charm which has too long
seduced us from the paths of felicity and prosperity.

It is true, as has been before observed, that facts too stubborn to be
resisted have produced a species of general assent to the abstract
proposition that there exist material defects in our national system;
but the usefulness of the concession, on the part of the old
adversaries of federal measures, is destroyed by a strenuous
opposition to a remedy, upon the only principles that can give it a
chance of success. While they admit that the government of the United
States is destitute of energy, they contend against conferring upon it
those powers which are requisite to supply that energy. They seem
still to aim at things repugnant and irreconcilable; at an
augmentation of federal authority, without a diminution of State
authority; at sovereignty in the Union, and complete independence in
the members. They still, in fine, seem to cherish with blind devotion
the political monster of an _imperium in imperio_. This renders a full
display of the principal defects of the confederation necessary in
order to show that the evils we experience do not proceed from minute
or partial imperfections, but from fundamental errors in the structure
of the building, which can not be amended otherwise than by an
alteration in the very elements and main pillars of the fabric.

The great and radical vice in the construction of the existing
confederation is in the principle of legislation for states or
governments in their corporate or collective capacities, and as
contra-distinguished from the individuals of whom they consist. Tho
this principle does not run through all the powers delegated to the
Union; yet it pervades and governs those on which the efficacy of the
rest depends: except as to the rule of apportionment, the United
States have an indefinite discretion to make requisitions for men and
money; but they have no authority to raise either by regulations
extending to the individual citizens of America. The consequence of
this is that, tho in theory their resolutions concerning those objects
are laws constitutionally binding on the members of the Union, yet in
practise they are mere recommendations, which the States observe or
disregard at their option.

It is a singular instance of the capriciousness of the human mind that
after all the admonitions we have had from experience on this head,
there should still be found men who object to the new constituti