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.
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