berty(1) throughout Greece. With the same insidious views, they now
seduced the members from the league, by representing to their pride the
violation it committed on their sovereignty. By these arts this union,
the last hope of Greece, the last hope of ancient liberty, was torn into
pieces; and such imbecility and distraction introduced, that the arms of
Rome found little difficulty in completing the ruin which their arts
had commenced. The Achaeans were cut to pieces, and Achaia loaded with
chains, under which it is groaning at this hour.

I have thought it not superfluous to give the outlines of this important
portion of history; both because it teaches more than one lesson, and
because, as a supplement to the outlines of the Achaean constitution,
it emphatically illustrates the tendency of federal bodies rather to
anarchy among the members, than to tyranny in the head.

PUBLIUS

1. This was but another name more specious for the independence of the
members on the federal head.

FEDERALIST No. 19

The Same Subject Continued (The Insufficiency of the Present
Confederation to Preserve the Union)

For the Independent Journal. Saturday, December 8, 1787

MADISON, with HAMILTON

To the People of the State of New York:

THE examples of ancient confederacies, cited in my last paper, have not
exhausted the source of experimental instruction on this subject. There
are existing institutions, founded on a similar principle, which
merit particular consideration. The first which presents itself is the
Germanic body.

In the early ages of Christianity, Germany was occupied by seven
distinct nations, who had no common chief. The Franks, one of the
number, having conquered the Gauls, established the kingdom which has
taken its name from them. In the ninth century Charlemagne, its warlike
monarch, carried his victorious arms in every direction; and Germany
became a part of his vast dominions. On the dismemberment, which
took place under his sons, this part was erected into a separate and
independent empire. Charlemagne and his immediate descendants possessed
the reality, as well as the ensigns and dignity of imperial power.
But the principal vassals, whose fiefs had become hereditary, and
who composed the national diets which Charlemagne had not abolished,
gradually threw off the yoke and advanced to sovereign jurisdiction
and independence. The force of imperial sovereignty was insufficient
to restrain such powerful