FEDERALIST No. 18.
The Same Subject Continued (The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the
Union)
For the New York Packet.
Friday, December 7, 1787
MADISON, with HAMILTON To the People of the State of New York:
AMONG the confederacies of antiquity, the most considerable was that of the Grecian
republics, associated under the Amphictyonic council.
From the best accounts transmitted of this celebrated institution, it bore a very instructive
analogy to the present Confederation of the American States.
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.
In theory, and upon paper, this apparatus of powers seems amply sufficient for all general
purposes.
In several material instances, they exceed the powers enumerated in the articles of confederation.
The Amphictyons had in their hands the superstition of the times, one of the principal engines
by which government was then maintained; they had a declared authority to use coercion against
refractory cities, and were bound by oath to exert this authority on the necessary occasions.
Very different, nevertheless, was the experiment from the theory.
The powers, like those of the present Congress, were administered by deputies appointed wholly
by the cities in their political capacities; and exercised over them in the same capacities.
Hence the weakness, the disorders, and finally the destruction of the confederacy.
The more powerful members, instead of being kept in awe and subordination, tyrannized
successively over all the rest.
Athens, as we learn from Demosthenes, was the arbiter of Greece seventy-three years.
The Lacedaemonians next governed it twenty-nine years; at a subsequent period, after the battle
of Leuctra, the Thebans had their turn of domination.
It happened but too often, according to Plutarch, that the deputies of the strongest cities
awed and corrupted those of the weaker; and that judgment went in favor of the most powerful
party.
Even in the midst of defensive and dangerous wars with Persia and Macedon, the members
never acted in concert, and were, more or fewer of them, eternally the dupes or the
hirelings of the common enemy.
The intervals of foreign war were filled up by domestic vicissitudes convulsions, and
carnage.
After the conclusion of the war with Xerxes, it appears that the Lacedaemonians required
that a number of the cities should be turned out of the confederacy for the unfaithful
part they had acted.
The Athenians, finding that the Lacedaemonians would lose fewer partisans by such a measure
than themselves, and would become masters of the public deliberations, vigorously opposed
and defeated the attempt.
This piece of history proves at once the inefficiency of the union, the ambition and jealousy of
its most powerful members, and the dependent and degraded condition of the rest.
The smaller members, though entitled by the theory of their system to revolve in equal
pride and majesty around the common center, had become, in fact, satellites of the orbs
of primary magnitude.
Had the Greeks, says the Abbe Milot, been as wise as they were courageous, they would
have been admonished by experience of the necessity of a closer union, and would have
availed themselves of the peace which followed their success against the Persian arms, to
establish such a reformation.
Instead of this obvious policy, Athens and Sparta, inflated with the victories and the
glory they had acquired, became first rivals and then enemies; and did each other infinitely
more mischief than they had suffered from Xerxes.
Their mutual jealousies, fears, hatreds, and injuries ended in the celebrated Peloponnesian
war; which itself ended in the ruin and slavery of the Athenians who had begun it.
As a weak government, when not at war, is ever agitated by internal dissentions, so
these never fail to bring on fresh calamities from abroad.
The Phocians having ploughed up some consecrated ground belonging to the temple of Apollo,
the Amphictyonic council, according to the superstition of the age, imposed a fine on
the sacrilegious offenders.
The Phocians, being abetted by Athens and Sparta, refused to submit to the decree.
The Thebans, with others of the cities, undertook to maintain the authority of the Amphictyons,
and to avenge the violated god.
The latter, being the weaker party, invited the assistance of Philip of Macedon, who had
secretly fostered the contest.
Philip gladly seized the opportunity of executing the designs he had long planned against the
liberties of Greece.
By his intrigues and bribes he won over to his interests the popular leaders of several
cities; by their influence and votes, gained admission into the Amphictyonic council; and
by his arts and his arms, made himself master of the confederacy.
Such were the consequences of the fallacious principle on which this interesting establishment
was founded.
Had Greece, says a judicious observer on her fate, been united by a stricter confederation,
and persevered in her union, she would never have worn the chains of Macedon; and might
have proved a barrier to the vast projects of Rome.
The Achaean league, as it is called, was another society of Grecian republics, which supplies
us with valuable instruction.
The Union here was far more intimate, and its organization much wiser, than in the preceding
instance.
It will accordingly appear, that though not exempt from a similar catastrophe, it by no
means equally deserved it.
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.
When Lacedaemon was brought into the league by Philopoemen, it was attended with an abolition
of the institutions and laws of Lycurgus, and an adoption of those of the Achaeans.
The Amphictyonic confederacy, of which she had been a member, left her in the full exercise
of her government and her legislation.
This circumstance alone proves a very material difference in the genius of the two systems.
It is much to be regretted that such imperfect monuments remain of this curious political
fabric.
Could its interior structure and regular operation be ascertained, it is probable that more light
would be thrown by it on the science of federal government, than by any of the like experiments
with which we are acquainted.
One important fact seems to be witnessed by all the historians who take notice of Achaean
affairs.
It is, that as well after the renovation of the league by Aratus, as before its dissolution
by the arts of Macedon, there was infinitely more of moderation and justice in the administration
of its government, and less of violence and sedition in the people, than were to be found
in any of the cities exercising SINGLY all the prerogatives of sovereignty.
The Abbe Mably, in his observations on Greece, says that the popular government, which was
so tempestuous elsewhere, caused no disorders in the members of the Achaean republic, BECAUSE
IT WAS THERE TEMPERED BY THE GENERAL AUTHORITY AND LAWS OF THE CONFEDERACY.
We are not to conclude too hastily, however, that faction did not, in a certain degree,
agitate the particular cities; much less that a due subordination and harmony reigned in
the general system.
The contrary is sufficiently displayed in the vicissitudes and fate of the republic.
Whilst the Amphictyonic confederacy remained, that of the Achaeans, which comprehended the
less important cities only, made little figure on the theatre of Greece.
When the former became a victim to Macedon, the latter was spared by the policy of Philip
and Alexander.
Under the successors of these princes, however, a different policy prevailed.
The arts of division were practiced among the Achaeans.
Each city was seduced into a separate interest; the union was dissolved.
Some of the cities fell under the tyranny of Macedonian garrisons; others under that
of usurpers springing out of their own confusions.
Shame and oppression erelong awaken their love of liberty.
A few cities reunited.
Their example was followed by others, as opportunities were found of cutting off their tyrants.
The league soon embraced almost the whole Peloponnesus.
Macedon saw its progress; but was hindered by internal dissensions from stopping it.
All Greece caught the enthusiasm and seemed ready to unite in one confederacy, when the
jealousy and envy in Sparta and Athens, of the rising glory of the Achaeans, threw a
fatal damp on the enterprise.
The dread of the Macedonian power induced the league to court the alliance of the Kings
of Egypt and Syria, who, as successors of Alexander, were rivals of the king of Macedon.
This policy was defeated by Cleomenes, king of Sparta, who was led by his ambition to
make an unprovoked attack on his neighbors, the Achaeans, and who, as an enemy to Macedon,
had interest enough with the Egyptian and Syrian princes to effect a breach of their
engagements with the league.
The Achaeans were now reduced to the dilemma of submitting to Cleomenes, or of supplicating
the aid of Macedon, its former oppressor.
The latter expedient was adopted.
The contests of the Greeks always afforded a pleasing opportunity to that powerful neighbor
of intermeddling in their affairs.
A Macedonian army quickly appeared.
Cleomenes was vanquished.
The Achaeans soon experienced, as often happens, that a victorious and powerful ally is but
another name for a master.
All that their most abject compliances could obtain from him was a toleration of the exercise
of their laws.
Philip, who was now on the throne of Macedon, soon provoked by his tyrannies, fresh combinations
among the Greeks.
The Achaeans, though weakened by internal dissensions and by the revolt of Messene,
one of its members, being joined by the AEtolians and Athenians, erected the standard of opposition.
Finding themselves, though thus supported, unequal to the undertaking, they once more
had recourse to the dangerous expedient of introducing the succor of foreign arms.
The Romans, to whom the invitation was made, eagerly embraced it.
Philip was conquered; Macedon subdued.
A new crisis ensued to the league.
Dissensions broke out among it members.
These the Romans fostered.
Callicrates and other popular leaders became mercenary instruments for inveigling their
countrymen.
The more effectually to nourish discord and disorder the Romans had, to the astonishment
of those who confided in their sincerity, already proclaimed universal liberty(1) throughout
Greece.
With the same insidious views, they now seduced the members from the league, by representing
to their pride the violation it committed on their sovereignty.
By these arts this union, the last hope of Greece, the last hope of ancient liberty,
was torn into pieces; and such imbecility and distraction introduced, that the arms
of Rome found little difficulty in completing the ruin which their arts had commenced.
The Achaeans were cut to pieces, and Achaia loaded with chains, under which it is groaning
at this hour.
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.
PUBLIUS
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