#14: How big is too big?
/The Federalist writers argued in several previous essays that a strong nation is better than a weak one, and a large nation better than a small one. In #14, Madison ponders just how big the nation might get in the future and whether a republic of such great size could function.
Madison’s main contention is that the distances contained in the nation would not be an impediment to the national government. And he turns out to be 100% correct. He hadn’t anticipated air travel or the internet. But he said the country wouldn’t get so big that mere distances would make governing impractical. He was correct.
He makes no speculation about westward expansion to the Pacific. All he has in mind is the extension of statehood throughout the territories Britain had ceded to America after the war: roughly everything east of the Mississippi River, minus Florida.
Madison emphasizes here that the national government would be strictly limited by the Constitution to “certain enumerated objects.” He says there wouldn’t be that much work for the national government to do. Over the following centuries, the national government has gotten bigger and has found more things to do – even things that were not exactly enumerated in the Constitution. But Madison didn’t imagine those.
Madison suggests that successful representative government in European countries validate the American one. He stressed that America was to be a republic – not a democracy.
The true distinction between these forms . . . is that in a democracy, the people meet and exercise the government in person; in a republic, they assemble and administer it by their representatives and agents. A democracy, consequently, will be confined to a small spot. A republic may be extended over a large region.
That “large region” is the key point in #14. Madison describes the America land area, then:
On a comparison of this extent with that of several countries in Europe, the practicability of rendering our system commensurate to it appears to be demonstrable. It is not a great deal larger than Germany, where a diet representing the whole empire is continually assembled.
Not true. The American land mass he describes is more than six times larger than Germany. (Who would say that something six time larger than something else was “not a great deal larger”?) Did Madison make a mistake in his math, or did he say this to hide the fact that the American republic – even the East-of-the-Mississippi version that he envisioned – would be far larger than any successful republic in history to that day? Of course, attempting to establish the largest successful republic ever is what they did and we applaud them for it. I’m just pointing out here that Madison offered bogus evidence.
And then there’s this:
Hearken not to the unnatural voice which tells you that the people of America, knit together as they are by so many cords of affection, can no longer live together as members of the same family; can no longer continue the mutual guardians of their mutual happiness; can no longer be fellowcitizens of one great, respectable, and flourishing empire.
Hearken not to the voice which petulantly tells you that the form of government recommended for your adoption is a novelty in the political world; that it has never yet had a place in the theories of the wildest projectors; that it rashly attempts what it is impossible to accomplish. No, my countrymen, shut your ears against this unhallowed language. Shut your hearts against the poison which it conveys; the kindred blood which flows in the veins of American citizens, the mingled blood which they have shed in defense of their sacred rights, consecrate their Union, and excite horror at the idea of their becoming aliens, rivals, enemies. And if novelties are to be shunned, believe me, the most alarming of all novelties, the most wild of all projects, the most rash of all attempts, is that of rendering us in pieces, in order to preserve our liberties and promote our happiness. But why is the experiment of an extended republic to be rejected, merely because it may comprise what is new?
Nobody was saying any of that stuff. The opponents of the Constitution were raising far more moderate and particular objections. One, for example said he wouldn’t support it without a statement of individual rights. Another was holding out for a harder line against slavery. A couple of others just wanted to preserve a bit more power to the states. The letters and articles of the opponents of the Constitution (the so-called “AntiFederalist Papers”) are published and as easy to find as the Federalist Papers are. I’ve read them, and none of them are florid as Madison warns against here. He’s arguing against nobody.
The last paragraph of #14 poses a question worth asking ourselves today:
Is it not the glory of the people of America, that, whilst they have paid a decent regard to the opinions of former times and other nations, they have not suffered a blind veneration for antiquity, for custom, or for names, to overrule the suggestions of their own good sense, the knowledge of their own situation, and the lessons of their own experience? To this manly spirit, posterity will be indebted for the possession, and the world for the example, of the numerous innovations displayed on the American theatre, in favor of private rights and public happiness.
Discuss:
What is meant by “a blind veneration for antiquity, for custom, or for names?”
What is meant by “their own good sense, the knowledge of their own situation, and the lessons of their own experience?”
How should Americans today balance these, and how should they view the Constitution in view of the latter?
