ance,
the King of Aragon, and most of the Italian princes and states.

10. The Duke of Marlborough.

11. Vide "Principes des Negociations" par l'Abbe de Mably.

FEDERALIST No. 7

The Same Subject Continued (Concerning Dangers from Dissensions Between
the States)

For the Independent Journal. Thursday, November 15, 1787

HAMILTON

To the People of the State of New York:

IT IS sometimes asked, with an air of seeming triumph, what inducements
could the States have, if disunited, to make war upon each other? It
would be a full answer to this question to say--precisely the same
inducements which have, at different times, deluged in blood all the
nations in the world. But, unfortunately for us, the question admits
of a more particular answer. There are causes of differences within
our immediate contemplation, of the tendency of which, even under the
restraints of a federal constitution, we have had sufficient experience
to enable us to form a judgment of what might be expected if those
restraints were removed.

Territorial disputes have at all times been found one of the most
fertile sources of hostility among nations. Perhaps the greatest
proportion of wars that have desolated the earth have sprung from this
origin. This cause would exist among us in full force. We have a vast
tract of unsettled territory within the boundaries of the United States.
There still are discordant and undecided claims between several of them,
and the dissolution of the Union would lay a foundation for similar
claims between them all. It is well known that they have heretofore had
serious and animated discussion concerning the rights to the lands which
were ungranted at the time of the Revolution, and which usually went
under the name of crown lands. The States within the limits of whose
colonial governments they were comprised have claimed them as their
property, the others have contended that the rights of the crown in this
article devolved upon the Union; especially as to all that part of the
Western territory which, either by actual possession, or through the
submission of the Indian proprietors, was subjected to the jurisdiction
of the king of Great Britain, till it was relinquished in the treaty of
peace. This, it has been said, was at all events an acquisition to the
Confederacy by compact with a foreign power. It has been the prudent
policy of Congress to appease this controversy, by prevailing upon the
States to make ces