Blahseblog

I’ve long been fascinated with city (or borough) names that contain “The” before the more descriptive moniker.  What other ‘the’ towns join The Hague (or The Bronx)?  I suppose I could start saying I live in The D.C., but that sounds pompous, while people will correct you if you mention traveling to Hague - much as a mention of traveling to southern France will solicit the dependable “ah, The South of France?”

That aside, Madison and Hamilton finished the trilogy of unsuccessful confederacies with The Netherlands.  I call F18 - F20 a trilogy (despite their being part of a longer “The Same Subject Continued” series) because these past three involved observations of the ghosts of confederacies ancient, medieval, and present (with apologies to Chuck).   (Also interesting: these past three, according to my copy, have been written by Madison in collaboration with Hamilton - I’m curious how many more essays involve both set of hands.)  

While the past several essays addressed the inadequacy of the American Confederation existing prior to the Constitution, these past three attempt to draw lessons from prior examples.  F20 sort-of hammers in the point that a structure of cooperating governments - like the states after the Revolutionary War - is prone to work in theory but not in practice. More than likely, according to Pubius’ examples, one or two states will out-muscle the lesser states.  In F18, we saw that Athens used the Persian defense league to form an Empire.  In F20, we see that the structure at The Hague engendered greater and lesser powers among the supposedly equal provinces.  

How, then, do we prevent “The Insufficiencies of the Present Union” resulting in another example of failed confederacy?  These essays don’t yet bring us to the details, other than to note the problem of a weak constitution (”A weak constitution must necessarily terminate in dissolution, for want of proper powers, or the usurpation of powers requisite for the public safety”) and this moral of the stories:

The important truth, which it unequivocally pronounces in the present case, is that a sovereignty over sovereigns, a government over governments, a legislation for communities, as contradistinguished from individuals, as it is a solecism in theory, so in practice it is subversive of the order and ends of civil polity, by substituting violence in place of law, or the destructive coercion of the sword in place of the mild and salutary coercion of the magistracy.

(a solecism, not being in my immediate vocabulary, is a blunder, or a deviation from normal order)

Publius is building the foundation of a structural argument for the Constitution - we now know that we must avoid government over governments and legislation for communities.  But, without peeking at the forthcoming essays, what does this mean?  Am I off in finding it weird that the structural argument for a Constitution that pronounces itself “the supreme Law of the Land” warns against a government over governments?  

Or, is Pubius arguing that, without a Federal referee, the confederated states will devolve into unequal powers?

At long last, we’re back to the Federalist.  Last we heard, Hamilton was predicting that Americans would pay vastly more attention and naturally ascribe power to local and state governments.

Madison tags in with F18, pleasing his classical studies professor right off the bat with an allusion to the Delphic amphictyonic council, the  religious-event-planning-committee cum political confederation of ancient Greek city states.  With a few exceptions, Madison thinks the amphictyonic council is a fitting analogy to the U.S. under the Articles of Confederation.  I’d be obliged to hear thoughts from my old professors and old brother.

The members retained the character of independent and sovereign states, and had equal votes in the federal council. This council had a general authority to propose and resolve whatever it judged necessary for the common welfare of Greece; to declare and carry on war; to decide, in the last resort, all controversies between the members; to fine the aggressing party; to employ the whole force of the confederacy against the disobedient; to admit new members. The Amphictyons were the guardians of religion, and of the immense riches belonging to the temple of Delphos, where they had the right of jurisdiction in controversies between the inhabitants and those who came to consult the oracle. As a further provision for the efficacy of the federal powers, they took an oath mutually to defend and protect the united cities, to punish the violators of this oath, and to inflict vengeance on sacrilegious despoilers of the temple.

Works in theory.  But, says Madison, “Very different, nevertheless, was the experiment from the theory.”  The larger siblings, the wranglings between Lacedaemonians and Athenians exposed “the ambition and jealousy of its most powerful members, and the dependent and degraded condition of the rest.”  Hence in-fighting, the Peloponnesian war, Phocians plowing up consecrated grounds and refusing any international demands, Alexander’s dad taking over, and so forth.

Madison then compares the previous to the Achaean league, a union “far more intimate, and its organization much wiser, than in the preceding instance.”

The cities composing this league retained their municipal jurisdiction, appointed their own officers, and enjoyed a perfect equality. The senate, in which they were represented, had the sole and exclusive right of peace and war; of sending and receiving ambassadors; of entering into treaties and alliances; of appointing a chief magistrate or praetor, as he was called, who commanded their armies, and who, with the advice and consent of ten of the senators, not only administered the government in the recess of the senate, but had a great share in its deliberations, when assembled. According to the primitive constitution, there were two praetors associated in the administration; but on trial a single one was preferred. It appears that the cities had all the same laws and customs, the same weights and measures, and the same money. But how far this effect proceeded from the authority of the federal council is left in uncertainty. It is said only that the cities were in a manner compelled to receive the same laws and usages.

And so on.  Madison, in fact, does not reach in the entire essay the “thus, you see by anology, our current confederation does not work” that you expect while reading F18. Rather, he lets History speak for itself.

I have thought it not superfluous to give the outlines of this important portion of history; both because it teaches more than one lesson, and because, as a supplement to the outlines of the Achaean constitution, it emphatically illustrates the tendency of federal bodies rather to anarchy among the members, than to tyranny in the head.

I wonder, then, what a liberally educated reader in 1787 conclude from this?  To know, we need to know the extent to which readers of the New York Packet were inclined to connect anaologies between their government and those of ancient Greece.  My sense is: more than now, but not most.  F18 is interesting in it’s own right as a description of ancient Greek history written in 1787 America.  How does the account compare to those of 2008 historians?  I’m curious how my hisorian-brother would respond to Madson’s essay. 

Coming back to that point on Madison’s contemporaneous readers - it is interesting that F18 seems to make the lest reference thus far to the subject mater of these essays, the new Constitution.  Nor does it describe the Articles of Confederation.  Rather, Madison lets history speak for itself, suggesting his belief that the intended audience could indeed link classical history to the present day.