At long last, we’re back to the Federalist. Last we heard, Hamilton was predicting that Americans would pay vastly more attention and naturally ascribe power to local and state governments.
Madison tags in with F18, pleasing his classical studies professor right off the bat with an allusion to the Delphic amphictyonic council, the religious-event-planning-committee cum political confederation of ancient Greek city states. With a few exceptions, Madison thinks the amphictyonic council is a fitting analogy to the U.S. under the Articles of Confederation. I’d be obliged to hear thoughts from my old professors and old brother.
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.
Works in theory. But, says Madison, “Very different, nevertheless, was the experiment from the theory.” The larger siblings, the wranglings between Lacedaemonians and Athenians exposed “the ambition and jealousy of its most powerful members, and the dependent and degraded condition of the rest.” Hence in-fighting, the Peloponnesian war, Phocians plowing up consecrated grounds and refusing any international demands, Alexander’s dad taking over, and so forth.
Madison then compares the previous to the Achaean league, a union “far more intimate, and its organization much wiser, than in the preceding instance.”
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.
And so on. Madison, in fact, does not reach in the entire essay the “thus, you see by anology, our current confederation does not work” that you expect while reading F18. Rather, he lets History speak for itself.
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.
I wonder, then, what a liberally educated reader in 1787 conclude from this? To know, we need to know the extent to which readers of the New York Packet were inclined to connect anaologies between their government and those of ancient Greece. My sense is: more than now, but not most. F18 is interesting in it’s own right as a description of ancient Greek history written in 1787 America. How does the account compare to those of 2008 historians? I’m curious how my hisorian-brother would respond to Madson’s essay.
Coming back to that point on Madison’s contemporaneous readers - it is interesting that F18 seems to make the lest reference thus far to the subject mater of these essays, the new Constitution. Nor does it describe the Articles of Confederation. Rather, Madison lets history speak for itself, suggesting his belief that the intended audience could indeed link classical history to the present day.
