Greece is the essays’ central classical example of both the promise and the peril of confederation: its city-states could join for common purposes, yet divided sovereignty and rivalry repeatedly left their union unable to defend their liberty. The account turns Greek history into a comparative argument for a union capable of acting on individuals while preserving a federal structure among states.

Greece as a Comparative Example

The essays introduce the confederacy of the Greek republics, associated under the Amphictyonic council, as one of antiquity’s most considerable leagues and as an instructive analogue to the American Confederation. The comparison is institutional rather than an assertion that the two arrangements were identical. Greek members retained independent sovereignty and equal votes in a common council, while the American debate asked how far a union of states could preserve such political independence without sacrificing effective common action.

The argument also addresses the claim that republican government requires a narrowly limited territory. The essays contend that the small republics invoked in support of this view were far smaller than any of the American states under discussion. Applied rigidly, the principle would leave Americans to choose between monarchy and subdivision into numerous small, jealous, and conflicting commonwealths. Greece thus belongs to a broader inquiry into whether republican government can endure across an enlarged political sphere, not simply to a catalogue of ancient precedents.

The Amphictyonic Council and Its Limits

The Amphictyonic council had substantial powers on paper. It could propose and resolve measures for the common welfare of Greece, declare and conduct war, decide disputes among members as a last resort, fine an aggressor, use the confederacy’s forces against a disobedient member, and admit new members. The Amphictyons also guarded religion and the wealth of the temple at Delphi, exercised jurisdiction in certain disputes connected with those who came to consult the oracle, and swore to defend the united cities and punish violations of their common oath.

The constitutional outline is striking precisely because it does not prevent practical weakness. In defensive and dangerous wars against Persia and Macedon, the members failed to act in concert; some were repeatedly deceived or enlisted by the common enemy. Periods without foreign war brought internal upheavals and violence. The contrast between an extensive list of common powers and the league’s inability to secure common conduct illustrates the essays’ recurring distinction between possessing authority in form and being able to exercise it effectively.

Rivalry, Disobedience, and Macedonian Ascendancy

The account traces the league’s weakness through conflicts among its members. After the war against Xerxes, Sparta sought to expel cities it considered disloyal. Athens opposed the measure because Sparta would lose fewer allies and might thereby dominate public deliberations. The episode is presented as evidence not only of the union’s inefficiency but of the ambition of its strongest members and the dependent position of the weaker ones: nominal equality did not prevent smaller states from becoming satellites of the most powerful.

The essays then describe Athens and Sparta turning from rivals into enemies after their victories over Persia. Their mutual jealousy, fear, hatred, and injuries led to the Peloponnesian War, which ended, in the account’s telling, with the ruin and enslavement of Athens, the power that had initiated it. The lesson is that victory over an external adversary did not itself secure durable union; without a closer settlement, the leading members could inflict greater harm on one another than the defeated foreign power had done.

A dispute over sacred land makes the consequences of weak enforcement still more concrete. After Phocians ploughed up ground belonging to Apollo’s temple, the council imposed a fine. Supported by Athens and Sparta, the Phocians refused to comply. The Thebans and other cities undertook to uphold the council’s authority, but, being the weaker side, sought Philip of Macedon’s assistance. Philip had secretly encouraged the conflict; he exploited it through intrigue and bribery, secured influence among popular leaders, gained admission to the council, and ultimately mastered the confederacy. A quarrel the league could not resolve or enforce became an opening for a foreign power to subvert Greek liberty.

The Constitutional Argument Made Through Greek History

The essays attribute to an observer of Greece the judgment that a stricter confederation, adopted after the successful defense against Persia, could have prevented Macedonian domination and perhaps checked Rome’s expansion. This is a counterfactual political lesson, not a claim that the historical course can be reversed: the example warns that common danger and shared victory offer a chance for reform, but do not guarantee it. Failure to strengthen the union allowed internal rivalry and noncompliance to create opportunities for conquest.

The proposed Constitution is later described as neither wholly federal nor wholly national. Its foundation is federal because ratification comes from the people acting through their distinct states; representation in the House is national, while equal state representation in the Senate is federal. Its ordinary powers operate chiefly on individuals, giving it a national character in operation, while the extent of its authority preserves a federal division between general and local governments. The amendment procedure, requiring more than a simple majority but less than unanimity among states, combines elements of both. Against the Greek example, this mixed design presents union not as the erasure of member states, but as an attempt to prevent their independence from making common government ineffectual.