Federalist Papers and the History of the United States of America

Much of the Federalist Papers takes the form of long and drawn out arguments, which appeal to the sober faculty of reason through a display of keen psychological insight, a sound comprehension of enlightenment political philosophy and frequent references to various epochs of the history of Western Civilization from Greece and Rome to the modern kingdoms of Europe.

But the formula might be found to be too dry, the demonstration too sober, if it were not for occasional rays of intuitive vision that appear less to convince reason than to intoxicate the passions of a people conscious of a world-historical purpose. Such vision is displayed by Hamilton in the final paragraph of Federalist Paper no. 11:

"I shall briefly observe, that our situation invites and our interests prompt us to aim at an ascendant in the system of American affairs. The world may politically, as well as geographically, be divided into four parts, each having a distinct set of interests. Unhappily for the other three, Europe, by her arms and by her negotiations, by force and by fraud, has, in different degrees, extended her dominion over them all. Africa, Asia, and America, have successively felt her domination. The superiority she has long maintained has tempted her to plume herself as the Mistress of the World, and to consider the rest of mankind as created for her benefit. Men admired as profound philosophers have, in direct terms, attributed to her inhabitants a physical superiority, and have gravely asserted that all animals, and with them the human species, degenerate in America--that even dogs cease to bark after having breathed awhile in our atmosphere. Facts have too long supported these arrogant pretensions of the Europeans. It belongs to us to vindicate the honor of the human race, and to teach that assuming brother, moderation. Union will enable us to do it. Disunion will will add another victim to his triumphs. Let Americans disdain to be the instruments of European greatness! Let the thirteen States, bound together in a strict and indissoluble Union, concur in erecting one great American system, superior to the control of all transatlantic force or influence, and able to dictate the terms of the connection between the old and the new world!"

We can now observe this statement by Hamilton at a distance of 220 years, having assimilated the history of this nation that Hamilton, Jay and Madison sought to establish. Within one century, that nation expanded her boundaries west to the pacific ocean to become a transcontinental power; fought a civil war, perhaps the bloodiest of history until its time, to preserve the union and abolish the institution of slavery; emerged on the global scene as a great power equal in stature and influence to Great Britain and France. "One great American system" had been erected, "superior to the control of all transatlantic force or influence", which was "able to dictate the terms of the connection between the old and the new world!" In the second century of her existence, the United States would rise even to eclipse the European powers on the world stage. By the year 1989, two hundred years after the first president, George Washington, took his first oath of office, the United States became known as the one and only Superpower nation on the planet. President George HW Bush would speak of a New World Order.

If Hamilton was aiming at an "ascendant in American affairs" in 1787, perhaps George Bush's announcement on September 11, 1990, of moving "Toward a New World Order," represented an aim at the meridian of American affairs, the fullest maturity of America's power on the planet.

Individual nations are like individual men: they display a psychological complexity of contradictions. Hamilton's condemnation of the European superiority complex is given to promote a Constitution that allowed the institution of perpetual slavery to continue under the pretext that the African people were inferior to those of European stock, that the black slaves were designed by God for the benefit of white masters.

This contradiction was severely felt in the consciousness of the convention that gathered to compose the Constitution. Slavery was such a painful moral issue, it had to be repressed. People like Benjamin Franklin, most fecundated with a vision of the world-historical purpose of this new departure, despised the institution of slavery and made strong motions to abolish it. But the subject was so controversial that its discussion created such fixed and determined opposition that no compromise could be made.

No compromise meant no Constitution. It is for this reason that Hamilton and others supported the "gag rule", and forbade discussion of the slavery issue on the grounds of the Convention. The civil war would be fought seven decades later to decide the issue.

Every new emergence of life, at any level, whether it be an individual human life, or the birth of a nation, is haunted by the karma of the past. There may be a vision of a truly "new world", and this vision may be so powerful that it engenders a new nation, a new government, but this "new world" must carry the issues that the Old World produced. There can never be any truly clean break from the past. For the United States, this karma is represented by the history of the Indo-European will to divide, conquer and dominate the resources of the planet. As we observe the history of the United States, we perceive the same social arrogance of Europe. We have seen in her arms and in her negotiations, in her force and in her fraud, a definite will to extend her dominion.