As CONNECTED with the subject of revenue, we may with propriety
consider that of economy. The money saved from one object may be
usefully applied to another, and there will be so much the less to
be drawn from the pockets of the people. If the States are united
under one government, there will be but one national civil list to
support; if they are divided into several confederacies, there will
be as many different national civil lists to be provided for--and
each of them, as to the principal departments, coextensive with that
which would be necessary for a government of the whole. The entire
separation of the States into thirteen unconnected sovereignties is
a project too extravagant and too replete with danger to have many
advocates. The ideas of men who speculate upon the dismemberment of
the empire seem generally turned toward three confederacies--one
consisting of the four Northern, another of the four Middle, and a
third of the five Southern States. There is little probability that
there would be a greater number. According to this distribution,
each confederacy would comprise an extent of territory larger than
that of the kingdom of Great Britain. No well-informed man will
suppose that the affairs of such a confederacy can be properly
regulated by a government less comprehensive in its organs or
institutions than that which has been proposed by the convention.
When the dimensions of a State attain to a certain magnitude, it
requires the same energy of government and the same forms of
administration which are requisite in one of much greater extent.
This idea admits not of precise demonstration, because there is no
rule by which we can measure the momentum of civil power necessary
to the government of any given number of individuals; but when we
consider that the island of Britain, nearly commensurate with each
of the supposed confederacies, contains about eight millions of
people, and when we reflect upon the degree of authority required to