occur, would open a wide field for the exercise of factious views,
of partiality, and of oppression, in the majority that happened to
prevail in the national council.
It seems to require no pains to prove that the States ought not
to prefer a national Constitution which could only be kept in motion
by the instrumentality of a large army continually on foot to
execute the ordinary requisitions or decrees of the government. And
yet this is the plain alternative involved by those who wish to deny
it the power of extending its operations to individuals. Such a
scheme, if practicable at all, would instantly degenerate into a
military despotism; but it will be found in every light
impracticable. The resources of the Union would not be equal to the
maintenance of an army considerable enough to confine the larger
States within the limits of their duty; nor would the means ever be
furnished of forming such an army in the first instance. Whoever
considers the populousness and strength of several of these States
singly at the present juncture, and looks forward to what they will
become, even at the distance of half a century, will at once dismiss
as idle and visionary any scheme which aims at regulating their
movements by laws to operate upon them in their collective
capacities, and to be executed by a coercion applicable to them in
the same capacities. A project of this kind is little less romantic
than the monster-taming spirit which is attributed to the fabulous
heroes and demi-gods of antiquity.
Even in those confederacies which have been composed of members
smaller than many of our counties, the principle of legislation for
sovereign States, supported by military coercion, has never been
found effectual. It has rarely been attempted to be employed, but
against the weaker members; and in most instances attempts to
coerce the refractory and disobedient have been the signals of