SCOTLAND & THE FEDERALIST PAPERS

SCOTLAND & THE FEDERALIST PAPERS

The Federalist Papers (and the Anti-Federalist Papers) were written in 1787-88 regarding the proposed United States Constitution.

Neil & Stuart, Loch Lomond

Neil McKinlay: Scotland will inevitably (re)gain her independence. When she does, (excuse my ignorance here), will she revert to the pre 1707 Constitutional Monarchy? Or will Scotland become a republic, and, if so, what type of a republic, like Ireland or France or USA? Or do we have wait till after the next referendum before we start talking about this? Which way is the wind blowing with regard to these things?

Anti-Federalist Paper #5, (1787), “It must be obvious to everyone, the least acquainted with English history, that since the union of the two nations the great body of the people in Scotland are in a much worse situation now, than they would be, were they a separate nation. This will be fully illustrated by attending to the great emigrations which are made to America.”

Stuart McKinlay: I thought I might reserve comment until I had finished the book, but I was struck immediately by breathtakingly current parallels. I have here, I thought as a natural secessionist, a copy of the unionist battle plans. Here is a persuasive prospective for the integration of the nations of the United Kingdom if pursued with sagacious good will; and just as surely the key to such a confederation's collapse. 

There are many observations applicable to today's constitutional tensions in the UK, not least the role of propaganda in nourishing the conviction that “the prosperity of America depended on its Union”. That has been the final argument here - then, now, and always - hammered relentlessly in repairing the British project. 

The economic case for union is risky as a positive argument because the figures unravel when resources are measured against the direction of returns. The partiality of the figures is marked annually by assessments contested, but never challenged to the point of fissure. People believe what they choose to believe according to conclusions they have reached regardless. 

The union case proceeds, in my not uncommon view, on the premise that the UK is a union of equal nations acting to their equitable benefit; a United Kingdom. This is an illusion. It is a unitary state governed to the benefit of its greatest constituent; England forged the union and holds it fast. It does this not out of love but of necessity. It holds it by control of the resources of its satellites, a rapacious necessity which it has the power of superior propaganda to defend. It accuses protesters of divisiveness while sowing useful division among them: it tells Scotland it is poor in resources and must be subsidised by English taxpayers. It tells English taxpayers they must carry the burden of Scottish subsidy junkies. The impoverished English must bear the weight of this imposition with their seasoned generosity of spirit, for the comonweal, the spectre of past wars, the whiff of wartime solidarity evoked. (“A torrent of angry and malignant passions will be let loose.” – Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #1.) This cynicism of management is a desperate business but effective, the more so with a Scottish Government, actually a limited executive, acting as an Aunt Sally and useful idiot, a lightning rod for discontent. 

How is the wind blowing and how will this turn out? Whatever the Scots seem to indicate by a majority vote for the Scottish National Party or by turning out for popular independence rallies, let us remember that the nature of the independence desired is not agreed, never mind monarchical, Republican or other; the Scottish National Party despite the claims of old socialist detractors is not a nationalist party at all, but a reliable constitutional movement subject to the coils of legalistic niceties and now fixated with the displacement activities of repetitive referendums. 

The trouble is that you can lead a horse to water, but... My feeling is that Scots like their own individualistic independence far too much to unite to achieve it as a nation, and there is always much more to a thing than is said.

England is an ancient hand at realpolitik: it will attend to its interests behind a charming veneer of generosity. The British unionist experiment has been running only for 312 years and in the judgment of history might be said to have run its course, but on the scale of generations it is still a young thing. Anti-Federalist Paper #5 is on the money, but the more things change... I'll read on.

Neil McKinlay: Stuart, you wrote, “England forged the union and holds it fast. It does this not out of love but of necessity.” And, “My feeling is that Scots like their own individualistic independence far too much to unite to achieve it as a nation, and there is always much more to a thing than is said.” 

The eternal Trinitarian one and the many problem springs to mind, England being the one, and Scots being the many. England wants union. Scotland wants individuality. America, pre-Constitution, was a confederacy. Each of the thirteen States was essentially, like Scotland pre-union, an individual country. If I have understood correctly, the Federalist Papers wanted what England wanted for Scotland in 1707, i.e., control of the union. The Anti-Federalist Papers warned of the dangers and future outcomes of this Federalism as opposed to status quo Confederation. The bottom line is that an independent country of Scotland could form a confederation with England, modelled on pre 1777 America.

How do you get individualistic Scots to vote for independence? Well, you mentioned that England wants union with Scotland out “of necessity”. Therefore, each Scot would need to be convinced of what is to be gained for them as individuals by independence from England. Abstract things like dignity and freedom spring to mind, things that the Americans fought for in their war with England, in their War of Independence. The heart of it was taxes, unfair taxes. England is an economic burden to individual Scots, oil, whisky, textiles, tourism etc., taxes, aye, taxes!    

Anti-Federalist Paper #5 – Scotland and England – A Case in Point (1787) also says, “It is a certainty, that when the union was the subject of debate in the Scottish legislature, some of their most sensible and disinterested nobles, as well as commoners (who were not corrupted by English gold), violently opposed the union, and predicted that the people of Scotland would, in fact, derive no advantages from a consolidation of government with England; but, on the contrary, they would bear a great proportion of her debt, and furnish large bodies of men to assist her wars with France, with whom, before the union, Scotland was at all times on terms of the most cordial amity.” Robbie Burns, in his Such a Parcel of Rogues in a Nation, referring to the same, springs to mind:

O would, ere I had seen the day

That Treason thus could sell us,

My auld grey head had lien in clay,

Wi’ Bruce and loyal Wallace!

But pith and power, till my last hour,

I’ll mak this declaration;

We’re bought and sold for English gold-

Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!

Scotland has good grounds for divorcing England, wilful neglect being a major one.