In Federalist No. 15, Alexander Hamilton begins a run of a half-dozen essays attacking what was generally understood to be a central principle of all previous confederations (one that animated the Articles of Confederation too), namely that the federal authority has no direct relationship with or power to govern the individual citizens of the member states, but instead deals only with those states. The states are the constituent parts of a traditional federal system, and to the extent that the system at the center has any governing authority, it reaches only those constituents states, and not persons.

For Hamilton, this is the “great and radical vice” of traditional federalism, leading to the “political monster of an imperium in imperio,” and the practically inevitable outcome of a house divided against itself. For “[i]n an association where the general authority is confined to the collective bodies of the communities that compose it, every breach of the laws must involve a state of war,” rather than merely a law enforcement problem as to this or that individual.

There is much more in this vein, in this and the succeeding essays, but it is notable how thoroughly Publius builds the argument from the ground up, recurring to first principles of any sound political science and making points that easily transcend their immediate context:

“Government implies the power of making laws. It is essential to the idea of a law, that it be attended with a sanction; or, in other words, a penalty or punishment for disobedience. . . .

“Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint. Has it been found that bodies of men act with more rectitude or greater disinterestedness than individuals? The contrary of this has been inferred by all accurate observers of the conduct of mankind . . .”

In the spirit of The Federalist we may say that there are permanent problems of politics, to be managed, and not to be solved. There is no “new American man” to be built who will not have all the defects of previous generations. If that is not a conservative spirit, I don’t know what is.

(For explanation of this recurring feature, see here.)