HAMILTON AND MADISON

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
dependants; or to preserve the unity and tranquillity of the empire.
The most furious private wars, accompanied with every species of
calamity, were carried on between the different princes and states.
The imperial authority, unable to maintain the public order,
declined by degrees till it was almost extinct in the anarchy, which
agitated the long interval between the death of the last emperor of
the Suabian, and the accession of the first emperor of the Austrian
lines. In the eleventh century the emperors enjoyed full