Federalists

“ If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all. Therefore, 586 I am not of the party of federalists. But I am much farther from that of the anti-federalists. I approved, from the first moment, of the great mass of what is in the new Constitution; the consolidation of the government; the organization into executive, legislative, and judiciary; the subdivision of the legislative; the happy compromise of interests between the great and little States, by the different manner of voting in the different Houses; the voting by persons instead of States ”

“ Men who, like Washington, Hamilton, Adams and others, believed in a strong central government, with only such political power as was absolutely necessary distributed among the various States, were Federalists. ”

“ Federalism is not worth that (snapping his fingers) . Federalists, I am told, are still talking and meeting—much good may it do them; I wish them all manner of happiness, but I don't expect any good from it."
If the writers of the Nation desired controversy, here was a tempting thesis. It might have been asked, If no one could tell him what the plan was of the Federals, how he came to give the "Federal plan" a preference over simple Repeal, which he had been advocating for thirty years? ”

“ From all indications, the Federalists seemed certain to continue in power for the next decade, since the more their opponents sympathised with the French, the stronger became the sentiment against them. ”

“ Those who upheld the idea of state's rights feared in their hearts the rule of the people. They argued for state representation in the national congress while maintaining that federal authority should be reduced to a minimum. The federalists, on the other hand, insisted upon a broad interpretation of the powers of the national government, thereby creating a controversy which furnished the basis of modern party relations, until materially modified by the tendency, brought about by the civil war, to discuss the import of questions rather than functions of government. ”

“ The fact is, that the federalists make Burr’s cause their own, and exert their whole influence to shield him from punishment, as they did the adherents of Miranda. And it is unfortunate that federalism is still predominent in our judiciary department, which is consequently in opposition to the legislative and executive branches, and is able to baffle their measures often. ”

“ The men who have involved the country in this war are wicked and corrupt. A systematic exclusion of all Federalists from any office of trust is the leading feature of this Administration, yet the Federalists comprehend the majority of the wealth, virtue, and intelligence of the community. ”

“ When it is remembered that most of our history has been written by Federalists, it will become apparent that great care should be taken in accepting, without reserve, the gloomy picture of the social conditions prevailing under the Articles o Confederation. ”

“ Another body, and a large one it is, who from timidity of constitution had gone with those who wished for a strong executive, were induced by the same timidity to come over to us rather than risk anarchy: so that, according to the evidence we receive from every direction, we may say that the whole of that portion of the people which were called federalists, were made to desire anxiously the very event they had just before opposed with all their energies, and to receive the election which was made, as an object of their earnest wishes, a child of their own. ”

“ THE DEMOCRATS AND THE WHIGS The first phase of American political history was characterized by the conflict between the Federalists and the Republicans, and it resulted in the complete triumph of the latter. ”

“ We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. ”

“ But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. ”

“ Not an animated existence which has not the powers of defence. Not a political existence which ought not to possess it. In every Congress there has been a party opposed to federal measures? In every State assembly there has been a party opposed to federal measures. ”

“ You will annihilate your federal government, and ruin must stare you in the face. Let us, then, do what is in our power—amend and enlarge the Confederation, but not alter the federal system. The people expect this, and no more. We all agree in the necessity of a more efficient government—and cannot this be done? Although my state is small, I know and respect its rights, as much, at least, as those who have the honor to represent any of the larger states. ”

“ For the same reason that the members of the State legislatures will be unlikely to attach themselves sufficiently to national objects, the members of the federal legislature will be likely to attach themselves too much to local objects. The States will be to the latter what counties and towns are to the former. Measures will too often be decided according to their probable effect, not on the national prosperity and happiness, but on the prejudices, interests, and pursuits of the governments and people of the individual States. ”

“ In my view this promotes rather than undermines the basic policy of avoiding excess concentration of power in government, federal or state, which underlies our concepts of federalism." 380 U.S., at 414. ”

“ Having now established that the constitution is federal throughout, in contradistinction to national; and that the several States still retain their sovereignty and independence unimpaired, one would suppose that the conclusion would follow, irresistibly, in the judgment of all, that the government is also federal. But such is not the case. There are those, who admit the constitution to be entirely federal, but insist that the government is partly federal, and partly national. They rest their opinion on the authority of the "Federalist." ”

“ It was further said, that, in a federal government over States equally free, sovereign, and independent, every State ought to have an equal share in making the federal laws or regulations, in deciding upon them, and in carrying them into execution; neither of which was the case in this system, but the reverse; the States not having an equal voice in the legislature, nor in the appointment of the executive, the judges, and the other officers of government. ”

“ The idea of a national government, as contradistinguished from a federal one, never entered into the mind of any of them; and to the public mind we must accommodate ourselves. We have no power to go beyond the federal scheme; and if we had, the people are not ripe for any other. We must follow the people; the people will not follow us. ”

“ The States, on the contrary, have no motive to encroach on the federal government, and no power to do so, even if they desired it. In order, therefore, to preserve the just balance between them, we should incline, in every doubtful case, in favor of the States; confident that the federal government has always the inclination, and always the means, to maintain itself in all its just powers. ”

“ Of course every new province into which Congress has been allured by the principle of implied powers has required for its administration a greater or less enlargement of the national civil service, which now, through its hundred thousand officers, carries into every community of the land a sense of federal power, as the power of powers, and fixes the federal authority, as it were, in the very habits of society. ”

“ But, Sir, the favorers of monarchy, and those who wished the total abolition of State governments, well knowing, that a government founded on truly federal principles, the basis of which were the thirteen State governments, preserved in full force and energy, would be destructive of their views; and knowing they were too weak in numbers openly to bring forward their system ”

“ Opposition to the Government had to betake itself to the political platform provided by the successful introduction of the new system of government, and was obliged to distinguish itself from official Federalism by attacking not the Constitution but the way in which the Constitution was being construed and applied. ”

“ The state governments possess inherent advantages, which will ever give them an influence and ascendency over the national government, and will forever preclude the possibility of federal encroachments. That their liberties, indeed, can be subverted by the federal head, is repugnant to every rule of political calculation. Is not this arrangement, then, sir, a most wise and prudent one? Is not the present representation fully adequate to our present exigencies, and sufficient to answer all the purposes of the Union? ”

“ The Federal Government is the creature of the States. It is not a party to the Constitution, but the result of it—the creation of that agreement which was made by the States as parties. It is a mere agent, entrusted with limited powers for certain specific objects; which powers and objects are enumerated in the Constitution. Shall the agent be permitted to judge of the extent of his own powers, without reference to his constituent? ”

“ The first lesson for every member of a federal government to learn is that the interests of the different parts, or the interests of the whole and the interests of the parts, are never to be pitted against each other. As far as the United States represents an interpenetration of thought and feeling and interest and will, it is carrying out the aims of federalism. ”

“ Those who suppose it to be federal, lay great stress on the terms sole and express, as if these words intended a confinement to a federal government; when the manifest import is no more than that the institution of a good government must be the sole and express object of your deliberations. Nor can we suppose an annihilation of our powers by forming a national government, as many of the states have made, in their constitutions, no provision for any alteration ”

“ New questions have arisen, not then anticipated, and difficulties and embarrassments, wholly unforeseen, have sprung from new events in the relation of the States to one another, and to the general government. Hence the Federalist cannot be relied on, as full and safe authority in all cases. It is, indeed, matter of just surprise, and affording the strongest proof of the profound wisdom and far-seeing sagacity of the authors of that work, that their views of the Constitution have been so often justified in the course of its practical operation. ”

“ One of the principal objections inculcated by the more respectable adversaries to the Constitution, is its supposed violation of the political maxim, that the legislative, executive, and judiciary departments ought to be separate and distinct. In the structure of the federal government, no regard, it is said, seems to have been paid to this essential precaution in favor of liberty. ”

“ Was it that the memory of more than four years of biting satire and vicious calumny which the opposition had visited upon the heads of Federalist leaders had filled the latter with longings for revenge? Or was it that, conscious of their undisputed control of national affairs and carried away by the sense of their power, the Federalist leaders proposed to show how strong and effective a centralized government could become? No single alternative, doubtless, suggests the full truth. ”

“ Powers are divided between the Federal and State departments to restrain ambitious men in both. They are accumulated in the hands of ambitious men in one.
A federal republic is the best for maintaining a republican form of government over a country so extensive as the United States. A consolidated republic is better.
Confederation is union. Consolidation is union.
Each State has a right to make its own constitution. Congress has a right to make a constitution for each State. ”

“ The most one can say is that a question of federal law is lurking in the background, just as farther in the background there lurks a question of constitutional law, the question of state power in our federal form of government. ”

“ I have been charmed to see that a Presidential election now produces scarcely any agitation. On Mr. Madison’s election there was little, on Monroe’s all but none. In Mr. Adams’s time and mine, parties were so nearly balanced as to make the struggle fearful for our peace. But since the decided ascendancy of the republican body, federalism has looked on with silent but unresisting anguish. In the middle, southern, and western States, it is as low as it ever can be; for nature has made some men monarchists and tories by their constitution, and some, of course, there always will be. ”

“ The essence of a constitutionally formulated federalism is the division of political and legal powers between two systems of government constituting a single Nation. The crucial difference between federalisms is in a wide sweep of powers conferred upon the central government with a reservation of specific powers to the constituent units as against a particularization of powers granted to the federal government with the vast range of governmental powers left to the constituent units. ”

“ That the theory of the federal government being the result of the general will of the people of the United States in their aggregate capacity, and founded in no degree on compact between the states, would tend to the most disastrous practical results ”

“ With the eleven revolted states at first completely conquered and then reinstated with full rights and privileges in the federal union, with their people accepting in good faith the results of the contest, with their leaders not executed as traitors but admitted again to seats in Congress and in the Cabinet, and with all this accomplished without any violent constitutional changes,--I think we may fairly claim that the strength of the pacific implications of federalism has been more strikingly demonstrated than if there had been no war at all. ”