Cite as: 521 U. S. 898 (1997)
Opinion of the Court
It is most implausible that the person who labored for that example of state executive officers' assisting the Federal Government believed, but neglected to mention, that they had a responsibility to execute federal laws.8 If it was indeed Hamilton's view that the Federal Government could direct the officers of the States, that view has no clear support in Madison's writings, or as far as we are aware, in text, history, or early commentary elsewhere.9
8 Justice Souter's discussion of this passage omits to mention that it contains an example of state executives' "essential agency"—and indeed implies the opposite by observing that "other numbers of The Federalist give examples" of the "essential agency" of state executive officers. Post, at 973 (emphasis added). In seeking to explain the curiousness of Madison's not mentioning the state executives' obligation to administer federal law, Justice Souter says that in speaking of "an essential agency in giving effect to the federal Constitution," The Federalist No. 44, Madison "was not talking about executing congressional statutes; he was talking about putting the National Constitution into effect," post, at 973, n. 2. Quite so, which is our very point.
It is interesting to observe that Story's Commentaries on the Constitution, commenting upon the same issue of why state officials are required by oath to support the Constitution, uses the same "essential agency" language as Madison did in The Federalist No. 44, and goes on to give more numerous examples of state executive agency than Madison did; all of them, however, involve not state administration of federal law, but merely the implementation of duties imposed on state officers by the Constitution itself: "The executive authority of the several states may be often called upon to exert Powers or allow Rights given by the Constitution, as in filling vacancies in the senate during the recess of the legislature; in issuing writs of election to fill vacancies in the house of representatives; in officering the militia, and giving effect to laws for calling them; and in the surrender of fugitives from justice." 2 Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States 577 (1851).
9 Even if we agreed with Justice Souter's reading of The Federalist No. 27, it would still seem to us most peculiar to give the view expressed in that one piece, not clearly confirmed by any other writer, the determinative weight he does. That would be crediting the most expansive view of federal authority ever expressed, and from the pen of the most expansive expositor of federal power. Hamilton was "from first to last the most nationalistic of all nationalists in his interpretation of the clauses of our
915
Page: Index Previous 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007