Alexander Hamilton probably wanted Hillary Clinton to win.

In response to my complaints that Hillary won the popular vote even while losing the Electoral College, my friends who are (ahem) perhaps more faithful to the Constitution as written point out — correctly — that the Constitution has a number of “countermajoritarian” features, that the American government was designed as a republic instead of a straight democracy in order to ensure the majority couldn’t tyrannize the minority.

In fact, they say, the Electoral College is an important one of these countermajoritarian features because it gives individual states more of a role in selecting the executive, instead of leaving it a straight-up popularity contest.

There’s pretty strong evidence, though, the Founders didn’t intend the popular vote losers to regularly win office. One feature of the old — failed — Articles of Confederation  is required a supermajority (nine of the 13 states) to pass legislation. Which meant a single state, or a small minority of states, could muck things up.

That requirement appears nowhere in the Constitution. And the authors of that Constitution resisted calls to give each state the exact same representation in Congress because they thought such a move would be too countermajoritarian. Here’s Alexander Hamilton, writing in Federalist No. 22:

Every idea of proportion and every rule of fair representation conspire to condemn a principle, which gives to Rhode Island an equal weight in the scale of power with Massachusetts, or Connecticut, or New York; and to Deleware an equal voice in the national deliberations with Pennsylvania, or Virginia, or North Carolina. Its operation contradicts the fundamental maxim of republican government, which requires that the sense of the majority should prevail. Sophistry may reply, that sovereigns are equal, and that a majority of the votes of the States will be a majority of confederated America. But this kind of logical legerdemain will never counteract the plain suggestions of justice and common-sense. It may happen that this majority of States is a small minority of the people of America; and two thirds of the people of America could not long be persuaded, upon the credit of artificial distinctions and syllogistic subtleties, to submit their interests to the management and disposal of one third. The larger States would after a while revolt from the idea of receiving the law from the smaller.

Which, ahem:

This election was not precisely what Hamilton was writing about. But jeepers, it’s kind of on point, no? The Founders were countermajoritarian, perhaps, but not that countermajoritarian. In fact, they saw some danger to the republic in such features.

Similarly, James Madison wrote in Federalist 58, warning against a requirement that Congress need a quorum to pass laws — saying it gave the minority too much power over the majority. And at the end of the day, the majority is supposed to win, right?

Why wouldn’t we apply this logic to the presidential election?

In all cases where justice or the general good might require new laws to be passed, or active measures to be pursued, the fundamental principle of free government would be reversed. It would be no longer the majority that would rule: the power would be transferred to the minority. Were the defensive privilege limited to particular cases, an interested minority might take advantage of it to screen themselves from equitable sacrifices to the general weal, or, in particular emergencies, to extort unreasonable indulgences.

You may point out that Hillary, while winning a greater number of popular votes, did not win a majority. I say fine! Let’s dump Gary Johnson and Jill Stein from the ballot and have a runoff election!

Or there are other answers. “Countermajoritarian” features have their place in our governance, but it’s a limited place. If a minority of voters can routinely win the presidential election, trouble is probably stewing. I’ll get in trouble with my conservative friends for saying this, but the Constitution, as it currently works, is clearly defective. Let’s fix it.

Federalist No. 22: Why the U.S. Senate and Jimmy Stewart both suck

Let's talk about the filibuster.

Back up: There's no discussion of the U.S. Senate or the filibuster by Alexander Hamilton in Federalist 22. Hamilton's wrapping up a long discussion of why the Article of Confederation are a bad way to run the United States -- and while he touches on a few topics here, he spends most of this essay talking about one particular evil: Under the Articles, it's all too easy for a minority of states with a minority of the U.S. population to obstruct the will of the majority.

And what becomes clear is this: If the pre-Constitution U.S. government was unworkable because of such problems, well then: Today's U.S. government is unworkable.

Under the Articles, see, each state -- no matter how thickly or thinly populated -- had an equal voice in the national governance. What's more, it took the consent of two-thirds of the states to pass major legislation: In an era where the United States comprised just 13 states, that meant that five states could block action.

And that, Hamilton huffed, was no way to run a republic.

Its operation contradicts the fundamental maxim of republican government, which requires that the sense of the majority should prevail. Sophistry may reply, that sovereigns are equal, and that a majority of the votes of the States will be a majority of confederated America. But this kind of logical legerdemain will never counteract the plain suggestions of justice and common-sense. It may happen that this majority of States is a small minority of the people of America;3 and two thirds of the people of America could not long be persuaded, upon the credit of artificial distinctions and syllogistic subtleties, to submit their interests to the management and disposal of one third.

He adds later:

The necessity of unanimity in public bodies, or of something approaching towards it, has been founded upon a supposition that it would contribute to security. But its real operation is to embarrass the administration, to destroy the energy of the government, and to substitute the pleasure, caprice, or artifices of an insignificant, turbulent, or corrupt junto, to the regular deliberations and decisions of a respectable majority. ... When the concurrence of a large number is required by the Constitution to the doing of any national act, we are apt to rest satisfied that all is safe, because nothing improper will be likely to be done, but we forget how much good may be prevented, and how much ill may be produced, by the power of hindering the doing what may be necessary, and of keeping affairs in the same unfavorable posture in which they may happen to stand at particular periods.

Here's the thing: Hamilton's critique of the Articles of Confederation is precisely applicable to the United States Senate.

Equal representation for each state, regardless of state size? Montana and New York both have two senators each, even though the population of Montana wouldn't even fill out Manhattan.

And a supermajority requirement for major legislation? That's pretty much the case in the Senate, where 60 votes are required to break a filibuster -- and a filibuster is brought, by one account, against 70 percent of all legislation.

George Will, who likes the filibuster, did the math in February after Scott Brown's election to the Senate:

Liberals fret: 41 senators from the 21 smallest states, with barely 10 percent of the population, could block a bill. But Matthew Franck of Radford University counters that if cloture were blocked by 41 senators from the 21 largest states, the 41 would represent 77.4 percent of the nation's population. Anyway, senators are never so tidily sorted, so consider today's health impasse: The 59 Democratic senators come from 36 states containing 74.9 percent of the population, while the 41 Republicans come from 27 states -- a majority -- containing 48.7 percent. (Thirteen states have senators from each party.)

Enjoyable how Will counts the number of states as a majority, and not the number of voters. As the Senate is currently constructed, though, the minority -- both in the number of senators and in the amount of population they represent -- routinely frustrates the will of the majority.

And Hamilton likened this state of affairs to "poison."

Should he have known that his critique would also be a problem under the new Constitution? Kinda, maybe. After all, the Senate was always proportioned to give each state an equal say. And since any legislation that would pass Congress would have to pass the Senate, it was always going to be the case that more-populated states would be proportionally less powerful in the national governance.

Where Hamilton maybe gets a pass: The filibuster isn't written into the Constitution. It's part of Senate rules, which the Senate itself adopts. Every few years there's talk of abolishing the filibuster, but whoever is in the minority -- sometimes it's Democrats and sometimes its Republicans -- usually starts waxing eloquent about the rights of the minority, and nothing ever comes of it.

And I wonder: Why don't they bring up Hamilton's critique of the Articles of Confederation? And why aren't conservatives like Will -- who seem to think they're more faithful than thou on matters of fidelity to the Constitution and the Founders -- the loudest voices on this? True, Hamilton wasn't directly criticizing today's U.S. Senate, but that doesn't matter. The state of affairs he describes is exactly the same.

Federalist 15: Do today's Tea Partiers know about this?

I had thought I'd be taking these Federalist chapters in big chunks, rather than one-by-one, but it turns out there's a lot to think about in all of these. So we're going to have to go slowly.

You might remember that I said -- somewhat near the outset of this project -- that I expected some of the context of the Federalist would reveal itself as we proceeded through the papers. I wasn't entirely wrong, because we're now at Federalist 15, and Publius is ready to start telling us why the Articles of Confederation stink.

Not, of course, that he needs to make the case. From what I can tell skimming through the Antifederalist Papers, there's no great love for the Articles among any huge segment of the nascent American society. And Publius -- Alexander Hamilton in this particular chapter -- acknowledges as much.

The point next in order to be examined is the "insufficiency of the present Confederation to the preservation of the Union." It may perhaps be asked what need there is of reasoning or proof to illustrate a position which is not either controverted or doubted, to which the understandings and feelings of all classes of men assent, and which in substance is admitted by the opponents as well as the friends of the new Constitution.

So what's the problem here, exactly?

Well, as Hamilton puts it, the antifederalists know the Confederation doesn't work -- but they're unwilling to countenance a government strong enough to overcome the Confederation's problems.

While they admit that the government of the United States is destitute of energy, they contend against conferring upon it those powers which are requisite to supply that energy. They seem still to aim at things repugnant and irreconcilable; at an augmentation of federal authority, without a diminution of State authority; at sovereignty in the Union, and complete independence in the members.

Hmmm. Let me say right here I'm not trying to score any political points. But I've increasingly suspected -- reading the Federalist Papers and skimming over the Antifederalist Papers -- that today's Tea Party/GOP/conservative crowd might be heir more to the antifederalist tradition rather than the federalists. I'm not ready to mount a definitive case here -- I've not done enough reading, and in any case I've already suggested that Alexander Hamilton may not be the most reliable narrator -- but this passage here adds to my sense of things. Because it sure sounds like Hamilton is describing the kind of schizophrenia that characterizes a movement that roots on a president who breaks wiretapping and torture laws while decrying slightly higher marginal tax rates as "tyranny."

But I might be overreading things. I'm not ready to make the case. So let's move on.

Because of the antifederalist bipolar approach, Hamilton says, he's going to have to show how the Confederation really doesn't work. And he starts off with the biggest problem: The national government has too little power, while the states have too much. That means the states can -- and do -- ignore the laws made by the national government. It's an untenable situation.

The United States has an indefinite discretion to make requisitions for men and money; but they have no authority to raise either, by regulation extending to the individual citizens of America. The consequence of this is, that though in theory their resolutions concerning those objects are laws, constitutionally binding on the members fo the Union, yet in practice they are mere recommendations which the States observe or disregard at their option.

Up till now, Publius has talked long and hard about the need for the United States to remain, well, united. Now he takes a different tack: It would be better for the states to exist as separate nations -- though allied, like the NATO alliance -- rather than allow the national government to continue in such an emasculated state. Otherwise, Hamilton writes, it's time to give a national government the power to enforce the laws it makes -- even over the objections of the states.

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. If there be no penalty annexed to disobedience, the resolutions or commands which pretend to be laws will, in fact, amount to nothing more than advice or recommendation.

He continues:

There was a time when we were told that breaches, by the States, of the regulations of the federal authority were not to be expected; that a sense of common interest would perside over the conduct of the respective members, and would beget a full compliance with all the constitutional requisitions of the Union. ... In our case, the concurrence of thirteen distinct sovereign wills is requisite, under the Confederation, to the complete execution of every important measure that proceeds from the Union. It has happened as was to have been forseen. The measures of the Union have not been executed; the delinquencies of the states have, step by step, matured themselves to an extreme, which has, at length, arrested all the wheels of the national government, and brought them to an awful stand.

And here again, I'm thinking of today's Tea Party/conservative/GOP folks who regularly assert the rights of states to nullify federal laws. (Take a look at the states attorneys general bringing legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act.) They claim to be acting in the traditions of the Founders; yet the Founders really did act to centralize power -- take it away from the states -- instead of distributing power to the states.

I have no doubt I'll come up against a flaw in this theory -- or that somebody will point it out to me -- as I continue reading. But so far, I'm finding it harder to avoid this idea: Today's Tea Partiers might actually be heirs to folks who wanted nothing to do with the Constitution. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, assuming I'm right. But it might cast a very different flavor to our modern debates.

Federalist 11 - Federalist 13: Moneymoneymoneymoney! Money! (Also: The persistence of Euro-bashing in American politics)

I don't have a lot to say about Federalists 10 through 13. They're chiefly about how a unified United States will fare economically. Considering the United States went on to become the richest nation the planet's ever seen, I don't know that there's much to argue about here, even with hindsight fully engaged. But just to recap, keeping the states together will:

* Make it easier for everybody to make money. A unified America will be able to fend off competition from Europe, bargain from a stronger vantage point and -- very importantly -- be able to field a navy capable of protecting its commerce. Alexander Hamilton:

Under a vigorous national government, the natural strength and resources of the country, directed to a common interest, would baffle all the combinations of European jealousy to restrain our growth. This situation would even take away the motive to such combinations, by inducing an impracticability of success. An active commerce, an extensive navigation, and a flourishing marine would then be the offspring of moral and physical necessity. We might defy the little arts of the little politicians to control or vary the irresistible and unchangeable course of nature.

And, Hamilton adds, a bigger country means a more economically diverse country -- which will make it easier to ride out tough times in any particular industry.



* Make it easier to collect revenue to fund a national government. Remember, this is back before the IRS had really even been thought off, so many of the government's revenues came from import duties and that kind of thing.

* Get economies of scale. This idea might seem farcical at this point, now that the government is buried in debt, the idea was that one big government might be able to do things less expensively, on the whole, than if the 13 states were all spending money on their own and duplicating efforts. Some of that depends on the United States being a much smaller country; Hamilton at one point boasts that the Navy would only have to defend the country in the Atlantic. Projecting power around the globe wasn't really under consideration here.

But speaking of the rest of the globe, there's a kind of bizarre moment at the end of Federalist 11. Hamilton's been playing up the ability of the United States to make money and compete against Europe -- when all of the sudden he launches a sort of ur-Freedom Fries campaign.

Europe, by her arms and by her negotiations, by force and by fraud, has, in different degrees, extended her dominion over them all. Africa, Asia, and America, have successively felt her domination. The superiority she has long maintained has tempted her to plume herself as the Mistress of the World, and to consider the rest of mankind as created for her benefit. Men admired as profound philosophers have, in direct terms, attributed to her inhabitants a physical superiority, and have gravely asserted that all animals, and with them the human species, degenerate in America -- that even dogs cease to bark after having breathed awhile in our atmosphere.1 Facts have too long supported these arrogant pretensions of the Europeans. It belongs to us to vindicate the honor of the human race, and to teach that assuming brother, moderation. Union will enable us to do it. Disunion will will add another victim to his triumphs. Let Americans disdain to be the instruments of European greatness! Let the thirteen States, bound together in a strict and indissoluble Union, concur in erecting one great American system, superior to the control of all transatlantic force or influence, and able to dictate the terms of the connection between the old and the new world!

Which just goes to prove: There's no topic in American politics -- and never has been -- that can't be livened up with a little bit of good old-fashioned Euro-bashing. The French suck! USA! USA! USA!

Federalist No. 6 - Federalist No. 10: Let's not fight with each other

I said last time that the shadow of the Civil War would loom heavily over my reading of "The Federalist Papers" -- and starting in Federalist No. 6, it really, really does. Because it's here that Alexander Hamilton starts to make the case that a strong union won't just protect the individual states from wars with external powers -- it'll also keep the states from making war on each other.

So, ummm ... how did that work out for you?

No. Wait. Snark is a little too easy here. Truth is, Hamilton's got history on his side -- but he's going to take his time getting to the most useful parts of it. Instead, he tells us in No. 6 that the problem with leaving the states to proceed forward as autonomous nations is that each small state will be more likely to see the rise of a leader who makes war on neighboring states for his own vainglorious reasons.

Men of this class, whether the favorites of a king or of a people, have in too many instances abused the confidence they possessed; and assuming the pretext of some public motive, have not scrupled to sacrifice the national tranquility to personal advantage or personal gratification.

He goes on at length about this, citing examples from Pericles and Henry VIII, and well, he's right. That's absolutely a danger -- but it's not the ONLY danger, and sometimes it's not even the most important one. (And in any case, both large nations and small ones are subject to the danger.) The Civil War came about not because (say) Robert E. Lee dreamed of a thousand monuments to his name, but because there were very real moral (slavery) and philosophical (the role of the federal government) differences between the Northern and Southern states.

To be fair, Hamilton acknowledges as much in No. 7, listing out a series of reasons individual states might make violence upon each other: territorial disputes, including claims to territories in the west; "the competitions of commerce;" the settling of debts already owed by the Union (mostly leftover from the Revolutionary War); differing approaches to settling contracts; that kind of thing.* It's notable, though, that Hamilton speaks here in generalities -- because there's a specific notable omission: SLAVERY! WHAT ABOUT SLAVERY?!?!

*I don't want to spend too much time on a tangent here, but there's been a theory advanced among (for lack of a better word) neoconservatives in recent years that America preserves its security by establishing democracies in other countries because democracies don't tend to make war on each other. After reading Federalists No. 6 and 7, I think it's safe to say that Alexander Hamilton, drawing from history, might pooh-pooh that notion.

The result of all these potential sources of conflict, Hamilton says in No. 8, would be that each state and/or small confederacy would probably end up more militarized -- and thus more injurious to personal liberties -- than if they stuck together under the proposed Constitution. This is kind of a sly argument: One of the main concerns of the Antifederalists, I gather, is that the new Constitution would allow a central government to form a standing Army. Well, Hamilton says, the raising of a standing army can only be inferred from the words of the Constitution -- but it's a dead certainty if the states go their own way. They'll be so likely to come in conflict with each other -- and here Hamilton drops a number of examples from Europe -- that they'll have to raise their guard against each other.

In making this case, he says a few words about the militarization of a society that seem to be worth considering in 21st century America.

The perpetual menacings of danger oblige the government to be always prepared to repel it; its armies must be numerous enough for instant defense. The continual necessity for their services enhances the importance of the soldier, and proportionably degrades the condition of the citizen. The military state becomes elevated above the civil. The inhabitants of territories, often the theatre of war, are unavoidably subjected to frequent infringements on their rights, which serve to weaken their sense of those rights; and by degrees the people are brought to consider the soldiery not only as their protectors, but as their superiors.

This kind of society, of course, is what the new Constitution is meant to protect against. And that's the promise Hamilton makes.

But if we should be disunited, and the integral parts should either remain separated, or, which is most probably, should be thrown together into two or three confederacies, we should be, in a short course of time, in the predicament of the continental powers of Europe -- our liberties would be a prey to the means of defending ourselves against the ambition and jealousy of each other.

Or, as he says more succinctly at the outset of No. 9:

A FIRM Union will be of the utmost moment to the peace and liberty of the States, as a barrier against domestic faction and insurrection.

It is in Federalist No. 10 that James Madison (finally!) makes an appearance and starts to explain why a union under the proposed Constitution will be able to tamp down -- though never eliminate -- factionalism between the states. Basically, the proposed form of government -- a republic -- will allow for democracy but not too much democracy; populist passions will be cooled by the filtration of a small group of elected men, who will thus be able to keep the passions of the day balanced against each other. Maybe one state could come under the sway of crazy men with crazy ideas, he says, but certainly not all of them at the same time. A republican form of government will "refine and enlarge the public views," he says,

by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations. Under such a regulation, it may well happen that the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be more consonant to the public good than if pronounced by the people themselves, convened for the purpose.

Which brings us back around to the Civil War. If the Constitution was supposed to tamp down conflicts between the states and temper their passions ... well, why didn't it?

Maybe it did. I've been reading the Federalists with the idea that the Civil War disproved some of the assertions made about the effects of unity, but maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the Civil War is just a huge, glaring, bloody exception to the rules that Madison, Hamilton and Jay are setting forth here. And it would be 70 years or so before the divisions between North and South turned bloody. We have stuck together -- despite some turbulent times -- since then. So who knows?

In any case, these first 10 Federalists have felt -- to this reader at least -- like so much throat-clearing. There's been a lot of talks about the benefits of unity and the dangers of splitting up into separate states or confederacies. There's been precious little talk about the proposed Constitution itself, as well as the deficiencies of the Articles of Confederation. We've got a few more chapters to go discussing the benefits of union, but just over the horizon we're about to get some answers to our main questions: Why do the Articles suck? And why is the Constitution so awesome?

Federalist No. 1: America's Founding D-Bag

Alexander Hamilton has always seemed to me to be America's Founding Douchebag. That's probably unfair, but there's something about duelling -- Hamilton's involvement in an act that conferred "civilized" rules on a savage, life-taking act -- that struck me as ur-fratty. And though he's now celebrated for helping bring about the Constitution's ratification as one of the co-authors of "The Federalist Papers," his apparent monarchist streak still strikes me as at odds with the democratic nature of the government he actually helped launch.

Plus, there's the whole $10 bill thing.

So I'm not surprised, just a page into Federalist No. 1 -- written by Hamilton -- to discover that he was also possible America's Founding Negative Campaigner. Writing under the "Publius" name, he tells New Yorkers that backers of a new Constitution just want candy and kitties and charity for their fellow Americans. Opponents, he suggests, are merely motivated by selfish interests:

Among the most formidable of the obstacles which the new Constitution will have to encounter, may readily be distinguished the obvious interest of a certain class of men in every State to resist all changes which may hazard a diminuition of the power, emolument and consequence of the offices they now hold under the State-establishments -- and the perverted ambition of another class of men, who will either hope to aggrandise themselves with fairer prospects of elevation fromt he subdivision of the empire into several partial confederacies, than from its union under one government.

Let's step back a second: The purpose of the new Constitution was to centralize authority in the United States under a federal government. It was, in some respects, a power grab -- and Hamilton, as one of the framers and campaigners for the new Constitution, might reasonably be expected to be one of the chief beneficiaries of that grab. But Hamilton starts his campaign by criticizing the Constitution's critics -- they're the power grabbers, petty men who'd rather rule over several small fiefdoms than one big empire. At a vantage point of 200 years, at least, it's kind of hard to take Hamilton seriously when his approach is so naked and, well, unsubtle.

But Hamilton is smart, though, because he acknowledges as much in the next paragraph:

Ambition, avarice, personal animosity, party opposition, and many other motives, not more laudable than these, are apt to operate as well upon those who support as upon those who oppose the right side of a question.

This is the 18th century equivalent of sending Sarah Palin out to proclaim that "Barack Obama pals around with terrorists," only to back down a few days later with "He's an honorable man" utterances. The damage is done. We have, however, already learned a valuable lesson: Our Founding Fathers weren't demigods residing on Mount Olympus; they were politicians, with the willingness to roll up their sleeves and start hurling muck if needed. Folks fed up with the "tone" of our politics today should realize it was ever thus.

We're moving quickly, though, and Hamilton -- while he's probably not thinking about a 21st century audience for his words -- is quickly demonstrating not only that the tone of American politics has always been fractious, but the substance of the debates can be unchanging as well. At issue? The authority of a central government versus the rights and liberties of people under that government.  Conservatives these days argue that more centralized government means less freedom for citizens, but Hamilton goes out of his way to pooh-pooh that idea.

An overscrupulous jealous of danger to the rights of the people, which is more commonly the fault of the head than of the heart, will be represented as mere pertence and artifice; the bait for popularity at the expense of the public good. It will be forgotten, on the one hand, that jealously is the usual concomitant of violent love--

Get that? If you're too worried about the rights of the people, you're just like an abusive husband!

--and that the noble enthusiasm of liberty is too apt to be infected with a spirit of narrow and illiberal distrust. On the other hand, it will be equally forgotten that that the vigour of government is essential to the security of liberty; that, in the conteplation of a sound and well informed judgment, their interest can never be separated; and that a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people, than under the forbidding appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government. History will teach us, that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism, than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics the greatest number have begun their career, by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing Demagogues and ending Tyrants.

Get that? If you're too worried about the rights of the people, you're probably a tyrant in waiting! Real liberty is to be found under the protection of a "firm" government. Sorry, folks, but I'm not losing the "douchebag" vibe from Hamilton here.*

*Don't get me wrong: Revolutions in "the name of the people" have given us tyrannies in Russia, China and a whole bunch of other places. Seeing as how Hamilton had somewhat recently participated in a Revolution aimed at throwing off a tyranny in the name of the proposition that "all men are created equal" his assertion here seems ... convenient.

Hamilton is winding down at this point. But he's also getting started. Yes, he says, he favors the new Constitution -- and the aim of the coming series of articles is to convince New Yorkers to ratify it, as well. Otherwise, he says, the United States will disappear.

For nothing can be more evident, to those who are able to take an enlarged view of the subject, than the alternative of an adoption of the new Constitution, or a dismemberment of the Union. It will therefore be of use to begin by examining the advantages of that Union, the certain evils and the probable dangers, to which every State will be exposed from its dissolution. This shall accordingly constitute the subject of my next address.

NEXT TIME: What's so great about the Union, anyway?