uty, and re-exported without a drawback. Whatever benefit is derived
from this source, surely should not be transferred to another state, at
least till our own debts are cleared.

Another instance of unequal operation is, that it establishes different
degrees of authority in different states, and thus creates different
interests. The lands in New Hampshire having been formerly granted by this
state, and afterwards by that state, to private persons, the whole
authority of trying titles becomes vested in a continental court, and that
state loses a branch of authority, which the others retain, over their own
citizens.

I have now gone through two parts of my argument, and have proved the
efficiency of the state governments for internal regulation, and the
disadvantages of the new system, at least some of the principal. The
argument has been much longer than I at first apprehended, or possibly I
should have been deterred from it. The importance of the question has,
however, prevented me from relinquishing it.

AGRIPPA.

Agrippa, VIII.

The Massachusetts Gazette, (Number 394)

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 25, 1787.

For the Massachusetts Gazette.

TO THE PEOPLE.

It has been proved, by indisputable evidence, that power is not the grand
principle of union among the parts of a very extensive empire; and that
when this principle is pushed beyond the degree necessary for rendering
justice between man and man, it debases the character of individuals, and
renders them less secure in their persons and property. Civil liberty
consists in the consciousness of that security, and is best guarded by
political liberty, which is the share that every citizen has in the
government. Accordingly all our accounts agree, that in those empires
which are commonly called despotick, and which comprehend by far the
greatest part of the world, the government is most fluctuating, and
property least secure. In those countries insults are borne by the
sovereign, which, if offered to one of our governours, would fill us with
horrour, and we should think the government dissolving.

The common conclusion from this reasoning is an exceedingly unfair one,
that we must then separate, and form distinct confederacies. This would be
true if there was no principle to substitute in the room of power.
Fortunately there is one. This is commerce. All the states have local
advantages, and in a considerable degree separate interests. They are,
therefore, in a