Author:
George Clinton?
25 October 1787
Antifederalist No. 14EXTENT OF TERRITORY UNDER CONSOLIDATED GOVERNMENT
TOO LARGE TO PRESERVE LIBERTY OR PROTECT PROPERTY
. . . The recital, or premises on which the new form of government is
erected, declares a consolidation or union of all the thirteen parts, or states,
into one great whole, under the form of the United States, for all the various
and important purposes therein set forth. But whoever seriously considers the
immense extent of territory comprehended within the limits of the United States,
together with the variety of its climates, productions, and commerce, the
difference of extent, and number of inhabitants in all; the dissimilitude of
interest, morals, and politics, in almost every one, will receive it as an
intuitive truth, that a consolidated republican form of government therein, can
never form a perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility,
promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to you and your
posterity, for to these objects it must be directed. This unkindred legislature
therefore, composed of interests opposite and dissimilar in their nature, will
in its exercise, emphatically be like a house divided against itself.
The governments of Europe have taken their limits and form from adventitious
circumstances, and nothing can be argued on the motive of agreement from them;
but these adventitious political principles have nevertheless produced effects
that have attracted the attention of philosophy, which have established axioms
in the science of politics therefrom, as irrefragable as any in Euclid. It is
natural, says Montesquieu, to a republic to have only a small territory,
otherwise it cannot long subsist: in a large one, there are men of large
fortunes, and consequently of less moderation; there are too great deposits to
trust in the hands of a single subject, an ambitious person soon becomes
sensible that he may be happy, great, and glorious by oppressing his fellow
citizens, and that he might raise himself to grandeur, on the ruins of his
country. In large republics, the public good is sacrificed to a thousand views,
in a small one, the interest of the public is easily perceived, better
understood, and more within the reach of every citizen; abuses have a less
extent, and of course are less protected. He also shows you, that the duration
of the republic of Sparta was owing to its having continued with the same extent
of territory after all its wars; and that the ambition of Athens and Lacedemon
to command and direct the union, lost them their liberties, and gave them a
monarchy.
From this picture, what can you promise yourselves, on the score of
consolidation of the United States into one government? Impracticability in the
just exercise of it, your freedom insecure, even this form of government limited
in its continuance, the employments of your country disposed of to the opulent,
to whose contumely you will continually be an object. You must risk much, by
indispensably placing trusts of the greatest magnitude, into the hands of
individuals whose ambition for power, and aggrandizement, will oppress and grind
you. Where, from the vast extent of your territory, and the complication of
interests, the science of government will become intricate and perplexed, and
too mysterious for you to understand and observe; and by which you are to be
conducted into a monarchy, either limited or despotic; the latter, Mr. Locke
remarks, is a government derived from neither nature nor compact.
Political liberty, the great Montesquieu again observes, consists in
security, or at least in the opinion we have of security; and this security,
therefore, or the opinion, is best obtained in moderate governments, where the
mildness of the laws, and the equality of the manners, beget a confidence in the
people, which produces this security, or the opinion. This moderation in
governments depends in a great measure on their limits, connected with their
political distribution.
The extent of many of the states of the Union, is at this time almost too
great for the superintendence of a republican form of government, and must one
day or other revolve into more vigorous ones, or by separation be reduced into
smaller and more useful, as well as moderate ones. You have already observed
the feeble efforts of Massachusetts against their insurgents; with what
difficulty did they quell that insurrection; and is not the province of Maine at
this moment on the eve of separation from her? The reason of these things is,
that for the security of the property of the community-in which expressive term
Mr. Locke makes life, liberty, and estate, to consist the wheels of a republic
are necessarily slow in their operation. Hence, in large free republics, the
evil sometimes is not only begun, but almost completed, before they are in a
situation to turn the current into a contrary progression. The extremes are
also too remote from the usual seat of government, and the laws, therefore, too
feeble to afford protection to all its parts, and insure domestic tranquility
without the aid of another principle. If, therefore, this state [New York], and
that of North Carolina, had an army under their control, they never would have
lost Vermont, and Frankland, nor the state of Massachusetts suffered an
insurrection, or the dismemberment of her fairest district; but the exercise of
a principle which would have prevented these things, if we may believe the
experience of ages, would have ended in the destruction of their liberties.
Will this consolidated republic, if established, in its exercise beget such
confidence and compliance, among the citizens of these states, as to do without
the aid of a standing army? I deny that it will. The malcontents in each
state, who will not be a few, nor the least important, will be exciting factions
against it. The fear of a dismemberment of some of its parts, and the necessity
to enforce the execution Of revenue laws (a fruitful source of oppression) on
the extremes and in the other districts of the government, will incidentally and
necessarily require a permanent force, to be kept on foot. Will not political
security, and even the opinion of it, be extinguished? Can mildness and
moderation exist in a government where the primary incident in its exercise must
be force? Will not violence destroy confidence, and can equality subsist where
the extent, policy, and practice of it will naturally lead to make odious
distinctions among citizens?
The people who may compose this national legislature from the southern
states, in which, from the mildness of the climate, the fertility of the soil,
and the value of its productions, wealth is rapidly acquired, and where the same
causes naturally lead to luxury, dissipation, and a passion for aristocratic
distinction; where slavery is encouraged, and liberty of course less respected
and protected; who know not what it is to acquire property by their own toil,
nor to economize with the savings of industry-will these men, therefore, be as
tenacious of the liberties and interests of the more northern states, where
freedom, independence, industry, equality and frugality are natural to the
climate and soil, as men who are your own citizens, legislating in your own
state, under your inspection, and whose manners and fortunes bear a more equal
resemblance to your own?
It may be suggested, in answer to this, that whoever is a citizen of one
state is a citizen of each, and that therefore he will be as interested in the
happiness and interest of all, as the one he is delegated from. But the
argument is fallacious, and, whoever has attended to the history of mankind, and
the principles which bind them together as parents, citizens, or men, will
readily perceive it. These principles are, in their exercise, like a pebble
cast on the calm surface of a river-the circles begin in the center, and are
small, active and forcible, but as they depart from that point, they lose their
force, and vanish into calmness.
The strongest principle of union resides within our domestic walls. The
ties of the parent exceed that of any other. As we depart from home, the next
general principle of union is amongst citizens of the same state, where
acquaintance, habits, and fortunes, nourish affection, and attachment. Enlarge
the circle still further, and, as citizens of different states, though we
acknowledge the same national denomination, we lose in the ties of acquaintance,
habits, and fortunes, and thus by degrees we lessen in our attachments, till, at
length, we no more than acknowledge a sameness of species. Is it, therefore,
from certainty like this, reasonable to believe, that inhabitants of Georgia, or
New Hampshire, will have the same obligations towards you as your own, and
preside over your lives, liberties, and property, with the same care and
attachment? Intuitive reason answers in the negative. . . .
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