Federalist 3 and 4

If you have not read the last two submissions on the constitution, please click here in order to get up to speed.  During the next few weeks, we will be working through the reasons Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay gave the young country for adopting the proposed constitution.  

John Jay still writing as Publius, jumps back into the fray with Federalist 3 arguing that a single country, and a single constitution, would be safer for the citizens than to remain individual states.  Jay starts by suggesting that people generally do not hold on to positions for too long that are antithetical to their interests and that the citizens of the individual states have, for quite some time, acted like a united country.  

The dangers that the young nation faced were quite real.  At the time he is writing, the states had just survived a bloody war against one of the premier militaries of the time in the British.  The Spanish had designs on Florida, control over the Mississippi, the French held territory to the west, and the British still had control over Canada.  That the efforts of a mostly united citizenry managed to prevail during the revolution by no means guaranteed survival against these other very real threats.  

Jay goes on to make a mathematical argument for union.  Since the, “number of wars which have happened or will happen in the world will always be found to be in proportion to the number and weight of the causes”,  ^[1]Jay feels that a single United States, acting as one, would have less cause to enter into conflict than might thirteen individual countries.  Further, countries are sometimes brought into war by treaties and, here again, a single country would be more likely to stay out of these entanglements than would the states as individual countries (or, more likely, four smaller countries). 

 Incidentally, you see this idea carried forward in the final Constitution which makes it impossible for the President to enter into treaties without the Senate, or for him to declare war.  These were very real concerns at the time.  The first six ships built by then United States were authorized by Congress in 1794 at the then astronomical cost of around $700k (call it $12M in today’s dollars) specifically to confront the Barbary pirates off the cost of Tripoli. The threats to the young country were numerous and very real.  Publius argues that a consistent process for managing these threats, managed by the best people from the states collectively, will be less likely to act rashly.  And finally, that other great powers would be more likely to accept representatives from the states if they are united, rather than individually.  

In Federalist 4, Jay continues his safety discussion by saying that, while there may be “just” reasons for nations to go to war, that does not preclude nations for going to war for “PRETEND” reasons (emphasis in the original). He goes on to point out that with regard to France and England in particular, it would be possible for the colonies to provide fish, for instance, to their markets at a lower rate than they could.  He goes on to point out that in fisheries, as well as many other trade, we are rivals with most of Europe and that, “we shall deceive ourselves if we suppose that any of them will rejoice to see it flourish; for, as our carrying trade cannot increase without in some degree diminishing theirs, it is more their interest, and will be more their policy, to restrain than to promote it.”  He points specifically to Spain on the Mississippi River, and Britain controlling the St Lawrence waterway, as examples of foreign countries restricting our trade.  

Jay is careful not to advocate that the new nation go to war to protect its trade, rather he says that a united group of states would cause other countries to think carefully about attempting to restrict trade over here. One government can use the best people and ideas from each of the states and create an army under the command of a “Chief Magistrate” that would coordinate the efforts of the officers commissioned therein.  He uses the example of Britain pointing out that they would not be nearly as effective if England had an army and Scotch had a separate one.   He points out that what makes Britain strong is their union.  The same thing applies to the British navy, then the most powerful in the world.  

Finally, no matter what the individual states decide to do, other countries will see what they do and will act accordingly.  “If they see that our national government is efficient and well administered, our trade prudently regulated, our militia properly organized and disciplined, our resources and finances discreetly managed, our credit re-established, our people free, contented, and united, they will be much more disposed to cultivate our friendship than provoke our resentment. If, on the other hand, they find us either destitute of an effectual government (each State doing right or wrong, as to its rulers may seem convenient), or split into three or four independent and probably discordant republics or confederacies…what a pitiful figure will America make in their eyes!”.

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