2022 Federalist Paper No. 7
The Same Subject Continued: Concerning Dangers from Dissensions Between the States
The the People of The United States,
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.
EVEN TODAY, joined as these UNITED STATES OF AMERICA for over 230 years, we continue disputes of a Territorial Nature. Although somewhat different than the disputes from so long ago, they result in the same angst and turmoil amongst the states as they have throughout history between nations. TODAY’S TURMOILS involve NATURAL RESOURCES like water rights over the abundance of water flowing through our tributaries and rivers. They involve Issues of PRIDE over which state can gain the favor of the most AGENTS OF COMMERCE or satisfy the most violent AGENTS OF CAUSES in order to survive the onslaught of boycotts and personal attacks on State Sovereignty enacted by these AGENTS.
AS WE EXPANDED into the Western Territories, there were those who passed through and those who stayed along the trail to eke out a living on the bountiful resources found in the Midwest and the Great Rocky Mountains. Those who passed through eventually found their own bountiful resources at the Westernmost Edge of this Once Great Nation and began to settle and grow in their stature and wealth. As time passed, they began to outgrow the resources they had occupied at the Westernmost Edge and began to lay claim on what they had passed through, seeing that they were the first to have encountered the bounty of the waters of the Rockies. So to for those who settled in the Southernmost regions at the lower end of the Great and Mighty rivers flowing from North to South. As they grew in stature, their demand for water has forced them to look upstream and demand, of those who remained to flourish, their FAIR SHARE of the water that their ancestors chose to pass through. Now we have demands between states to allow waters to flow from the areas that GROW the FOOD that keeps us nourished to those who passed through looking for better bounty.
AS WE GREW in stature, we also grew in comfort resulting from our GREAT GLOBAL COMMERCE. Our PRIDE of MADE IN AMERICA became a gold standard in the world for others to achieve. As our AGENTS OF COMMERCE emerged dominant in the world early on, they have become complacent and motivated by their own success to GROW even more PROFITABLE by EXPANDING beyond our borders, where other AGENTS sought to COPY and STEAL our might. Over time, others have learned to do what we once did for less and often at higher quality, reducing our Greatness slowly over time.
AS OUR GREATNESS REDUCED, our NATIONAL PUBLIC DEBT INCREASED. Over the past TWENTY YEARS, we have gone from owing just over half (55%) of our TOTAL NATIONAL PRODUCTION of $10,250,000,000,000 in TOTAL NATIONAL DEBT with $5,674,000,000,000 to in the year 2021 owing 124% of our TOTAL NATIONAL PRODUCTION of $23,000,000,000,000 in TOTAL NATIONAL DEBT of $29,617,000,000,000. That means for every $1 that we produce, we, as a nation owe $1.24 in debt.[1] This is the most significant National Debt ratio since World War II ENDED (1946:119%). The average ratio from 1929 to 2001 was 52%. 2021 was almost 2.5 times that of the average ratio for the previous 29 years. This is INCONCEIVABLE!
AS WE BECOME OVERBURDENED with DEBT, it will be found, as forewarned so many years ago,
to bear harder upon some States than upon others. Those which were sufferers by it would naturally seek for a mitigation of the burden. The others would as naturally be disinclined to a revision, which was likely to end in an increase of their own incumbrances. Their refusal would be too plausible a pretext to the complaining States to withhold their contributions, not to be embraced with avidity; and the non-compliance of these States with their engagements would be a ground of bitter discussion and altercation. If even the rule adopted should in practice justify the equality of its principle, still delinquencies in payments on the part of some of the States would result from a diversity of other causes--the real deficiency of resources; the mismanagement of their finances; accidental disorders in the management of the government; and, in addition to the rest, the reluctance with which men commonly part with money for purposes that have outlived the exigencies which produced them, and interfere with the supply of immediate wants.
WE have come to that pinnacle where our REPUBLIC is under attack by AGENTS OF COMMERCE and AGENTS OF CAUSE who are antithetical to our Common Purpose and Common Cause and are RIPPING US APART FROM WITHIN. I therefore must conclude, as I did so long ago,
The probability of incompatible alliances between the different States or confederacies and different foreign nations, and the effects of this situation upon the peace of the whole, have been sufficiently unfolded in some preceding papers. From the view they have exhibited of this part of the subject, this conclusion is to be drawn, that America, if not connected at all, or only by the feeble tie of a simple league, offensive and defensive, would, by the operation of such jarring alliances, be gradually entangled in all the pernicious labyrinths of European politics and wars; and by the destructive contentions of the parts into which she was divided, would be likely to become a prey to the artifices and machinations of powers equally the enemies of them all. Divide et impera must be the motto of every nation that either hates or fears us.
Sadly however, I must conclude that these alliances through Our Once Great Nation have emerged far more divisive as our ENEMIES FROM WITHOUT have taken their motto “Divide et impera” to heart and begun to DIVIDE and COMMAND us through our International Interventions, such as the United Nations, the World Health Organization, UNESCO and many others.
PUBLIUS