Union of England and Scotland

The Union of England and Scotland is invoked in The Federalist as a lesson in the political costs of division and the possible gains of union. Its significance lies less in a detailed account of how the union was made than in the use of British history to warn Americans that neighboring communities with shared interests may nevertheless become rivals, and that a stronger political union can help secure peace, liberty, and collective strength.

The Appeal for Union

In a letter to the Scottish Parliament dated July 1, 1706, Queen Anne described an “entire and perfect union” as the foundation of lasting peace. As Alexander Hamilton presents her argument, union would protect religion, liberty, and property; reduce animosities within Scotland and distrust between the two kingdoms; and increase strength, wealth, and trade. The joined island, she contended, would be better able to resist its enemies. She urged calm and unanimity in bringing the union to completion, while warning that opponents abroad would make their utmost efforts to prevent or delay it.

The letter gives the episode a forward-looking political meaning: union is not merely a settlement between separate communities but a means of changing the conditions under which they face both internal disagreement and external threats. The Federalist uses the appeal as a point of comparison for the American states, whose own security, the preceding argument insists, depends on union, strength, and good government.

Britain as a Warning and a Model

The essays contrast the apparent common sense of a single nation with Britain’s history of division. Though its peoples shared interests in relation to continental powers, they were for ages divided into three communities and were repeatedly embroiled in quarrels and wars with one another. The account stresses that foreign powers could exploit their mutual jealousies, leaving the divided communities more troublesome to one another than helpful.

That history becomes a warning about a divided America. If the American people formed three or four separate nations, the essays argue, comparable jealousies would arise and be encouraged. Confidence and affection could give way to envy and suspicion; each confederacy would pursue its own partial interests instead of the general interests of America. The likely consequence, in this reasoning, would be recurring disputes or war, or at least a continuing fear of them.

The argument also challenges the assumption that separate confederacies could remain equal in power. Even if they began on an equal footing, local conditions and differences in political judgment and management would alter their relative strength. Once one confederacy rose above its neighbors, those neighbors would regard it with envy and fear, resist measures that advanced its prosperity, and perhaps support efforts to diminish its importance. Distrust would then beget distrust. Britain’s earlier divisions thus illustrate not only the danger of conflict but a chain by which unequal power and mutual suspicion could make cooperation progressively harder.

Comparison with Other Political Unions

The British example belongs to a wider comparative argument. The Federalist presents the usefulness of confederacy as an established political idea: a union may suppress faction, protect the internal peace of its members, and strengthen them against external danger. At the same time, the essays distinguish the British union from confederacies that retained sovereign members and therefore struggled to act effectively as a whole.

The ancient Greek confederacy under the Amphictyonic council is described as a warning about the limits of a union whose members remained independent and sovereign. Its council could address common welfare, declare and conduct war, resolve disputes, fine an aggressor, and employ the confederacy’s force against a disobedient member. Yet the historical account reports that the Greeks failed to act together even during dangerous wars with Persia and Macedon. The contrast between formal powers and disunity gives the example its force: institutional authority alone did not ensure common action.

The account of the Greek states also shows how rivalry among leading members could undermine the smaller ones. After the war with Xerxes, Athens opposed an effort by Sparta to expel cities deemed unfaithful, fearing that Sparta would gain control of common deliberations. The smaller members, though formally equal, had in practice become dependent on the strongest states. The essay then links the rivalry of Athens and Sparta to the Peloponnesian War and to the ruin and enslavement of the Athenians who began it. These episodes sharpen the contrast with Queen Anne’s appeal: unity is offered as a way to diminish mutual suspicion, whereas a loose association can leave power struggles intact.

The Federalist’s Political Use of the Example

The comparison extends to the German and Dutch confederacies, which the essays describe as structurally vulnerable to internal discord, ineffective common action, or foreign pressure. The German empire’s formal constitutional powers, for example, did not overcome its defining principle as a community of sovereigns whose laws addressed sovereigns; the resulting body was portrayed as unable to regulate its members and insecure against external dangers. In the United Netherlands, the essays recount repeated failed attempts to unite public councils in reforming acknowledged constitutional defects. These examples make the British union part of a broader inquiry into how political arrangements manage relations among their members.

The proposed American Constitution, in turn, is characterized as neither wholly national nor wholly federal, but a composition of both. Its foundation is federal, its ordinary powers draw from both federal and national sources, and those powers operate nationally; its extent is federal, while its amendment procedure is neither wholly federal nor wholly national. Against this account of a mixed structure, the Union of England and Scotland functions as a historical reference point in the essays’ central warning: shared interests do not by themselves prevent division, and political arrangements must be judged by whether they can sustain common purposes and resist the forces that turn neighbors into rivals.