Funnily enough, right after we got done pooh-poohing Hamilton’s idealism in F27, he opens F28 with a proclamation against being overly idealistic. He himself denigrates “those political doctors, whose sagacity disdains the admonitions of experimental instruction.” He must have gotten some negative emails between December 25, 1787, and December 26, 1787 (the dates of F27 and F28, respectively).*
Anyway, F28 picks up on F27’s themes by addressing worries about Shay’s Rebellion and its ilk. The rule of law in America has apparently come a long way between 1787 and 2010, as Publius is very emphatic that armed insurrections are an inevitable part of life—just like “tumours and eruptions from the natural body.” (Ew.) Today we are obviously far more worried about lone actors or small terrorist sleeper cells than we are about armed rebellion by a sizeable minority. In the 1780s, though, everyone was more freaked out about a Civil War-type scenario than they were about some random person losing it and shooting up the local post office. As events turned out, of course, these civil war worries were well-founded.
The most interesting and relevant part of F28 to us modern readers is where Publius is discussing the relationship between the federal and state governments. In addition to the brilliant system of horizontal checks and balances among the branches of the federal government, the balance of power runs vertically in our country, too. Hamilton’s theory is that anytime the federal government “invades the public liberty,” the state governments will be ready and waiting to jump in and stand up for the people’s rights. That’s kinda-sorta applicable today, I guess; but historically more often it’s the federal government who has had to stand up to the states to induce them to respect the public liberty (ala the civil rights movement in the 1960s).
That aside, I wonder how Publius thought his theory would play out? By what means, exactly, could the state governments defend their citizens against perceived encroachments of the federal government (both then and today)? Any way besides armed rebellion?
* Publius churned out the Fed Papers a tad quicker than we are managing to blog our way through them. [Sorry to take so long on this one, APO]
June 15, 2010 at 10:29 am
I had two favorite lines in F28- the one you quoted regarding those ‘political doctors’ and this: ‘The obstacles to usurpation and th facilities of resistance increase with the increased extent if the state, provided the citizens understand their rights and are disposed to defend them.’
huh? The bigger the government, the easier to avoid it taking over your liberty? That’s right, argues Hamilton. You see, in small communities, the gov can easily collect intellegence on rebels, and can easily directly control the citizens. But in the proposed system of a large general government existing side by side with fairly large state governmets- those levels of government will fight out and check each other, as Lilly described in the post. Also, in a geopolitically large state, the people can more easily resist usurpation from the state or federal governments; running, as Hamilton describes, from one scale to the other- ultimately balancing power throughout.
Interesting notion, Lilly, of the state federal power check. Good to have you back!