The History Book Club discussion

This is the thread for the discussion of FEDERALIST. NO 15.

This paper is titled THE INSUFFICIENCY OF THE PRESENT CONFEDERATION TO PRESERVE THE UNION.

This paper was written by Alexander Hamilton.

by Alexander Hamilton

Now we find ourselves on Federalist 15.

We will always continue to move on; but please also feel free to get caught up and post any of your thoughts on this paper and/or on any of the other papers which were assigned from weeks past.

There is a ton of stuff to discuss about Federalist Papers 1 - 14 even though we are opening up discussion on the next paper on March 4th.

We have to keep moving no matter if it takes us 170 weeks of 340 weeks for the 85 essays and we will get them all read and completed with discussions.

Please feel free to post on any of the other 14 previous essays that we have worked very hard on - Federalist 1 - 14. And then try your hand at Federalist 15. The essays make for very interesting reading.

FEDERALIST No. 15

Federalist № 15
The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union (Alexander Hamilton)

January 25 - January 31, 2010

Links to 15:

http://federali.st/15

You can also listen to them being read orally to you:

Federalist 15 audio:

LibraVox

http://ia341042.us.archive.org/1/item...

Federalist Papers - Access page - scroll down to the bottom:

A much better oral reading:

http://michaelscherervoice.com/the-fe...

How to conquer the Federalist Papers:

1. The first thing I would do is to read along with an audio recording for a quick pass through the paper for the first time. The audio helps you get through each essay and you can underline as you listen and read. Also it is best to tackle each essay one at a time. Do not try to read through all 85 essays without discussion - most folks have found that it is tedious and they do not get through the essays that way. Most colleges only tackle a handful of the papers and rely on students to read the others on their own.

2. The next thing that you should do is to do a deep dive: one paragraph at a time studying every facet of the essay. You are fortunate that we will do the researching for you and will journey with you as we tackle this project. One paragraph at a time until we get through the entire essay.

3. You should always be asking yourself the following questions:

a) Who wrote this essay? What was their background and who were they? What is their frame of reference? What are they trying to persuade me to believe and why and how are they trying to accomplish this? Is what they are saying true? If so, where is the supporting evidence? What are the arguments being made against this essay?

2. The Federalist Papers will give you an idea of why something in the Constitution is the way it is. However, be mindful that as we found in Federalist 14 - an item or two might not have made it into the Constitution and might have been voted down; so it might have been wishful thinking on the part of the essayist. However, so far - that has rarely been the case. So query, where in the Constitution is this fact and idea mentioned and how or why?

3. Try to understand the context under which the essay was written. Context is important to understanding anything you read, hear or see for that matter. How do you think it was received? Who opposed it and what were their viewpoints? Reflect upon both sides. Allow the Federalist Papers the opportunity to speak for themselves.

4. Look and ponder the meaning of the words being used and the arguments that the Founding Fathers are making. Possibly jot those down or underline them for further consideration.

5. You might want to go deep with a few supporting primary sources and then dabble by looking at some additional videos, listening to some podcasts or reading other material to support your views; but, at the same time, be sure not to block out any opposing ones for consideration - which may challenge your thinking. Challenging your thinking is positive and who knows you might change your mind or modify a position or be willing to compromise and see that others have a point of view that has merit.

6. You should ask yourself with each essay - what does the essay say - what is the essayist trying to tell me? Do I understand what the essayist is saying? What parts do I need more clarification on? What is the argument or the concept the Founding Fathers are proposing? What is the institution or proposal that they are defending? Why?

7. What does the essay mean to me? Do I know the meaning of all of the words used in the essay? If not, look them up as you are reading or listening. Words matter. Try to understand what are the major points or themes of each essay.

8. Why does this essay matter? How is it relevant to me? How is it relevant to the country? What has been the history of this essay? What was its impact at the time? What is its impact in history or what is its impact in our current environment and times? Have these ideas or sections of the Constitution been challenged? By whom? What was the outcome? Do I agree with these ideas? Do I agree with some and not others? What is the factual evidence for my beliefs? Are they grounded by solid facts, readings, primary sources? Why do they argue some aspects of the Constitution and not others? Sometimes what is omitted in a persuasive essay, speech or other commentary or document is as important as what it said, written or discussed. For example, the word slavery is never used outright in the Constitution even though - by the use and the meaning of some of the Constitution's language we certainly know what is being spoken of.

9. And, of course, the best way to tackle the Federalist Papers is in a group and among friends who will discuss with you their ideas and arguments - pro or con - in a respectful and civl way. There are no wrong answers and once you have made your point - move on to another. These threads are your group of friends. Here we will have a civil and a respectful discussion. There are no worries. So just jump right in and post. The more you post, the better the discussion. If the moderator needs to step in, they always will. Everyone should be respectful of each other and the moderator as if you were all sitting together in someone's living room having a nice discussion face to face. Act as if we knew who you are, where you lived and act as if you were a member of the family who we cared about. We care about each member in the History Book Club and we want everyone to feel comfortable.

10. Also, post - post - post.

Essay Overview and Summary - FEDERALIST. NO 15:



Hamilton undertakes the first of many extensive critiques in The Federalist Papers of the Articles of Confederation (we will see this again in Essays 21, 22, and 23).

The Articles, he contends, have placed the United States in a condition of "impending anarchy." This crisis is due to many reasons.

The Articles, for instance, lack the authority to raise either men or money. The government's authority does not extend over individuals within the Union but only over states in their collective capacity.

Laws under the Articles are not attended by sanctions, a gap that renders the laws ineffectual.

Furthermore, the Articles are stymied by the requirement that "the concurrence of thirteen distinct sovereign wills" is required for every important measure. The result has been that the United States has reached "almost the last stage of national humiliation."

Source: Wikipedia, Source Hero, the National Constitution site

Federalist No. 15, authored by Alexander Hamilton under the pen name Publius, is the fifteenth of 85 essays. Titled "The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union", Hamilton discusses the failures of the then current Articles of Confederation at ensuring the proper functions of government.

One of Hamilton's chief concerns was the insufficient power of the national government to carry forth its narrowly Enumerated powers, leading to multiple sovereigns among the thirteen states. Any laws passed were then nothing more than suggestions for the states to follow.

It was published on December 1, 1787.

Source: Conservapedia

What are Enumerated Powers?



The Delegated Powers, also called the Enumerated Powers, are the powers of Congress established in section eight of Article I of the US Constitution.

How many enumerated powers does congress have?

There are nineteen delegated powers, they are as follows:

1. The Congress shall have power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, [in order] to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

2. To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

3. To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

4. To establish a uniform Rule of Naturalization;

5. To establish uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

6. To coin [not print] Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin;

7. To fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

8. To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

9. To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;

10.To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

11.To constitute Tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;

12.To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;

13.To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

14.To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

15.To provide and maintain a Navy;

16.To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

17.To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

18.To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

19.To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings.

NOTE:

Under Article I, Sections 2 and 3, Congress also has the power to impeach the President and remove him (or her) by trial.

Under Article III, Section 2, Congress also has the power to prohibit the Supreme Court from adjudicating any particular case (such as Roe v. Wade).

Congress also has other powers assigned by various amendments to the Constitution. (For example, Amendment XIII Section 2, Amendment XIV Section 5 and Amendment XV Section 2.)

Source: Conservapedia

The following clause (appearing in Article I, Section 8) refers to the Implied Powers of Congress—those necessary to accomplish the above, but not specifically mentioned ("enumerated"):

1. To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

The Meaning of Article I - Section 8 - Enumerated Powers

The Meaning

Article I, Section 8, specifies the powers of Congress in great detail. These powers are limited to those listed and those that are “necessary and proper” to carry them out.

All other lawmaking powers are left to the states. The First Congress, concerned that the limited nature of the federal government was not clear enough in the original Constitution, later adopted Amendment X, which reserves to the states or to the people all the powers not specifically granted to the federal government.

The most important of the specific powers that the Constitution enumerates is the power to set taxes, tariffs and other means of raising federal revenue, and to authorize the expenditure of all federal funds.

In addition to the tax powers in Article I, Amendment XVI authorized Congress to establish a national income tax.

The power to appropriate federal funds is known as the “power of the purse.”

It gives Congress great authority over the executive branch, which must appeal to Congress for all of its funding. The federal government borrows money by issuing bonds. This creates a national debt, which the United States is obligated to repay.

Since the turn of the 20th century, federal legislation has dealt with many matters that had previously been managed by the states. In passing these laws, Congress often relies on power granted by the commerce clause, which allows Congress to regulate business activities “among the states.”

The commerce clause gives Congress broad power to regulate many aspects of our economy and to pass environmental or consumer protections because so much of business today, either in manufacturing or distribution, crosses state lines. But the commerce clause powers are not unlimited.

In recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court has expressed greater concern for states’ rights. It has issued a series of rulings that limit the power of Congress to pass legislation under the commerce clause or other powers contained in Article I, Section 8. For example, these rulings have found unconstitutional federal laws aimed at protecting battered women or protecting schools from gun violence on the grounds that these types of policy matters are properly managed by the states.

In addition, Congress has the power to coin money, create the postal service, army, navy and lower federal courts, and to declare war. Congress also has the responsibility of determining naturalization, how immigrants become citizens. Such laws must apply uniformly and cannot be modified by the states.

Source: Annenberg Guide

More:
Our Constitution: A Conversation with Justices Stephen Breyer and Sandra Day O'Connor
https://www.annenbergclassroom.org/re...

And so we begin: (Paragraph One)

Federalist № 15
The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union
To the People of the State of New York.

In the course of the preceding papers, I have endeavored, my fellow-citizens, to place before you, in a clear and convincing light, the importance of Union to your political safety and happiness. I have unfolded to you a complication of dangers to which you would be exposed, should you permit that sacred knot which binds the people of America together be severed or dissolved by ambition or by avarice, by jealousy or by misrepresentation. In the sequel of the inquiry through which I propose to accompany you, the truths intended to be inculcated will receive further confirmation from facts and arguments hitherto unnoticed. If the road over which you will still have to pass should in some places appear to you tedious or irksome, you will recollect that you are in quest of information on a subject the most momentous which can engage the attention of a free people, that the field through which you have to travel is in itself spacious, and that the difficulties of the journey have been unnecessarily increased by the mazes with which sophistry has beset the way. It will be my aim to remove the obstacles from your progress in as compendious a manner as it can be done, without sacrificing utility to despatch. ¶ 1

In paragraph one, Alexander Hamilton makes a series of arguments that we have seen in various forms before.



First, that a strong central government is important for your safety and happiness and without it the states will not be safe from foreign powers and hostilities between themselves.

Second, that in previous papers that Hamilton has told you already what will befall the states if the Articles of Confederation are not replaced with the adoption of a new and stronger Constitution. Right now we are bound together but all that might change because of ambitious people who have their own needs in mind instead of the country's or because they are greedy, jealous of relinquishing power or just want to not tell the truth and give the people a false impression of what would be the dire consequences.

Hamilton states that he has outlined some of the responses to these falsehoods and faulty arguments previously but he has more to say.

Hamilton states that possibly each state's population and voters probably are getting tired of the debate over the constitution and the elimination of the failed Articles of Confederation but you had better pay attention and not be lulled into complacency or worse and told that the dangers are not real or imagined or blown out of proportion because in fact - I (Hamilton through Publius) am telling you they are not and I am warning you of the dangers ahead if you do not heed my counsel.

Hamilton uses the word - sophistry. Why does he use this word? Sophistry means or is reasoning that seems plausible on a superficial level but is actually unsound, or reasoning that is used to deceive. He uses this word to tell the people of New York that there are folks amongst them (Hamilton is referring to the Anti-Federalists) who are using false premises and false arguments to fool them for their own purposes and they do not have the welfare of the country as a whole or even their neighbors or their fellow Americans in mind. They are not virtuous people - they are only interested in money or their own welfare; and they are now presenting baseless ideas meant to confuse the people and thwart the adoption of a Constitution that will finally protect the union (which the country needs to survive) for their shallow purposes. These are not virtuous people.

Finally in the first paragraph, Alexander Hamilton states in so many words that he is there to take the blinders off and have the population see things for what they are; but that he wants to do it an expeditious way - because we do not have much time to lose in saving our country from ruin or worse.

In this paper - as we go through it - we will see Hamilton argue for a more muscular and unified central federal government which will prevent encroachment by foreign powers who just want to push the United States around and/or to prevent hostilities between the states which undermine the cohesiveness of the pact between the states as it currently exists.

He alludes in these papers exactly what foreign powers were doing to instill trouble for the states and their borders and how they were trying to cause friction within and between the states and break the union up and that we needed a united front to deal with these troublemakers like Spain, etc.

In terms of Spain and England as examples: - Later on we learn how England, Spain and France were out for themselves - Spain, after having acquired Florida from England as a result of the war, gained the control of the navigation of the Mississippi and opened and closed the door to Western prosperity at her pleasure. She established her ascendancy over the Southwestern Indians by treaties of alliance and protection, and used them to check the American advance. Hoping to add the Kentucky, Franklin, and Cumberland settlements to the Spanish empire, she intrigued with their leaders to bring about secession. England, also retaining her posts on the Great Lakes, held the Northwestern Indians under her influence and was able to infuse some degree of unanimity into their councils and into their dealings with the Americans.

So Hamilton was warning that we have enemies amongst us, on our borders, trying to break us up and we have foreign powers who are purposeful disrupters and we need to be stronger to fight them off and keep them at bay and they will eventually cause us even more trouble; so we must be strong and unified and present one unified front to get rid of their meddling.

More:
Ultimate War with Spain, etc.
http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroom...

Jump in at any time and discuss any of the above.



Discussion Topics:

1. How else were England, Spain and France disrupting any tranquility that the new nation could potentially have and why?

2. What separate alliances were these foreign powers setting up with the United States' neighbors and Native Americans to sow conflict?

3. What events showed the wisdom of the advice that Hamilton and Madison gave the fledgling country and what events were to come about in the near future?

This is an interesting article that I came across which talks about Aristotle, Plato and Thomas Aquinas's influence on the Federalists like Madison and Hamilton and our Constitution about the nature of man. And to tell you the truth the excerpt smacks of today's politics, factions, self interests, not particularly altruistic men, etc.


St. Thomas Aquinas

Here is a quote from the article:

Government, Society and the Human Good

"If it is the case that the promotion of the good remains the essential task of government, a task unchanged by the human propensity to fraud and violence, does this propensity in any way affect our notion of political prudence?

After all, much of the Federalist is concerned with how to prevent or limit or circumvent the damage that the flawed individuals who perforce must administer the government might be tempted to inflict in the furtherance of their ambition or greed.

And one must admit that it is a real difficulty. For though the authors of the Federalist framed the question wrongly and unnecessarily restricted the scope of public authority, still they are correct that some means must be devised to prevent, or at least to inhibit, the establishment of tyranny and other evils on the part of rulers.

It is in this question that there can be some convergence between these two traditions of political thought. For many of the practical means written in the U.S. Constitution, and stressed in the Federalist, are by no means alien to the school of political thought originated by Aristotle and refined by Aquinas.

In several chapters of the De Regimine Principum Aquinas deals with ways of preventing rulers from becoming tyrants and discusses which kind of governmental structure is least likely to degenerate into tyranny, a question of course that Plato had examined at length in books VIII and IX of the Republic.

That Aquinas’ suggestions are not always the same as those of the American Founders is not the point; the point rather is that each recognized the importance of the question, and although St. Thomas Aquinas realized both the goodness and naturalness of the state, this did not blind him to the fact that any government would always be administered by sinful men who could not simply be trusted always to do the right thing.

Link: http://anamnesisjournal.com/2012/12/t...

Discussion Topics:

1. What are your thoughts on the article and the points it makes?

Source: Anamnesis

Some folks who after reading Madison's lofty views (in 14) and rhetoric referring to the best in men feel that Hamilton in Federalist 15 sounds like a Debbie Downer. And that is true.

I guess that Hamilton wanted to get down to business and tell the folks in New York that they better see "the moose on the table" and not pretend otherwise because the country was at an inflection point and things could collapse very soon.

And now we move on to Paragraph Two:

In pursuance of the plan which I have laid down for the discussion of the subject, the point next in order to be examined is the insufficiency of the present Confederation to the preservation of the Union. It may perhaps be asked what need there is of reasoning or proof to illustrate a position which is not either controverted or doubted, to which the understandings and feelings of all classes of men assent, and which in substance is admitted by the opponents as well as by the friends of the new Constitution. It must in truth be acknowledged that, however these may differ in other respects, they in general appear to harmonize in this sentiment, at least, that there are material imperfections in our national system, and that something is necessary to be done to rescue us from impending anarchy. The facts that support this opinion are no longer objects of speculation. They have forced themselves upon the sensibility of the people at large, and have at length extorted from those, whose mistaken policy has had the principal share in precipitating the extremity at which we are arrived, a reluctant confession of the reality of those defects in the scheme of our federal government, which have been long pointed out and regretted by the intelligent friends of the Union. ¶ 2

Who was Thomas Aquinas anyway?
Note: The reason for this post on him is because he influenced Madison especially as well as Hamilton and the other founding fathers on the nature of man. They have all read and studied him even though many of them were Deists.


An altarpiece in Ascoli Piceno, Italy, by Carlo Crivelli (15th century)

Saint Thomas Aquinas OP (/əˈkwaɪnəs/; Italian: Tommaso d'Aquino, lit. "Thomas of Aquino"; 1225 – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican friar, Catholic priest, and Doctor of the Church.

He was an immensely influential philosopher, theologian, and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism, within which he is also known as the Doctor Angelicus and the Doctor Communis.

The name Aquinas identifies his ancestral origins in the county of Aquino in present-day Lazio, Italy.

He was the foremost classical proponent of natural theology and the father of Thomism; of which he argued that reason is found in God. His influence on Western thought is considerable, and much of modern philosophy developed or opposed his ideas, particularly in the areas of ethics, natural law, metaphysics, and political theory.

Unlike many currents in the Church of the time, Thomas embraced several ideas put forward by Aristotle—whom he called "the Philosopher"—and attempted to synthesize Aristotelian philosophy with the principles of Christianity.

His best-known works are the Disputed Questions on Truth (1256–59), the Summa contra Gentiles (1259–65), and the Summa Theologiae (1265–74). His commentaries on Scripture and on Aristotle also form an important part of his body of work. Furthermore, Thomas is distinguished for his eucharistic hymns, which form a part of the Church's liturgy.

Remainder of article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_...

This video is a pretty good one - The Constitution, Political Culture, and Civic Virtue - https://wheatley.byu.edu/constitution...#

And this:
Saint Augustine and Thomas Aquinas: the role of the State in Medieval Europe (video lecture
https://youtu.be/RWqYAYqkpdw

More:
A History of Philosophy | 24 Thomas Aquinas' Christian Aristotelianism - Professor Arthur Holmes
https://youtu.be/wmzP_ymhfrE
Giants of Philosophy - Thomas Aquinas
https://youtu.be/2kN-RKQo9mY
Why Study Thomas Aquinas?
https://youtu.be/m76_JKyPY6o

The moderator feels that this paper needs additional explanatory posts and discussion to adequately complete the discussion of this paper so we will continually work on this one.

Here's a comment I wrote about Federalist #15 elsewhere:

"In Federalist 15, Alexander Hamilton asks, 'Why has government been instituted at all?' He gives us this answer: “Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.” Hamilton and his fellow Founders believed that freedom (mainly of white male adults to obtain and retain property) requires careful protection, and they felt sure that the key to accomplishing that goal was to restrain groups (or 'factions') from getting up to mischief. Although Hamilton took factions to be nothing but bundles of individuals who each have fundamental rights, he believed that restricting the allowable activities of the factions themselves (conceived as whole units) was absolutely crucial to the preservation of personal liberties.

"Was it that Hamilton denied that factions might have their own desires, so that they, unlike real persons, do not require protection of (the merely metaphorical) 'freedom to pursue their own happiness'? Not at all. Indeed, his view that groups are infected with 'a poison of spirit' that causes them to act with less 'rectitude and disinterestedness' than individual persons, surely requires the existence of corporate purposes, strategies and wills.

"But if there are general wills, what has them must resemble individual persons in being more or less free, more or less autonomous. Now, it is hard to deny that, all else equal, more liberty and autonomy, more opportunities for successful free choices, is an unalloyed prudential good. (The more good, the better!) But an understanding of that fact will move one to recognize that the main point of government is not, as Hamilton thought, to constrain the passions of men (or factions), but rather to maximize successful choices. Such maximization requires the precise deciphering of what is wanted by both persons and factions so that the utmost can be done to bring those states of affairs into existence.

"In the case of social choices, let us call the methods for such precise deciphering and subsequent faithful endeavors to obtain what is wanted 'fair democratic procedures.' It will follow that the only restraints that are absolutely fundamental to a praiseworthy polity are those that are necessary to limit any activity—by person, institution, faction, or the government itself—that might serve to restrict or pervert the operation of fair democratic procedures."

What exactly is the point you are making about corporate will? I doubt that Madison or Hamilton had corporations in mind. They were thinking of political parties and groups promoting specific ideologies or "like thinking" at the expense of others. I was unsure what you meant.

As far as factions, it was pretty clear that Madison and Hamilton were pretty leery of them and political parties.

Thank you Walter for your post.

The point of talking about corporate wills is that, as Rousseau understood, that concept is the basis of democracy. And of course Madison and Hamilton were leary of factions. They were too leary, which accounts for many of the defects of our Constitution. That's the point of my comment.

On corporations I do not agree - factions can and do cause "major" issues as well. Just look at today's paralysis and different ideological camps.

But I respect your viewpoint. Thank you for your clarification.

There are far better ways to deal with factions--ways that maintain broad democracy--than were envisioned by Madison and his cohort in the 18th Century. That's main reason why the U.S. Constitution is no longer considered the model it once was around the world.

I still disagree Walter - I see the American Constitution as a beacon of hope and a stellar example of the brilliance of our founding fathers. But you are welcome to your views as always.

https://harpers.org/archive/2019/10/c...

Yes, there are those folks who do feel that way. Thank you for your post.