ine it would have found advocates even in the warmest friends of the
present system. The authority of training the militia and appointing the
officers is reserved to the States. But Congress ought to have the power
of establishing a uniform system of discipline throughout the States;
and to provide for the execution of the laws, suppress insurrections,
and repel invasions. These are the only cases wherein they can interfere
with the militia; and the obvious necessity of their having power over
them in these cases must flash conviction on any reflecting mind.
Without uniformity of discipline, military bodies would be incapable of
action; without a general controlling power to call forth the strength
of the Union, for the purpose of repelling invasions, the country might
be overrun and conquered by foreign enemies. Without such a power to
suppress insurrections, our liberties might be destroyed by intestine
faction, and domestic tyranny be established.

Give me leave to say something of the nature of the government, and to
show that it is perfectly safe and just to vest it with the power of
taxation. There are a number of opinions; but the principal question is,
whether it be a federal or a consolidated government. In order to judge
properly of the question before us, we must consider it minutely, in its
principal parts. I myself conceive that it is of a mixed nature; it is,
in a manner, unprecedented. We cannot find one express prototype in the
experience of the world: it stands by itself. In some respects, it is a
government of a federal nature; in others, it is of a consolidated
nature. Even if we attend to the manner in which the Constitution is
investigated, ratified, and made the act of the people of America, I can
say, notwithstanding what the honorable gentleman has alleged, that this
government is not completely consolidated; nor is it entirely federal.
Who are the parties to it? The people--not the people as composing one
great body, but the people as composing thirteen sovereignties. Were it,
as the gentleman asserts, a consolidated government, the assent of a
majority of the people would be sufficient for its establishment, and as
a majority have adopted it already, the remaining States would be bound
by the act of the majority, even if they unanimously reprobated it. Were
it such a government as is suggested, it would be now binding on the
people of this State, without having had the privilege of deliberating