A collection
The Failure of the Confederation
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Federalist No. 15: The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union
Hamilton begins a hard look at the existing Articles of Confederation, arguing that a government which can ask but never require is no government at all. The essay names the...
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Federalist No. 16: The Same Subject Continued: The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union
Hamilton continues against the Confederation, showing how a union that acts only on states, not on individuals, invites paralysis and force. The argument builds toward a government that touches citizens...
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Federalist No. 17: The Same Subject Continued: The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union
Hamilton answers the fear that a national government would swallow the states, arguing the opposite is more likely: local attachments run deep and naturally check distant power. It is a...
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Federalist No. 18: The Same Subject Continued: The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union
Madison and Hamilton turn to history, examining the Greek confederacies for lessons on what loose unions do under strain. The ancient record is read as a warning, leagues that could...
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Federalist No. 19: The Same Subject Continued: The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union
Madison and Hamilton continue through European confederacies, tracing how the Holy Roman Empire and others struggled to act as one. The pattern they draw out is consistent: shared sovereignty without...
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Federalist No. 20: The Same Subject Continued: The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union
Madison and Hamilton close the historical survey with the Dutch republic, another union undone by the gap between what it claimed and what it could enforce. The accumulated examples make...
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Federalist No. 21: Other Defects of the Present Confederation
Hamilton returns to the present, cataloguing the defects of the Confederation with new specificity: no power to enforce its own laws, no fair way to share costs, no guard against...
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Federalist No. 22: The Same Subject Continued: Other Defects of the Present Confederation
Hamilton extends the indictment to trade and treaties, showing how the requirement for near-unanimous agreement let a small minority block the whole. The deeper charge is that the Confederation rested...