in the members of the Union are its natural and necessary offspring;
and that whenever they happen, the only constitutional remedy is
force, and the immediate effect of the use of it, civil war.
It remains to inquire how far so odious an engine of government,
in its application to us, would even be capable of answering its end.
If there should not be a large army constantly at the disposal of
the national government it would either not be able to employ force
at all, or, when this could be done, it would amount to a war
between parts of the Confederacy concerning the infractions of a
league, in which the strongest combination would be most likely to
prevail, whether it consisted of those who supported or of those who
resisted the general authority. It would rarely happen that the
delinquency to be redressed would be confined to a single member,
and if there were more than one who had neglected their duty,
similarity of situation would induce them to unite for common
defense. Independent of this motive of sympathy, if a large and
influential State should happen to be the aggressing member, it
would commonly have weight enough with its neighbors to win over
some of them as associates to its cause. Specious arguments of
danger to the common liberty could easily be contrived; plausible
excuses for the deficiencies of the party could, without difficulty,
be invented to alarm the apprehensions, inflame the passions, and
conciliate the good-will, even of those States which were not
chargeable with any violation or omission of duty. This would be
the more likely to take place, as the delinquencies of the larger
members might be expected sometimes to proceed from an ambitious
premeditation in their rulers, with a view to getting rid of all
external control upon their designs of personal aggrandizement; the
better to effect which it is presumable they would tamper beforehand
with leading individuals in the adjacent States. If associates