To the People of the State of New York:
IT MAY perhaps be urged that the objects enumerated in the preceding number ought to be provided for
by the State governments, under the direction of the Union. But this would be, in reality, an inversion of
the primary principle of our political association, as it would in practice transfer the care of the common
defense from the federal head to the individual members: a project oppressive to some States, dangerous
to all, and baneful to the Confederacy.
The territories of Britain, Spain, and of the Indian nations in our neighborhood do not border on particular
States, but encircle the Union from Maine to Georgia. The danger, though in different degrees, is
therefore common. And the means of guarding against it ought, in like manner, to be the objects of
common councils and of a common treasury. It happens that some States, from local situation, are more
directly exposed. New York is of this class....
To the People of the State of New York:
IT HAS been urged, in different shapes, that a Constitution of the kind proposed by the convention cannot
operate without the aid of a military force to execute its laws. This, however, like most other things that
have been alleged on that side, rests on mere general assertion, unsupported by any precise or intelligible
designation of the reasons upon which it is founded. As far as I have been able to divine the latent
meaning of the objectors, it seems to originate in a presupposition that the people will be disinclined to
the exercise of federal authority in any matter of an internal nature. Waiving any exception that might be
taken to the inaccuracy or inexplicitness of the distinction between internal and external, let us inquire
what ground there is to presuppose that disinclination in the people. Unless we presume at the same time
that the powers of the general government will be worse administered than those of the State government,
there seems to be no room for the presumption of ill-will, disaffection, or opposition in the people....
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To the People of the State of New York:
IT WAS a thing hardly to be expected that in a popular revolution the minds of men should stop at that
happy mean which marks the salutary boundary between POWER and PRIVILEGE, and combines the
energy of government with the security of private rights. A failure in this delicate and important point is
the great source of the inconveniences we experience, and if we are not cautious to avoid a repetition of
the error, in our future attempts to rectify and ameliorate our system, we may travel from one chimerical
project to another; we may try change after change; but we shall never be likely to make any material
change for the better.
The idea of restraining the legislative authority, in the means of providing for the national defense, is one
of those refinements which owe their origin to a zeal for liberty more ardent than enlightened....
To the People of the State of New York:
THAT there may happen cases in which the national government may be necessitated to resort to force,
cannot be denied. Our own experience has corroborated the lessons taught by the examples of other
nations; that emergencies of this sort will sometimes arise in all societies, however constituted; that
seditions and insurrections are, unhappily, maladies as inseparable from the body politic as tumors and
eruptions from the natural body; that the idea of governing at all times by the simple force of law (which
we have been told is the only admissible principle of republican government), has no place but in the
reveries of those political doctors whose sagacity disdains the admonitions of experimental instruction.
Should such emergencies at any time happen under the national government, there could be no remedy
but force....
 
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