bloody wars, in which one half of the confederacy has displayed its
banners against the other half.
The result of these observations to an intelligent mind must be
clearly this, that if it be possible at any rate to construct a
federal government capable of regulating the common concerns and
preserving the general tranquillity, it must be founded, as to the
objects committed to its care, upon the reverse of the principle
contended for by the opponents of the proposed Constitution. It
must carry its agency to the persons of the citizens. It must stand
in need of no intermediate legislations; but must itself be
empowered to employ the arm of the ordinary magistrate to execute
its own resolutions. The majesty of the national authority must be
manifested through the medium of the courts of justice. The
government of the Union, like that of each State, must be able to
address itself immediately to the hopes and fears of individuals;
and to attract to its support those passions which have the
strongest influence upon the human heart. It must, in short,
possess all the means, and have aright to resort to all the methods,
of executing the powers with which it is intrusted, that are
possessed and exercised by the government of the particular States.
To this reasoning it may perhaps be objected, that if any State
should be disaffected to the authority of the Union, it could at any
time obstruct the execution of its laws, and bring the matter to the
same issue of force, with the necessity of which the opposite scheme
is reproached.
The plausibility of this objection will vanish the moment we
advert to the essential difference between a mere NON-COMPLIANCE and
a DIRECT and ACTIVE RESISTANCE. If the interposition of the State
legislatures be necessary to give effect to a measure of the Union,
they have only NOT TO ACT, or to ACT EVASIVELY, and the measure is