Federalist No. 5

The Same Subject Continued: Concerning Dangers from Foreign Force and Influence

John Jay

As with Federalists 2 – 4, Federalist Number 5 again encourages the 13 states to form a single Union over the counter position of establishing 3 or 4 confederacies. All of these arguments center around the safety of the 13 states, but Number 5 focuses on the probable natural divisions that will arise between the Confederacies.

Jay highlights the countries of Scotland and England. Given the proximity of Scotland and England, sharing an island, Jay argues that the two countries would be obvious allies. It would make, “common sense that the people of such an island should be one nation, yet we find that they were for ages divided.” The nations were constantly entangled in war with each other.

How then, asked Jay, could the people of America, divided into a series of independent Confederacies, expect to fair any better? It would stand to reason that at least one Confederacy would be better managed, more aptly led, and more richly resourced. This Confederacy would soon grow more powerful than the others, inviting jealously. The more powerful Confederacy would begin to distrust its weaker neighbors. The neighboring Confederacies would soon begin to distrust the stronger Confederacy, concerned that the strong would plan to overtake the weak.

Separately, Jay noted that different commercial concerns would create different interests among the Confederacies. Countries with whom the Northern Confederacies were aligned would not necessarily be the same as those aligned with the Southern Confederacies. How then could the Northern Confederacies be expected to come readily to the defense of the Southern Confederacies when the foreign aggression in the South was from an ally of the North?

A single Union of the 13 states was the remedy to internal aggression among the States and a unified front against all foreign agitators. By creating a federal government over the 13 States, uniformity of defense for all parts could be provided and internal aggression could be mitigated. No other construct, outside a Union of the 13 States, could provide as much long-term security to the people of America.