The Federalist on the New Constitution

"of great importance, that our citizens should understand as early "as possible the opinion entertained by the government," &c. "If "in addition to the rest, the early manifestation of the views of the "government had any effect in fixing the public opinion," &c. The reader will probably be struck with the reflection, that if the proclamation really possessed the character, and was to have the effects, here ascribed to it, something more than the authority of the government, in the writer's sense of government, would have been a necessary sanction to the act; and if the term "government" be removed, and that of " president" substituted, in the sentences quoted, the justice of the reflection will be felt with peculiar force. But I remark only on the singularity of the style adopted by the writer, as showing either that the phraseology of a foreign government is more familiar to him than the phraseology proper to our own, or that he wishes to propagate a familiarity of the former in preference to the latter. I do not know what degree of disapprobation others may think due to this innovation of language; but I consider it as far above a trivial criticism, to observe that it is by no means unworthy of attention, whether viewed with an eye to its probable cause, or its apparant tendency. "The government" unquestionably means, in the United States, the whole government, not the executive part, either exclusively, or preeminently; as it may do in a monarchy, where the splendour of prerogative eclipses, and the machinery of influence directs, every other part of the government. In the former and proper sense, the term has hitherto been used in official proceedings, in public discussions, and in private discourse. It is as short and as easy, and less liable to misapprehension, to say the executive, or the president, as to say the government. In a word, the new dialect could not proceed either from necessity, conveniency, propriety, or perspicuity; and being in opposition to common usage, so marked a fondness for it justifies the notice here taken of it. It shall no longer detain me, however, from the more important subject of the present paper.

I proceed therefore to observe, that as a "proclamation," in its ordinary use, is an address to citizens or subjects only; as it is always understood to relate to the law actually in operation, and to be an act purely and exclusively executive; there can be no implication in the name or the form of such an instrument, that it was meant principally for the information of foreign nations; far less that it related to an eventual stipulation on the subject acknowledged to be within the legislative province.

When the writer undertook to engraft his new prerogative on

the power to declare war, including the power of judging of the causes of war, is fully and exclusively vested in the legislature; that the executive has no right, in any case to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war; that the right of convening and informing congress, whenever such a question seems to call for a decision, is all the right which the constitution has deemed requisite or proper; and that for such, more than for any other contingency, this right was specially given to the executive.

In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found, than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace to the legislature, and not to the executive department. Beside the objection to such a mixture of heterogeneous powers, the trust and the temptation would be too great for any one man; not such as nature may offer as the prodigy of many centuries, but such as may be expected in the ordinary successions of magistracy. War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement. In war, a physical force is to be created; and it is the executive will, which is to direct it. In war, the public treasures are to be unlocked; and it is the executive hand which is to dispense them. In war, the honours and emoluments of office are to be multiplied; and it is the executive patronage under which they are to be enjoyed. It is in war, finally, that laurels are to be gathered; and it is the executive brow they are to encircle. The strongest passions and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast; ambition, avarice, vanity, the honourable or venial love of fame, are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace.

Hence it has grown into an axiom that the executive is the department of power most distinguished by its propensity to war: hence it is the practice of all states, in proportion as they are free, to disarm this propensity of its influence.

As the best praise then that can be pronounced on an executive magistrate, is, that he is the friend of peace; a praise that rises in its value, as there may be a known capacity to shine in war: so it must be one of the most sacred duties of a free people, to mark the first omen in the society, of principles that may stimulate the hopes of other magistrates of another propensity, to intrude into questions on which its gratification depends. If a free people be a wise people also, they will not forget that the danger of surprise can never be so great, as when the advocates for the prerogative of war can sheathe it in a symbol of peace.

The constitution has manifested a similar prudence in refusing to the executive the sole power of making peace. The trust in

this instance also, would be too great for the wisdom, and the temptations too strong for the virtue, of a single citizen. The principal reasons on which the constitution proceeded in its regulation of the power of treaties, including treaties of peace, are so aptly furnished by the work already quoted more than once, that I shall borrow another comment from that source.

"However proper or safe it may be in a government where the "executive magistrate is an hereditary monarch, to commit to him "the entire power of making treaties, it would be utterly unsafe "and improper to entrust that power to an elective magistrate of "four years' duration. It has been remarked upon another occa"sion, and the remark is unquestionably just, that an hereditary "monarch, though often the oppressor of his people, has person"ally too much at stake in the government to be in any material danger of being corrupted by foreign powers: but that a man "raised from the station of a private citizen to the rank of chief "magistrate, possessed of but a moderate or slender fortune, and

looking forward to a period not very remote, when he may prob"ably be obliged to return to the station from which he was taken, "might sometimes be under temptations to sacrifice his duty to "his interest, which it would require superlative virtue to with"stand. An avaricious man might be tempted to betray the in"terests of the state to the acquisition of wealth. An ambitious "man might make his own aggrandizement, by the aid of a for"eign power, the price of his treachery to his constituents. The "history of human conduct does not warrant that exalted opinion "of human virtue, which would make it wise in a nation to com"mit interests of so delicate and momentous a kind, as those which "concern its intercourse with the rest of the world, to the sole disposal of a magistrate created and circumstanced as would be a "president of the United States." Fed. p. 372.*

I shall conclude this paper and this branch of the subject, with two reflections, which naturally arise from this view of the constitution.

The first is, that as the personal interest of an hereditary monarch in the government, is the only security against the temptation incident to the commitment of the delicate and momentous interests of the nation, which concern its intercourse with the rest of the world, to the disposal of a single magistrate, it is a plain consequence, that every addition that may be made to the sole agency and influence of the executive, in the intercourse of the nation with foreign nations, is an increase of the dangerous temptation

*No. 75, written by Mr. Hamilton.

to which an elective and temporary magistrate is exposed; and an argument and advance towards the security afforded by the personal interests of an hereditary magistrate.

Secondly, as the constitution has not permitted the executive singly to conclude or judge that peace ought to be made, it might be inferred from that circumstance alone, that it never meant to give it authority, singly, to judge and conclude that war ought not to be made. The trust would be precisely similar and equivalent in the two cases. The right to say that war ought not to go on, would be no greater than the right to say that war ought not to begin. Every danger of errour or corruption, incident to such a prerogative in one case, is incident to it in the other. If the constitution therefore has deemed it unsafe or improper in the one case, it must be deemed equally so in the other case.

NO. V.

HAVING seen that the executive has no constitutional right to interfere in any question, whether there be or be not a cause of war, and the extensive consequences flowing from the doctrines on which such a claim has been asserted; it remains to be inquired, whether the writer is better warranted in the fact which he assumes, namely, that the proclamation of the executive has undertaken to decide the question, whether there be a cause of war or not, in the article of guaranty between the United States and France, and in so doing has exercised the right which is claimed for that department.

Before I proceed to the examination of this point, it may not be amiss to advert to the novelty of the phraseology, as well as of the doctrines, espoused by this writer. The source from which the former is evidently borrowed, may enlighten our conjectures with regard to the source of the latter. It is a just observation also that words have often a gradual influence on ideas, and, when used in an improper sense, may cover fallacies which would not otherwise escape detection.

I allude particularly to his application of the term government to the executive authority alone. The proclamation is "a mani"festation of the sense of the government." Why did not the "government wait," &c. "The policy on the part of the govern “ment of removing all doubt as to its own disposition.'

"It was

*The writer ought not in the same paper, No. VII, to have said, "Had the president "announced his own disposition, he would have been chargeable with egotism, if not pre"sumption."

"of great importance, that our citizens should understand as early "as possible the opinion entertained by the government," &c. "If "in addition to the rest, the early manifestation of the views of the "government had any effect in fixing the public opinion," &c. The reader will probably be struck with the reflection, that if the proclamation really possessed the character, and was to have the effects, here ascribed to it, something more than the authority of the government, in the writer's sense of government, would have been a necessary sanction to the act; and if the term "government" be removed, and that of "president" substituted, in the sentences quoted, the justice of the reflection will be felt with peculiar force. But I remark only on the singularity of the style adopted by the writer, as showing either that the phraseology of a foreign goverument is more familiar to him than the phraseology proper to our own, or that he wishes to propagate a familiarity of the former in preference to the latter. I do not know what degree of disapprobation others may think due to this innovation of language; but I consider it as far above a trivial criticism, to observe that it is by no means unworthy of attention, whether viewed with an eye to its probable cause, or its apparant tendency. "The government" unquestionably means, in the United States, the whole government, not the executive part, either exclusively, or preeminently; as it may do in a monarchy, where the splendour of prerogative eclipses, and the machinery of influence directs, every other part of the government. In the former and proper sense, the term has hitherto been used in official proceedings, in public discussions, and in private discourse. It is as short and as easy, and less liable to misapprehension, to say the executive, or the president, as to say the government. In a word, the new dialect could not proceed either from necessity, conveniency, propriety, or perspicuity; and being in opposition to commou usage, so marked a fondness for it justifies the notice here taken of it. It shall no longer detain me, however, from the more important subject of the present paper.

When the writer undertook to engraft his new prerogative on

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