a rich and fertile
country, of an area equal to the inhabited extent of the United
States, will soon become a national stock. Congress have assumed the
administration of this stock. They have begun to render it productive.
Congress have undertaken to do more: they have proceeded to form new
States, to erect temporary governments, to appoint officers for them,
and to prescribe the conditions on which such States shall be admitted
into the Confederacy. All this has been done; and done without the least
color of constitutional authority. Yet no blame has been whispered;
no alarm has been sounded. A GREAT and INDEPENDENT fund of revenue is
passing into the hands of a SINGLE BODY of men, who can RAISE TROOPS
to an INDEFINITE NUMBER, and appropriate money to their support for an
INDEFINITE PERIOD OF TIME. And yet there are men, who have not only been
silent spectators of this prospect, but who are advocates for the system
which exhibits it; and, at the same time, urge against the new system
the objections which we have heard. Would they not act with more
consistency, in urging the establishment of the latter, as no less
necessary to guard the Union against the future powers and resources of
a body constructed like the existing Congress, than to save it from the
dangers threatened by the present impotency of that Assembly?

I mean not, by any thing here said, to throw censure on the measures
which have been pursued by Congress. I am sensible they could not have
done otherwise. The public interest, the necessity of the case, imposed
upon them the task of overleaping their constitutional limits. But is
not the fact an alarming proof of the danger resulting from a government
which does not possess regular powers commensurate to its objects?
A dissolution or usurpation is the dreadful dilemma to which it is
continually exposed.

PUBLIUS

FEDERALIST No. 39

The Conformity of the Plan to Republican Principles

For the Independent Journal. Wednesday, January 16, 1788

MADISON

To the People of the State of New York:

THE last paper having concluded the observations which were meant to
introduce a candid survey of the plan of government reported by
the convention, we now proceed to the execution of that part of our
undertaking.

The first question that offers itself is, whether the general form and
aspect of the government be strictly republican. It is evident that
no other form would be reconcilable with the genius