defign of a great confederacy, which it is incumbeng on their fucceffors to improve and perpetuate. If their works betray imperfections, we wonder at the fewness of them. If they erred moft in the ftructure of the union, this was the work most difficult to be executed, this is the work which has been new modelled by the act of your convention, and it is that act on which you are now to deliberate and to decide.

PUBLIUS.

NUMBER XV.

Concerning the Defects of the prefent Confe deration, in Relation to the Principle of Legiflation for the States in their collective Capacities.

N the courfe of the preceding papers, I have endea

Ivoured, my fellow citizens, to place before you, in a clear and convincing light, the importance of union to your political fafety and happiness. I have unfolded to you a complication of dangers to which you would be expofed should you permit that facred knot, which binds the people of America together, to be fevered or diffolved by ambition or by avarice, by jealoufy or by mifreprefentation. In the fequel of the inquiry, through which I propofe to accompany you, the truths intended to be inculcated will receive further confirmation from facts and arguments hitherto unnoticed. If the road, over which you will ftill have to pass, should in fome places appear to you tedious or irkfome, you will recollect, that you are in queft of information on a fubject the most momentous, which can engage the attention of a free people: That the field through which you have to travel is in itself

fpacious,

fpacious, and that the difficulties of the journey have been unneceffarily increafed by the mazes with which fophiftry has befet the way. It will be my aim to remove the obitacles to your progrefs in as compen dious a manner, as it can be done, without facrificing utility to difpatch.

"

In purfuance of the plan, which I have laid down, for the difcuffion of the fubject, the point next in order to be examined is the infufficiency of the prefent "confederation to the prefervation of the union." It may perhaps be afked, what need is there of reafoning or proof to illuftrate a pofition, which is neither controverted nor doubted ; to which the understandings and feelings of all claffes of men affent; and which in fubftance is admitted by the opponents as well as by the friends of the new cortftitution It must in truth be acknowledged that however thefe may differ in other refpects, they in general appear to harmonife in this fentiment at leaft, that there are material imperfections in our national fyftem, and that fomething is neceflary to be done to refcue us from impending anarchy. The fats that fupport this opinion are no longer objects of fpeculation. They have forced themselves upon the fenfibility of the people at large, and have at length extorted from thofe, whofe mistaken policy has had the prin cipal thare in precipitating the extremity, at which we are arrived, a reluctant confeffion of the reality of many of thofe defects in the fcheme of our federal government, which have been long pointed out and regretted by the intelligent friends of the union.

We may indeed with propriety be faid to have reached almoft the laft ftage of national humiliation. There is fcarcely any thing that can wound the pride, or degrade the character of an independent nation, which we do not experience. Are there engagements to the pe: formance of which we are held by every tie refpectable among men? Thefe are the fubjects of conftant and unblushing violation. Do we owe debts

to foreigners and to our own citizens contracted in a time of imminent peril, for the preservation of our political existence? Thefe remain without any proper or fatisfactory provision for their difcharge. Have we valuable territories and important pofts in the poffeffioa. of a foreign power, which by exprefs ftipulations ought long fince to have been furrendered? Thefe are fill retained, to the prejudice of our interefts not less than of our rights. Are we in a condition to refent, or to repel the aggression ? We have neither troops nor treafury nor government.* Are we even in a condition to remonstrate with dignity? The just impu tations on our own faith, in respect to the fame treaty, ought first to be removed. Are we entitled by nature and compact to a free participation in the navigation of the Mithilippi? Spain excludes us from it. Is public credit an indifpenfable refource in time of public danger? We feem to have abandoned its caufe as defperate and irretrievable. Is commerce of importance to national wealth? Ours is at the lowest point of declenfion. Is refpectability in the eyes of foreign. powers a fafeguard against foreign encroachments? The imbecillity of our government even forbids them to treat with us: Our ambaffadors abroad are the mere pageants of mimic fovereignty. Is a violent and unnatural decrease in the value of land a fymptom of national diftress? The price of improved land in moft parts of the country is much lower than can be accounted for by the quantity of waste land at market, and can only be fully explained by that want of private and public confidence, which are fo alarmingly prevalent among all ranks and which have a direct tendency to depreciate property of every kind. Is private credit the friend and patron of induftry? That most useful kind which relates to borrowing and. lending is reduced within the narrowest limits, and this ftill more from an opinion of infecurity than from a fcarcity of money. To shorten an enumeration

# I mean for the union.

of

of particulars which can afford neither pleasure nor inftruction it may in general be demanded, what indication is there of national diforder, poverty and infignificance that could beful a community fo peculiarly bleffed with natural advantages as we are, which does not form a part of the dark catalogue of our public misfortunes ?

This is the melancholy fituation to which we have been brought by thofe very maxims and councils, which would now deter us from adopting the propofed conftitution; and which not content with having conducted us to the brink of a precipice, feem refolved to plunge us into the abyfs, that awaits us below. Here, my countrymen, impelled by every motive that ought to influence an enlightened people, let us make a firm ftand for our fafety, our tranquility, our dignity, our reputation. Let us at laft break the fatal charm which has too long feduced us from the paths of felicity and profperity.

It is true, as has been before obferved, that facts too stubborn to be refifted have produced a fpecies of general affent to the abftract propofition that there exist material defects in our national fyftem; but the usefulness of the conceffion, on the part of the old adverfaries of federal measures, is deftroyed by a frenous oppofition to a remedy, upon the only principles, that can give it a chance of fuccefs. While

they admit that the government of the United States is deftitute of energy, they contend against conferring upon it thofe powers which are requifite to fupply that energy: They feem ftill to aim at things repugnant and irreconcilable-at an augmentation of federal authority without a dimunition of state authority-at fovereignty in the union and complete independence in the members. They ftill, in fine, feem to cherish with blind devotion the political monfter of an imperium in imperio. This renders a full difplay of the principal defects of the confederation neceffary, in order to fhew, that the evils we experience do not proceed

H 3

from

from minute or partial imperfections, but from fundamental errors in the ftructure of the building which cannot be amended otherwife than by an alteration in the first principles and main pillars of the fabric.

The great and radical vice in the construction of the exifting confederation is in the principle of LEGISLATION for STATES or GOVERNMENTS, in their CORPORATE OF COLLECTIVE CAPACITIES, and as contradiftinguished from the INDIVIDUALS of whom they confift. Though this principle does not run through all the powers delegated to the union; yet it pervades and governs thofe, on which the efficacy of the reft depends. Except as to the rule of apportionment, the United States have an indefinite difcretion to make requifitions for men and money; but they have no authority to raise either by regulations extending to the individual citizens of America. The confequence of this is, that though in theory their refolutions concerning thofe objects are laws, conftitutionally binding on the members of the union, yet in practice they are mere recommendations, which the ftates obferve or difregard at their option.

It is a fingular inftance of the capriciousness of the human mind, that after all the admonitions we have had from experience on this head, there fhould still be found men, who object to the new conftitution for deviating from a principle which has been found the bane of the old; and which is in itfelf evidently incompatible with the idea of GOVERNMENT; a principle in fhort which, if it is to be executed at all, muft fubftitute the violent and fanguinary agency of the fword to the mild influence of the magistracy.

There is nothing abfurd or impracticable in the idea of a league or alliance between independent nations, for certain defined purposes precifely ftated' in a treaty; regulating all the details of time, place, circumftance and quantity; leaving nothing to future difcretion; and depending for its execution on the good faith of the parties, Compacts of this kind