To the People of the State of Connecticut:

The present condition of our nation’s politics has brought before the people of Connecticut a question which ought not be dismissed as another passing controversy: whether we shall remain confined to parties increasingly defined by faction, spectacle, unfulfilled promises, and division, or undertake the more difficult task of building a political institution devoted first to constitutional government and the public good. The importance of this question extends far beyond the fortunes of any candidate, party, or election, for it concerns whether political institutions in our Republic are still capable of being judged by their principles, their conduct, and the government they produce rather than by the passions of faction. Over the last decade we have seen national politics take a sharp turn towards partisanship and the exploitation of division within our Union. Instead of using the public’s ever-growing ailment as a basis for reform and true leadership, we instead see parties using it as the foundation of their platforms to keep political power and relevance to the dismay of their supporters.

It would be both unjust and unwise to assume that every citizen who has placed their confidence in either of the established parties is therefore responsible for the failures of those institutions. Republicans have long promised systemic reform of government and relief from the burdens felt by ordinary citizens, yet too often their victories have failed to produce the lasting changes their supporters were promised. Democrats have increasingly permitted the ideological extremes within their coalition to shape their direction, leaving many moderate citizens politically displaced. Yet the greater fault lies not with the millions of citizens who have placed their trust in these parties, but in a political system of habit which continually presents dissatisfaction with one faction as sufficient reason to entrust power to the other. No political organization, however established its name or extensive its influence, can claim a permanent right to the confidence of a free people. They are instruments citizens create to accomplish public purposes, and citizens thereforeretain the right to reconsider them. A political party exists to organize citizens around the principles of government, present those ideals for public judgment, and, when entrusted with office, endeavor to carry them into effect. When that instrument fails, confidence is lost and division grows. The people owe no permanent allegiance to a faction that fails to represent the very ideals that led the people to elect them in the first place. When an established political organization abandons the principles for which its supporters entrusted it with power, those citizens retain every right to withdraw their confidence and seek another political instrument through which to exercise it. If the people possess the right to withdraw their confidence from a political organization which no longer deserves it, by what reasoning should their choice thereafter be confined to the rival organization already established against it?

The freedom of a people to govern themselves would be an empty privilege if their political choices were forever limited by the habits and institutions of the generations preceding them. Factions are not constitutional institutions, Democrats and Republicans possess no permanent franchise over the political life of the Republic, and political institutions must continue to justify their existence through principles and performance. When established institutions fail to command the confidence of the people, the people are entitled to take action through the very means those institutions themselves first rose to influence: organization, persuasion, political association, and the ballot. The history of our Republic offers ample proof that Americans have never regarded inherited political arrangements as beyond reconsideration when those arrangements cease to answer the purposes for which they were sustained.

Yet the creation of another political party would accomplish little if its only purpose were to add another faction to those which already divide the country. It must possess a defined purpose sufficient to convince the people that its existence is justified; one capable of drawing citizens from different sides of the political aisle toward common ground and a common purpose for the Republic. Such a purpose, I submit to my fellow citizens, may be found in a renewed application of Federalism to the government and political life of the United States. Modern Federalism does not demand a weak federal government, nor does it sanction an all-powerful one. It demands that each government be energetic within the sphere constitutionally entrusted to it, and restrained beyond that sphere. A federal republic requires a strong government within firm constitutionallimits.

It is from this division and restraint of power that Federalism necessarily finds itself opposed to those political doctrines which would concentrate in government authority better left dispersed among the people, the states, and private institutions. Federalism rejects socialism and communism as the solution to the current divide.To the extent that socialism transfers economic decision-making from private citizens and institutions to the state, it necessarily concentrates a greater measure of economic authority in government. History gives us ample reason to regard such concentrations with caution, while communist systems demonstrate at their historical extreme the danger of joining political and economic power in the same hands. Federalism deliberately disperses governmental and economic power, protects private property and voluntary enterprise, and maintains firm jurisdictional boundaries around government. We must preserve the lessons of history precisely so that we need not repeat its failures.The socialists possess no less right than the Federalist to advocate his principles before the public; indeed, the liberty to argue even for doctrines we consider profoundly mistaken is among the liberties Federalism exists to preserve. This question is no longer confined to political theory.The growing organizational and electoral influence of the Democratic Socialists of America demonstrates that socialist arguments once considered peripheral now command a meaningful place in American political debate. Federalists should therefore confront those arguments openly and reject their anti-capitalist premises through persuasion rather than suppression.

There is nevertheless something worthy of recognition in the appearance of younger and newer figures within that movement. A Republic benefits when new generations of citizens take an interest in public affairs and refuse to regard political office as the permanent possession of an established political class. Youth itself is neither a qualification nor a disqualification for office. My concern instead arises when enthusiasm for a political doctrine is permitted to substitute for a sufficient understanding of constitutional government, the responsibilities of the office sought, or the practical consequences of the policies proposed. The Federalist should welcome new faces into political life while demanding from them the same seriousness, knowledge, and competence which ought to be demanded of every public servant. The danger arises when ideological certainty is mistaken for governing competence.

Nor is the danger of excessive governmental power confined to questions of economic organization; recent experience has shown how readily constitutional restraint may be tested when fear and emergency make the exercise of extraordinary authority politically attractive. Government has every right, and often a duty, to provide its best judgment in times of crisis. But it should distinguish established fact from provisional evidence and policy judgment, and it should be extraordinarily reluctant to use governmental influence to suppress lawful disagreement. Emergency may increase the necessity for government action; it does not enlarge the Constitution itself.

Yet restraint alone cannot constitute good government. A government which possesses lawful authority but spends its strength upon spectacle, personality, and perpetual partisan combat is no less a disappointment to republican government merely because its failures assume a different form. Political authority wasted upon theater rather than durable reform erodes public confidence, weakens the legitimacy of institutions, and contributes further to the spirit of disunion. A faction which obtains political power but cannot convert that power into competent administration and durable reform ultimately teaches its own supporters to lose faith not merely in the party, but in government itself. The Republic cannot endure indefinitely as two hostile political nations occupying the same constitutional boundaries. An election does not become illegitimate merely because one’s party loses. Rights remain rights when exercised by opponents. Federal authority remains valid when constitutionally exercised by a faction you oppose. State authority remains valid when the federal government prefers anotherpolicy. Emergency does not supersede the Constitution. Loyalty to one faction does not supersede loyalty to the Federal Republic. Political opponents remain fellow American citizens.

This is the constitutional logic of modern Federalism: one perpetual Union; two constitutional spheres; energetic government within each; broad and reasonable means within legitimate authority; firm jurisdictional boundaries around both; and constitutional supremacy over every faction. Sovereignty ultimately rests with the American people.

I propose, in a series of papers, to discuss the following interesting particulars:

THE importance of the Perpetual Union to the liberty, security, and prosperity of the American people; THE proper division of authority between the Federal Government and the several States; THE necessity of energetic government within the constitutional sphere entrusted to each; THE nature and proper extent of implied powers under the Constitution; THE preservation of individual liberty against both governmental encroachment and factional passion; THE dangers arising from the concentration of political and economic power; THE requirements of national economic independence; public credit, and productive strength; THE proper conduct of the Republic toward foreign nations; and finally; THE principles by which a Federalist political organization must govern itself if it is to avoid becoming another faction of the kind it proposes to remedy.

In the progress of this discussion, it shall be my endeavor to demonstrate that these questions are not independent of one another, but proceed from the same constitutional principle: that liberty is best preserved when political power is divided, restrained, and nevertheless made sufficient for the duties lawfully committed to it. Of these considerations, none precedes the preservation of the Union itself; for without a common Republic there can be neither a common constitutional order nor any lasting Federalism to preserve it.

The necessity of preserving that Union, and the dangers which faction and political disunion present to its continuance, deserve therefore our first consideration. This shall accordingly constitute the subject of my next address.

PUBLIUS.