Antifederalist No. 14

EXTENT OF TERRITORY UNDER CONSOLIDATED GOVERNMENT TOO LARGE TO 
PRESERVE LIBERTY OR PROTECT PROPERTY 



George Clinton, Governor of New York, was an adversary of the 
Constitution.  He composed several letters under the nome de 
plume "CATO." This essay is from the third letter of "Cato," The 
New-York Journal of October 25, 1787. 


    . . . The recital, or premises on which the new form of 
government is erected, declares a consolidation or union of all 
the thirteen parts, or states, into one great whole, under the 
form of the United States, for all the various and important 
purposes therein set forth.  But whoever seriously considers the 
immense extent of territory comprehended within the limits of the 
United States, together with the variety of its climates, 
productions, and commerce, the difference of extent, and number 
of inhabitants in all; the dissimilitude of interest, morals, and 
politics, in almost every one, will receive it as an intuitive 
truth, that a consolidated republican form of government therein, 
can never form a perfect union, establish justice, insure 
domestic tranquility, promote the general welfare, and secure the 
blessings of liberty to you and your posterity, for to these 
objects it must be directed.  This unkindred legislature 
therefore, composed of interests opposite and dissimilar in their 
nature, will in its exercise, emphatically be like a house 
divided against itself. 
     The governments of Europe have taken their limits and form 
from adventitious circumstances, and nothing can be argued on the 
motive of agreement from them; but these adventitious political 
principles have nevertheless produced effects that have attracted 
the attention of philosophy, which have established axioms in the 
science of politics therefrom, as irrefragable as any in Euclid.  
It is natural, says Montesquieu, to a republic to have only a 
small territory, otherwise it cannot long subsist: in a large 
one, there are men of large fortunes, and consequently of less 
moderation; there are too great deposits to trust in the hands of 
a single subject, an ambitious person soon becomes sensible that 
he may be happy, great, and glorious by oppressing his fellow 
citizens, and that he might raise himself to grandeur, on the 
ruins of his country.  In large republics, the public good is 
sacrificed to a thousand views, in a small one, the interest of 
the public is easily perceived, better understood, and more 
within the reach of every citizen; abuses have a less extent, and 
of course are less protected.  He also shows you, that the 
duration of the republic of Sparta was owing to its having 
continued with the same extent of territory after all its wars; 
and that the ambition of Athens and Lacedemon to command and 
direct the union, lost them their liberties, and gave them a 
monarchy. 
     From this picture, what can you promise yourselves, on the 
score of consolidation of the United States into one government?  
Impracticability in the just exercise of it, your freedom 
insecure, even this form of government limited in its 
continuance, the employments of your country disposed of to the 
opulent, to whose contumely you will continually be an object.  
You must risk much, by indispensably placing trusts of the 
greatest magnitude, into the hands of individuals whose ambition 
for power, and aggrandizement, will oppress and grind you.  
Where, from the vast extent of your territory, and the 
complication of interests, the science of government will become 
intricate and perplexed, and too mysterious for you to understand 
and observe; and by which you are to be conducted into a 
monarchy, either limited or despotic; the latter, Mr. Locke 
remarks, is a government derived from neither nature nor compact. 
    Political liberty, the great Montesquieu again observes, 
consists in security, or at least in the opinion we have of 
security; and this security, therefore, or the opinion, is best 
obtained in moderate governments, where the mildness of the laws, 
and the equality of the manners, beget a confidence in the 
people, which produces this security, or the opinion.  This 
moderation in governments depends in a great measure on their 
limits, connected with their political distribution. 
     The extent of many of the states of the Union, is at this 
time almost too great for the superintendence of a republican 
form of government, and must one day or other revolve into more 
vigorous ones, or by separation be reduced into smaller and more 
useful, as well as moderate ones.  You have already observed the 
feeble efforts of Massachusetts against their insurgents; with 
what difficulty did they quell that insurrection; and is not the 
province of Maine at this moment on the eve of separation from 
her?  The reason of these things is, that for the security of the 
property of the community-in which expressive term Mr. Locke 
makes life, liberty, and estate, to consist the wheels of a 
republic are necessarily slow in their operation.  Hence, in 
large free republics, the evil sometimes is not only begun, but 
almost completed, before they are in a situation to turn the 
current into a contrary progression.  The extremes are also too 
remote from the usual seat of government, and the laws, 
therefore, too feeble to afford protection to all its parts, and 
insure domestic tranquility without the aid of another principle.  
If, therefore, this state [New York], and that of North Carolina, 
had an army under their control, they never would have lost 
Vermont, and Frankland, nor the state of Massachusetts suffered 
an insurrection, or the dismemberment of her fairest district; 
but the exercise of a principle which would have prevented these 
things, if we may believe the experience of ages, would have 
ended in the destruction of their liberties. 
     Will this consolidated republic, if established, in its 
exercise beget such confidence and compliance, among the citizens 
of these states, as to do without the aid of a standing army?  I 
deny that it will.  The malcontents in each state, who will not 
be a few, nor the least important, will be exciting factions 
against it.  The fear of a dismemberment of some of its parts, 
and the necessity to enforce the execution Of revenue laws (a 
fruitful source of oppression) on the extremes and in the other 
districts of the government, will incidentally and necessarily 
require a permanent force, to be kept on foot.  Will not 
political security, and even the opinion of it, be extinguished?  
Can mildness and moderation exist in a government where the 
primary incident in its exercise must be force? Will not violence 
destroy confidence, and can equality subsist where the extent, 
policy, and practice of it will naturally lead to make odious 
distinctions among citizens? 
     The people who may compose this national legislature from 
the southern states, in which, from the mildness of the climate, 
the fertility of the soil, and the value of its productions, 
wealth is rapidly acquired, and where the same causes naturally 
lead to luxury, dissipation, and a passion for aristocratic 
distinction; where slavery is encouraged, and liberty of course 
less respected and protected; who know not what it is to acquire 
property by their own toil, nor to economize with the savings of 
industry-will these men, therefore, be as tenacious of the 
liberties and interests of the more northern states, where 
freedom, independence, industry, equality and frugality are 
natural to the climate and soil, as men who are your own 
citizens, legislating in your own state, under your inspection, 
and whose manners and fortunes bear a more equal resemblance to 
your own? 
     It may be suggested, in answer to this, that whoever is a 
citizen of one state is a citizen of each, and that therefore he 
will be as interested in the happiness and interest of all, as 
the one he is delegated from.  But the argument is fallacious, 
and, whoever has attended to the history of mankind, and the 
principles which bind them together as parents, citizens, or men, 
will readily perceive it.  These principles are, in their 
exercise, like a pebble cast on the calm surface of a river-the 
circles begin in the center, and are small, active and forcible, 
but as they depart from that point, they lose their force, and 
vanish into calmness. 
     The strongest principle of union resides within our domestic 
walls.  The ties of the parent exceed that of any other.  As we 
depart from home, the next general principle of union is amongst 
citizens of the same state, where acquaintance, habits, and 
fortunes, nourish affection, and attachment. Enlarge the circle 
still further, and, as citizens of different states, though we 
acknowledge the same national denomination, we lose in the ties 
of acquaintance, habits, and fortunes, and thus by degrees we 
lessen in our attachments, till, at length, we no more than 
acknowledge a sameness of species. Is it, therefore, from 
certainty like this, reasonable to believe, that inhabitants of 
Georgia, or New Hampshire, will have the same obligations towards 
you as your own, and preside over your lives, liberties, and 
property, with the same care and attachment?  Intuitive reason 
answers in the negative. . . . 
                                CATO