it.
In Federalist 6 is the first reference to Collective. It's part of a plea for Union versus chaos titled:
Concerning Dangers from Dissensions Between the States For the Independent Journal.
- In it he writes, admittedly warning of the dangers of collective animosity:
"The causes of hostility among nations are innumerable. There
are some which have a general and almost constant operation upon the
collective bodies of society. Of this description are the love of
power or the desire of pre-eminence and dominion--the jealousy of
power, or the desire of equality and safety."
- In Federalist 9, continuing his theme of "The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection
For the Independent Journal", Hamilton refers to the artificial and arbitrary distinction:
"A distinction, more subtle than accurate, has been raised
between a CONFEDERACY and a CONSOLIDATION of the States. The
essential characteristic of the first is said to be, the restriction
of its authority to the members in their collective capacities,
without reaching to the individuals of whom they are composed. It
is contended that the national council ought to have no concern with
any object of internal administration. An exact equality of
suffrage between the members has also been insisted upon as a
leading feature of a confederate government. These positions are,
in the main, arbitrary; they are supported neither by principle nor
precedent."
You see echoes of this argument in current debates, where "States-Rights" proponents suggest that the Federal Government only be responsible for those responsibilities of government that are the jurisdiction of the country as a whole "in their collective capacity." As he notes the distinction between what is enumerated as a collective responsibility and what is or ought to be left to the States on their own is "in the main, arbitrary." This passage supports notion that whatever is in the general interest of the United States should be addressed in the capacity of the United States as a collective. That doesn't mean we ought not to adjust the constitution to spell out the respective roles of Local communities, states and Federal government.
- In Federalist 15 "The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union"
Hamilton does inveigh against;
"The great and radical vice in the construction of the existing
Confederation is in the principle of LEGISLATION for STATES or
GOVERNMENTS, in their CORPORATE or COLLECTIVE CAPACITIES, and as
contradistinguished from the INDIVIDUALS of which they consist."
This quote comes close to supporting a civil liberties position, but since most Libertarians are blind to the meaning of the term "corporate" in this context, it is stating a common principle of our commonwealth that all our rights and privileges are there to protect our rights and happiness as individuals. This was true of the Articles of Confederation, and those great pretend Civil Libertarians of the Right would shift individual rights to corporate or property rights of the "right peopel" (aristocrats) now. SCOTUS does this when it defines Corporations as people with more rights than natural persons.
Hamilton also makes an appeal to the rule of law that shows how we transfer power to individual rights and responsibility to obey the law by shifting guilt for breaches to the individual through the use of courts. I'm taking the liberty of providing the whole quote again because I love it so and it is so important to know:
"Government implies the power of making laws. It is essential to
the idea of a law, that it be attended with a sanction; or, in
other words, a penalty or punishment for disobedience. If there be
no penalty annexed to disobedience, the resolutions or commands
which pretend to be laws will, in fact, amount to nothing more than
advice or recommendation."
We are seeing the fruit of this with the misbehavior of those standing Armies we call police forces at the current time.
"This penalty, whatever it may be, can
only be inflicted in two ways: by the agency of the courts and
ministers of justice, or by military force; by the COERCION of the
magistracy, or by the COERCION of arms. The first kind can
evidently apply only to men; the last kind must of necessity, be
employed against bodies politic, or communities, or States. It is
evident that there is no process of a court by which the observance
of the laws can, in the last resort, be enforced."
He's saying that courts need to have the power to act against individuals and enforce their decrees. But that judges are far less likely to employ armies to enforce the law. Indeed most courts are dependent on the executive.
"Sentences may be
denounced against them for violations of their duty; but these
sentences can only be carried into execution by the sword. In an
association where the general authority is confined to the
collective bodies of the communities, that compose it, every breach
of the laws must involve a state of war; and military execution
must become the only instrument of civil obedience. Such a state of
things can certainly not deserve the name of government, nor would
any prudent man choose to commit his happiness to it.
Hamilton is referring to Governments versus Governments and is making a recommendation for the principle that no person (including magistrates and their executive authority) be above the law. That is an individual duty and an important principle of a republic. But he's also warning of the consequences of governmental offices having impunity.
He continues in Federalist 16 referencing the collective:
"It seems to require no pains to prove that the States ought not
to prefer a national Constitution which could only be kept in motion
by the instrumentality of a large army continually on foot to
execute the ordinary requisitions or decrees of the government. And
yet this is the plain alternative involved by those who wish to deny
it the power of extending its operations to individuals. Such a
scheme, if practicable at all, would instantly degenerate into a
military despotism; but it will be found in every light
impracticable. The resources of the Union would not be equal to the
maintenance of an army considerable enough to confine the larger
States within the limits of their duty; nor would the means ever be
furnished of forming such an army in the first instance. Whoever
considers the populousness and strength of several of these States
singly at the present juncture, and looks forward to what they will
become, even at the distance of half a century, will at once dismiss
as idle and visionary any scheme which aims at regulating their
movements by laws to operate upon them in their collective
capacities, and to be executed by a coercion applicable to them in
the same capacities. A project of this kind is little less romantic
than the monster-taming spirit which is attributed to the fabulous
heroes and demi-gods of antiquity."
Of course what the Government did do was to rename "army" into "police, FBI, Secret Service, etc...." and enlist the States into collaborating on it's projects through money, shared project and shared resources. So in this case, again Hamilton is referring to things the Right Wing, when they aren't scheming to build just such institutions, claim to fear. The States need not fear having their movements regulated. Just us common citizens.
- FEDERALIST No. 23 The Necessity of a Government as Energetic as the One Proposed to the Preservation of the Union
In Federalist 23 Hamilton excoriates the failures of the Articles of Confederation. Making it possible for the Federal Government to demand resource, but making the actual delivery of those resources voluntary.
"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."
In this passage he uses collective almost in the fashion described by the anti-Communists who found collective decision making by committee as maddening as our founding fathers did. But the objection is to notions like 100% agreement before something becomes law and excessive strictures on the taxing power. Those were objections to the Articles of Confederation that Hamilton refers to repeatedly in his writings here. And we see this clarified in Federalist 27.
- In Federalist 27 "The Idea of Restraining the Legislative Authority in Regard to the Common Defense Considered."
He refers to "Collective" in referring to the potential of sedition by persons and governments from the States. In this collective power is a good thing:
"The hope of impunity is a strong incitement to sedition; the
dread of punishment, a proportionably strong discouragement to it.
Will not the government of the Union, which, if possessed of a due
degree of power, can call to its aid the collective resources of the
whole Confederacy, be more likely to repress the FORMER sentiment
and to inspire the LATTER, than that of a single State, which can
only command the resources within itself? A turbulent faction in a
State may easily suppose itself able to contend with the friends to
the government in that State; but it can hardly be so infatuated as
to imagine itself a match for the combined efforts of the Union. If
this reflection be just, there is less danger of resistance from
irregular combinations of individuals to the authority of the
Confederacy than to that of a single member."
And then he continues later extolling the collective power of union over the collective power of factions or States:
"One thing, at all events, must be evident, that a government
like the one proposed would bid much fairer to avoid the necessity
of using force, than that species of league contend for by most of
its opponents; the authority of which should only operate upon the
States in their political or collective capacities. It has been
shown that in such a Confederacy there can be no sanction for the
laws but force; that frequent delinquencies in the members are the
natural offspring of the very frame of the government; and that as
often as these happen, they can only be redressed, if at all, by war
and violence."
- In Federalist 31, "Concerning the General Power of Taxation"
He refers to Taxation and the necessity for the Federal Government to be able to collect taxes directly:
"As theory and practice conspire to prove that the power of
procuring revenue is unavailing when exercised over the States in
their collective capacities, the federal government must of
necessity be invested with an unqualified power of taxation in the
ordinary modes."
- In Federalist 31 Madison weighs in using the term "Collective"
"The difference between a federal and national government, as it
relates to the OPERATION OF THE GOVERNMENT, is supposed to consist
in this, that in the former the powers operate on the political
bodies composing the Confederacy, in their political capacities; in
the latter, on the individual citizens composing the nation, in
their individual capacities. On trying the Constitution by this
criterion, it falls under the NATIONAL, not the FEDERAL character;
though perhaps not so completely as has been understood. In
several cases, and particularly in the trial of controversies to
which States may be parties, they must be viewed and proceeded
against in their collective and political capacities only. So far
the national countenance of the government on this side seems to be
disfigured by a few federal features. But this blemish is perhaps
unavoidable in any plan; and the operation of the government on the
people, in their individual capacities, in its ordinary and most
essential proceedings, may, on the whole, designate it, in this
relation, a NATIONAL government."
- Madison in Federalist 40 "Powers to form a Mixed Government:"
Madison talks of how the Federal Government will and ought to have a mixture of national and Federal roles:
"....In some instances, as has been shown, the powers of
the new government will act on the States in their collective
characters. In some instances, also, those of the existing
government act immediately on individuals. In cases of capture;
of piracy; of the post office; of coins, weights, and measures;
of trade with the Indians; of claims under grants of land by
different States; and, above all, in the case of trials by
courts-marshal in the army and navy, by which death may be
inflicted without the intervention of a jury, or even of a civil
magistrate; in all these cases the powers of the Confederation
operate immediately on the persons and interests of individual
citizens...."
- In FEDERALIST No. 46,
- "The Influence of the State and Federal Governments Compared From the New York Packet. Tuesday, January 29, 1788." Madison warns of the dangers to the Collective well being of the Country from parochial concerns for the collective well being of their own state:
"Every one knows that a great proportion
of the errors committed by the State legislatures proceeds from
the disposition of the members to sacrifice the comprehensive and
permanent interest of the State, to the particular and separate
views of the counties or districts in which they reside. And if
they do not sufficiently enlarge their policy to embrace the
"collective welfare" of their particular State, how can it be
imagined that they will make the aggregate prosperity of the
Union, and the dignity and respectability of its government, the
objects of their affections and consultations? For the same
reason that the members of the State legislatures will be
unlikely to attach themselves sufficiently to national objects,
the members of the federal legislature will be likely to attach
themselves too much to local objects. The States will be to the
latter what counties and towns are to the former. Measures will
too often be decided according to their probable effect, not on
the national prosperity and happiness, but on the prejudices,
interests, and pursuits of the governments and people of the
individual States."
- FEDERALIST No. 58
- Objection That The Number of Members Will Not Be Augmented as the Progress of Population Demands Considered Madison:
On the same principle, the more multitudinous a
representative assembly may be rendered, the more it will partake
of the infirmities incident to collective meetings of the people.
Ignorance will be the dupe of cunning, and passion the slave of
sophistry and declamation. The people can never err more than in
supposing that by multiplying their representatives beyond a
certain limit, they strengthen the barrier against the government
of a few. Experience will forever admonish them that, on the
contrary, AFTER SECURING A SUFFICIENT NUMBER FOR THE PURPOSES OF
SAFETY, OF LOCAL INFORMATION, AND OF DIFFUSIVE SYMPATHY WITH THE
WHOLE SOCIETY, they will counteract their own views by every
addition to their representatives. The countenance of the
government may become more democratic, but the soul that animates
it will be more oligarchic.
In this passage, the infirmaries of collective meetings is described. And the reasons for the error. Representation can seem democratic when in fact is is oligarchic and directed from behind the scenes. And note Madison refers to the word "democratic" as a positive property of society.
- In Federalist 59 and 60 Hamilton talks of elections. In his concept the State Legislatures would be choosing Senators and those legislators would:
"As to the Senate, it is impossible that any regulation of ``time
and manner,'' which is all that is proposed to be submitted to the
national government in respect to that body, can affect the spirit
which will direct the choice of its members. The collective sense
of the State legislatures can never be influenced by extraneous
circumstances of that sort; a consideration which alone ought to
satisfy us that the discrimination apprehended would never be
attempted. For what inducement could the Senate have to concur in a
preference in which itself would not be included? Or to what
purpose would it be established, in reference to one branch of the
legislature, if it could not be extended to the other? The
composition of the one would in this case counteract that of the
other. And we can never suppose that it would embrace the
appointments to the Senate, unless we can at the same time suppose
the voluntary co-operation of the State legislatures. If we make
the latter supposition, it then becomes immaterial where the power
in question is placed whether in their hands or in those of the
Union."
Again the constitution was seen as a collaborative government where States would be to the Feds as Counties and Municipalities to the States. The goal was to moderate "passions" of the house by having a Senate that reflected State Legislatures and would thus be a bit immune to any excessive influence from Federal Authorities. And Madison weighed in with a similar argument
- Madison or Hamilton in Federalist 63 "FEDERALIST. No. 63, The Senate Continued"
This one took some close reading to figure out because of the complex logic of the writing. It opens with Hamilton explaining the importance of having a Senate with a longer term of office than the House. He talks about the "defects" of the House of Representative and "desideratum" of the Senate with regard to one another
"I add, as a SIXTH defect the want, in some important cases, of a due responsibility in the government to the people, arising from that frequency of elections which in other cases produces this responsibility. This remark will, perhaps, appear not only new, but paradoxical. It must nevertheless be acknowledged, when explained, to be as undeniable as it is important."
... and in the process he notes two principles of responsibility
"Responsibility, in order to be reasonable, must be limited to objects within the power of the responsible party, and in order to be effectual, must relate to operations of that power, of which a ready and proper judgment can be formed by the constituents. The objects of government may be divided into two general classes: the one depending on measures which have singly an immediate and sensible operation; the other depending on a succession of well-chosen and well-connected measures, which have a gradual and perhaps unobserved operation."
The author (Hamilton or Madison) is saying that one body should be more deliberative and able to form measures over a period of time.
"The importance of the latter description to the collective and permanent welfare of every country, needs no explanation. And yet it is evident that an assembly elected for so short a term as to be unable to provide more than one or two links in a chain of measures, on which the general welfare may essentially depend, ought not to be answerable for the final result, any more than a steward or tenant, engaged for one year, could be justly made to answer for places or improvements
which could not be accomplished in less than half a dozen years. Nor is it possible for the people to estimate the SHARE of
influence which their annual assemblies may respectively have on events resulting from the mixed transactions of several years."
Hamilton wanted a Congress where the representatives would serve for 6 to a dozen years or more. He would not have been happy with term limits. The two year limit on militia wasn't to limit planning. It was because the Framers wanted the Army to be small and temporary if it needed to be big. These two founders envisioned a collaborative system where it didn't matter whether a cause was Federal, State or local as long as the scope was Federal, State or local. Later they would disagree about Federal power versus State power but that reflected failures do to unresolved conflicts not original vision. Long term projects such as roads, canals, rails and similar would be precisely where Madison would eventually issue his veto. But his Veto was issued in order to prod a constitutional amendment. He never got the amendment. His issue was sectarian advantage and the fact that some projects being sought by Senators and House members were being sought without the kinds of constitutional authority that the constituted charter (constitution) mandated and thus were liable to be too arbitrary, sectarian and not wholly in the national interest. Later Sectarianism would even divide that argument. But Madison stated the issue in his veto:
"The power to regulate commerce among the several States" can not include a power to construct roads and canals, and to improve the navigation of water courses in order to facilitate, promote, and secure such commerce without a latitude of construction departing from the ordinary import of the terms strengthened by the known inconveniences which doubtless led to the grant of this remedial power to Congress." [http://constitution.org/jm/18170303_veto.htm]
A constitutional Amendment was needed. Probably would have passed. And never was. Congress couldn't even agree on how to regulate money. But the Federalist papers were pretty clear on how congress should have functioned.
Madison or Hamilton then goes on to explain the attributes of (indirect) democracy and praise the concept behind the Senate:
From these facts, to which many others might be added, it is clear that the principle of representation was neither unknown to the ancients nor wholly overlooked in their political constitutions. The true distinction between these and the American governments, lies IN THE TOTAL EXCLUSION OF THE PEOPLE, IN THEIR COLLECTIVE CAPACITY, from any share in the LATTER, and not in the TOTAL EXCLUSION OF THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE PEOPLE from the administration of the FORMER. The distinction, however, thus qualified, must be admitted to leave a most advantageous superiority in favor of the United States. But to insure to this advantage its full effect, we must be careful not to separate it from the other advantage, of an extensive territory. For it cannot be believed, that any form of representative government could have succeeded within the narrow limits occupied by the democracies of Greece.
The wording of the passage does seem to indicate that Hamilton or Madison wanted at least one body of the legislature, the Senate, to exclude direct representation. Specifically he wanted the Senate to exclude the representatives of local districts in their "collective" capacity from deliberating on long term projects where (as happened) the short term and parochial needs of individual congressmen would defeat long term planning efforts. On this subject the anti-federalist did have a point too since they warned of the Senate becoming an Aristocratic body and it nearly became one in the late 19th early 20th century.
John Jay weighs in next,
- FEDERALIST No. 64 The Powers of the Senate From the New York Packet. Friday, March 7, 1788. JAY
"they have directed the President to be chosen by
select bodies of electors, to be deputed by the people for that
express purpose; and they have committed the appointment of
senators to the State legislatures. This mode has, in such cases,
vastly the advantage of elections by the people in their collective
capacity, where the activity of party zeal, taking the advantage of
the supineness, the ignorance, and the hopes and fears of the unwary
and interested, often places men in office by the votes of a small
proportion of the electors."
So again we see that the founders don't seem to have liked the "people in their collective capacity" being manipulated by politicians and wanted a staid, aristocratic Senate that would make decisions more sedately. Of course in reality those aristocrats often make decisions on the basis of private needs and secret factions. But yes, the founders didn't like direct democracy mostly because they knew people could easily be manipulated by greedy grifters and the politicians they could buy.
- FEDERALIST No. 66
Objections to the Power of the Senate To Set as a Court for Impeachments Further Considered From the New York Packet.
Tuesday, March 11, 1788.
"The security essentially intended by the Constitution against
corruption and treachery in the formation of treaties, is to be
sought for in the numbers and characters of those who are to make
them. The JOINT AGENCY of the Chief Magistrate of the Union, and of
two thirds of the members of a body selected by the collective
wisdom of the legislatures of the several States, is designed to be
the pledge for the fidelity of the national councils in this
particular."
And later
"he truth is, that in all such cases
it is essential to the freedom and to the necessary independence of
the deliberations of the body, that the members of it should be
exempt from punishment for acts done in a collective capacity; and
the security to the society must depend on the care which is taken
to confide the trust to proper hands, to make it their interest to
execute it with fidelity, and to make it as difficult as possible
for them to combine in any interest opposite to that of the public
good."
Again "collective" is not a dirty word in this comment.
- FEDERALIST No. 76
The Appointing Power of the Executive From the New York Packet. Tuesday, April 1, 1788.
"It will be agreed on all hands, that the power of appointment,
in ordinary cases, ought to be modified in one of three ways. It
ought either to be vested in a single man, or in a SELECT assembly
of a moderate number; or in a single man, with the concurrence of
such an assembly. The exercise of it by the people at large will be
readily admitted to be impracticable; as waiving every other
consideration, it would leave them little time to do anything else.
When, therefore, mention is made in the subsequent reasonings of an
assembly or body of men, what is said must be understood to relate
to a select body or assembly, of the description already given. The
people collectively, from their number and from their dispersed
situation, cannot be regulated in their movements by that systematic
spirit of cabal and intrigue, which will be urged as the chief
objections to reposing the power in question in a body of men."
And:
"A single well-directed man, by a single understanding,
cannot be distracted and warped by that diversity of views,
feelings, and interests, which frequently distract and warp the
resolutions of a collective body."
- FEDERALIST No. 78
- The Judiciary Department
From McLEAN'S Edition, New York. HAMILTON
"This independence of the judges is equally requisite to guard
the Constitution and the rights of individuals from the effects of
those ill humors, which the arts of designing men, or the influence
of particular conjunctures, sometimes disseminate among the people
themselves, and which, though they speedily give place to better
information, and more deliberate reflection, have a tendency, in the
meantime, to occasion dangerous innovations in the government, and
serious oppressions of the minor party in the community. Though I
trust the friends of the proposed Constitution will never concur
with its enemies, in questioning that fundamental principle of
republican government, which admits the right of the people to alter
or abolish the established Constitution, whenever they find it
inconsistent with their happiness, yet it is not to be inferred from
this principle, that the representatives of the people, whenever a
momentary inclination happens to lay hold of a majority of their
constituents, incompatible with the provisions in the existing
Constitution, would, on that account, be justifiable in a violation
of those provisions; or that the courts would be under a greater
obligation to connive at infractions in this shape, than when they
had proceeded wholly from the cabals of the representative body.
Until the people have, by some solemn and authoritative act,
annulled or changed the established form, it is binding upon
themselves collectively, as well as individually; and no
presumption, or even knowledge, of their sentiments, can warrant
their representatives in a departure from it, prior to such an act.
But it is easy to see, that it would require an uncommon portion of
fortitude in the judges to do their duty as faithful guardians of
the Constitution, where legislative invasions of it had been
instigated by the major voice of the community."
- FEDERALIST No. 83
- The Judiciary Continued in Relation to Trial by Jury From MCLEAN's Edition, New York. HAMILTON
The excellence of the trial by jury in civil cases appears to
depend on circumstances foreign to the preservation of liberty. The
strongest argument in its favor is, that it is a security against
corruption. As there is always more time and better opportunity to
tamper with a standing body of magistrates than with a jury summoned
for the occasion, there is room to suppose that a corrupt influence
would more easily find its way to the former than to the latter.
The force of this consideration is, however, diminished by others.
The sheriff, who is the summoner of ordinary juries, and the clerks
of courts, who have the nomination of special juries, are themselves
standing officers, and, acting individually, may be supposed more
accessible to the touch of corruption than the judges, who are a
collective body. It is not difficult to see, that it would be in
the power of those officers to select jurors who would serve the
purpose of the party as well as a corrupted bench. In the next
place, it may fairly be supposed, that there would be less
difficulty in gaining some of the jurors promiscuously taken from
the public mass, than in gaining men who had been chosen by the
government for their probity and good character. But making every
deduction for these considerations, the trial by jury must still be
a valuable check upon corruption. It greatly multiplies the
impediments to its success. As matters now stand, it would be
necessary to corrupt both court and jury; for where the jury have
gone evidently wrong, the court will generally grant a new trial,
and it would be in most cases of little use to practice upon the
jury, unless the court could be likewise gained.
And later
"The propositions which have been made for supplying the omission
have rather served to illustrate than to obviate the difficulty of
the thing. The minority of Pennsylvania have proposed this mode of
expression for the purpose ``Trial by jury shall be as
heretofore'' and this I maintain would be senseless and nugatory.
The United States, in their united or collective capacity, are the
OBJECT to which all general provisions in the Constitution must
necessarily be construed to refer. Now it is evident that though
trial by jury, with various limitations, is known in each State
individually, yet in the United States, AS SUCH, it is at this time
altogether unknown, because the present federal government has no
judiciary power whatever; and consequently there is no proper
antecedent or previous establishment to which the term HERETOFORE
could relate. It would therefore be destitute of a precise meaning,
and inoperative from its uncertainty."
- FEDERALIST No. 85
- Concluding Remarks From MCLEAN's Edition, New York. HAMILTON
"I should esteem it the extreme
of imprudence to prolong the precarious state of our national
affairs, and to expose the Union to the jeopardy of successive
experiments, in the chimerical pursuit of a perfect plan. I never
expect to see a perfect work from imperfect man. The result of the
deliberations of all collective bodies must necessarily be a
compound, as well of the errors and prejudices, as of the good sense
and wisdom, of the individuals of whom they are composed. The
compacts which are to embrace thirteen distinct States in a common
bond of amity and union, must as necessarily be a compromise of as
many dissimilar interests and inclinations. How can perfection
spring from such materials?"
Hamilton is saying that "collective bodies" are both risky and beneficial structures. And later
"Every Constitution for the United States must
inevitably consist of a great variety of particulars, in which
thirteen independent States are to be accommodated in their
interests or opinions of interest. We may of course expect to see,
in any body of men charged with its original formation, very
different combinations of the parts upon different points. Many of
those who form a majority on one question, may become the minority
on a second, and an association dissimilar to either may constitute
the majority on a third. Hence the necessity of moulding and
arranging all the particulars which are to compose the whole, in
such a manner as to satisfy all the parties to the compact; and
hence, also, an immense multiplication of difficulties and
casualties in obtaining the collective assent to a final act. The
degree of that multiplication must evidently be in a ratio to the
number of particulars and the number of parties."
I did this work to make debate a little easier by providing some "common reference" for others to use. I have my opinions but I hope everyone reads the Federalist Papers and forms their own opinions. I'm going to reference this post in other posts. So I forgive anyone who skips it!
