es. The endless confusion that would arise from
making the estates of individuals answerable, must be obvious to every
one.

There is another sense in which the clause relating to causes between the
state and individuals is to be understood, and it is more probable than
the other, as it will be eternal in its duration, and increasing in its
extent. This is the whole branch of the law relating to criminal
prosecutions. In all such cases, the state is plaintiff, and the person
accused is defendant. The process, therefore, will be, for the
attorney-general of the state to commence his suit before a continental
court. Considering the state as a party, the cause must be tried in
another, and all the expense of transporting witnesses incurred. The
individual is to take his trial among strangers, friendless and
unsupported, without its being known whether he is habitually a good or a
bad man; and consequently with one essential circumstance wanting by which
to determine whether the action was performed maliciously or accidentally.
All these inconveniences are avoided by the present important restriction,
that the cause shall be tried by a jury of the vicinity, and tried in the
county where the offence was committed. But by the proposed _derangement_,
I can call it by no softer name, a man must be ruined to prove his
innocence. This is far from being a forced construction of the proposed
form. The words appear to me not intelligible, upon the idea that it is to
be a _system_ of government, unless the construction now given, both for
civil and criminal processes, be admitted. I do not say that it is
intended that all these changes should take place within one year, but
they probably will in the course of half a dozen years, if this system is
adopted. In the meantime we shall be subject to all the horrors of a
divided sovereignty, not knowing whether to obey the Congress or the
State. We shall find it impossible to please two masters. In such a state
frequent broils will ensue. Advantage will be taken of a popular
commotion, and even the venerable forms of the state be done away, while
the new system will be enforced in its utmost rigour by an army.--I am the
more apprehensive of a standing army, on account of a clause in the new
constitution which empowers Congress to keep one at all times; but this
constitution is evidently such that it cannot stand any considerable time
without an army. Upon this principle one is very wisely pr