Union of England and Scotland (ff0718fd)

The union of England and Scotland is invoked in The Federalist as a practical lesson in the stakes of political union. A letter from Queen Anne presents union as a means of securing peace, religion, liberty, and property while strengthening trade and enabling resistance to external enemies. The essays then turn the precedent into a warning for America: neighboring communities with shared interests may nonetheless be divided by rivalry, and a union that cannot govern or hold its members together leaves them vulnerable to conflict and outside influence.

Queen Anne’s case for union

In a letter dated July 1, 1706, to the Scottish Parliament, Queen Anne described the union then forming between England and Scotland as the foundation of lasting peace. She argued that it would secure religion, liberty, and property; remove animosities among the Scots and jealousies between the two kingdoms; and increase their strength, wealth, and trade. United in affection and no longer apprehensive of opposing interests, she maintained, the island could resist its enemies.

The letter also presents union as a contested political undertaking rather than an inevitable outcome. Queen Anne urged calmness and unanimity so that the agreement could reach a successful conclusion, identifying it as the effective means of securing present and future happiness. She warned that their adversaries would use every effort to prevent or delay it. The passage thus joins a promised domestic settlement to a strategic concern: division within the island could weaken its ability to withstand external designs.

Britain as a warning to America

The Federalist turns from the royal appeal to the longer history of Britain. Although the people of the island might seem naturally suited to form one nation, the essays say that for ages they were divided into three and were frequently embroiled in quarrels and wars. Their interests in relation to continental powers were substantially shared, yet foreign policy and political maneuvering kept mutual jealousies alive. The divided peoples, the argument concludes, were for long periods more troublesome than helpful to one another.

That history becomes a forecast for the proposed division of America into three or four nations. Similar jealousies, the essay argues, would be nurtured among neighboring confederacies; envy would displace confidence and affection, while each community would pursue its partial interests instead of the general interests of America. The likely result would be recurring disputes or war, or at minimum continual apprehension of conflict. Britain’s experience is therefore used not simply to celebrate union but to challenge the expectation that separate political communities will remain cordial because their interests appear common.

The instability of separate confederacies

The argument also doubts that multiple American confederacies could remain equal in strength. Even if they began on an equal footing, local circumstances and differences in political judgment, foresight, and administration would cause their relative power to shift. Once one confederacy rose markedly above its neighbors, those neighbors would regard it with envy and fear. They might support measures that diminished its importance and withhold measures that would advance or protect its prosperity; the stronger community, recognizing this hostility, would in turn lose confidence in them. Distrust would reproduce itself.

A broader political principle reinforces the comparison. The essays describe proximity as a persistent source of hostility between nations unless common weakness leads them to unite in a confederate republic and their constitution checks the jealousies produced by neighborhood. The English and Scottish union is presented against this background as a model of overcoming division through political combination, while the American proposal is defended as a means of preventing neighboring confederacies from becoming habitual rivals.

Comparison with ancient and European unions

The case for union is developed through comparisons beyond Britain. The essays treat the ancient Greek confederacy organized under the Amphictyonic council as an instructive analogue to the American Confederation: its members remained sovereign states with equal votes, while the council possessed broad powers concerning common welfare, war, disputes, penalties, and membership. Yet the Greek states failed to act together even during dangerous wars with Persia and Macedon. Rivalry between Athens and Sparta culminated in the Peloponnesian War, which the account associates with Athens’ ruin and subjection.

The same pattern appears in the discussion of the United Netherlands and the German Empire. The Dutch confederacy’s unanimity requirements and repeated inability to reform acknowledged constitutional defects are presented as signs of institutional weakness. The German Empire, despite an imposing catalogue of formal powers, is described as incapable of regulating its sovereign members, beset by internal wars, foreign intrigue, and disregarded requisitions. These comparisons sharpen the distinction between nominal association and an effective union capable of governing its members.

Union as a mixed constitutional principle

The essays’ final account of the proposed Constitution makes the political meaning of union more precise. It is described as neither wholly national nor wholly federal: federal in its foundation, partly federal and partly national in the sources of ordinary governmental power, national in the operation of those powers, federal in their extent, and mixed in the process for amendments. The union of England and Scotland does not by itself establish this constitutional design, but its history supplies an example of the broader claim that shared interests do not automatically extinguish division. In the Federalist’s reasoning, political union must be made durable through institutions that counteract jealousy, enable common action, and prevent the members’ separate interests from undoing their common security.