It follows, too, that, as the general government will be responsible to foreign nations, it ought to be able to annul any offensive measure, or enforce any public right. Perhaps among the topics on which they may be aggrieved or complain, the commercial intercourse, and the manner in which contracts are discharged, may constitute the principal articles of clamor.
It follows, too, that the general government ought to be the supreme arbiter for adjusting every contention among the States. In all their connections, therefore, with each other, and particularly in commerce, which will probably create the greatest discord, it ought to hold the reins.
It follows, too, that the general government ought to protect each State against domestic as well as external violence.
And lastly, it follows, that through the general government alone, can we ever assume the rank to which we are entitled by our resources and situation.
Should the people of America surrender these powers, they can be paramount to the constitutions and ordinary acts of legislation, only by being delegated by them. I do not pretend to affirm, but I venture to believe, that if the confederation had been solemnly questioned in opposition to our constitution, or even to one of our laws, posterior to it, it must have given away. For never did it obtain a higher ratification, than a resolution of assembly in the daily form.
This will be one security against encroachment. But another not less effectual is, to exclude the individual States from any agency in the national government, as far as it may be safe, and their interposition may not be absolutely necessary.
But now, sir, permit me to declare, that in my humbled judgment, the powers by which alone the blessings of a general government can be accomplished, cannot be interwoven in the confederation, without a change in its very essence, or, in other words, that the confederation must be thrown aside. This is almost demonstrable from the inefficacy of requisitions, and from the necessity of converting them into acts of authority. My suffrage, as a citizen, is also for additional powers. But to whom shall we commit those acts of authority, these additional powers? To congress? When I formerly lamented the defects in the jurisdiction of congress, I had no view to indicate any other opinion, than that the federal head ought not to be so circumscribed. For free as I am at all times to profess my reverence for that body, and the individuals who compose it, I am yet equally free to make known my aversion to repose such a trust in a tribunal so constituted. My objections are not the visions of theory, but the results of my own observations in America, and of the experience of others abroad. 1. The legislative and executive are concentred in the same persons. This, where real power exists, must eventuate in tyranny. 2. The representation of the States bears no proportion to their importance. This is an unreasonable subjection of the will of the majority to that of the minority, 3. The mode of election and the liability of being recalled, may too often render the delegates rather partizans of their own States than representatives of the union. 4. Cabal and intrigue must consequently gain an ascendancy in a course of years. 5. A single house of legislation will sometimes be precipitate, perhaps passionate. 6. As long as seven States are required for the smallest, and nine for the greatest votes, may not foreign influence at some future day insinuate itself, so as to interrupt every active exertion? 7. To crown the whole, it is scarce within the verge of possibility, that so numerous an assembly should acquire that secrecy, dispatch, and vigour, which are the test of excellence in the executive department.
My inference from these facts and principles, is, that the new powers must be deposited in a new body, growing out of a consolidation of the union, as far as the circumstances of the State will allow. Perhaps, however, some may meditate its dissolution, and others partial confederacies.
The first is an idea awful indeed, and irreconcilable with a very early, and hitherto uniform conviction, that without union, we must be undone. For, before the voice of war was heard, the pulse of the then colonies was tried, and found to beat in unison. The unremitted labor of our enemies was to divide, and the policy of every congress to bind us together. But in no example was this truth more clearly displayed, than in the prudence with which independence was unfolded to the sight, and in the forbearance to declare it, until America almost unanimously called for it. After we had thus launched into troubles, never before explored, and the hour of heavy distress, the remembrance of our social strength not only forbade despair, but drew from congress the most illustrious repetition of their settled purpose to depise all terms, short of independence.
Behold, then, how successful and glorious we have been, while we acted in fraternal concord. But let us discard the illusion, that by this success, and this glory, the crest of danger has irrecoverably fallen. Our governments are yet too youthful to have acquired stability from habit. Our very quiet depends upon the duration of the union. Among the upright and intelligent, few can read without emotion the future fate of the States, if severed from each other. Then shall we learn the full weight of foreign intrigue. Then shall we hear of partitions of our country. If a prince, inflamed by the lust of conquest, should use one State as the instrument of enslaving others—if every State is to be wearied by perpetual alarms, and compelled to maintain large military establishments—if all questions are to be decided by an appeal to arms, where a difference of opinion cannot be removed by negociation—in a word, if all the direful misfortunes which haunt the peace of rival nations, are to triumph over the land, for what have we to contend? why have we exhausted our wealth? why have we basely betrayed the heroic martyrs of the federal cause?