situation to supply each other's wants. Carolina, for
instance, is inhabited by planters, while the Massachusetts is more
engaged in commerce and manufactures. Congress has the power of deciding
their differences. The most friendly intercourse may therefore be
established between them. A diversity of produce, wants and interests,
produces commerce; and commerce, where there is a common, equal and
moderate authority to preside, produces friendship.

The same principles apply to the connection with the new settlers in the
west. Many supplies they want for which they must look to the older
settlements, and the greatness of their crops enables them to make
payments. Here, then, we have a bond of union which applies to all parts
of the empire, and would continue to operate if the empire comprehended
all America.

We are now, in the strictest sense of the terms, a federal republick. Each
part has within its own limits the sovereignty over its citizens, while
some of the general concerns are committed to Congress. The complaints of
the deficiency of the Congressional powers are confined to two articles.
They are not able to raise a revenue by taxation, and they have not a
complete regulation of the intercourse between us and foreigners. For each
of these complaints there is some foundation, but not enough to justify
the clamour which has been raised. Congress, it is true, owes a debt which
ought to be paid. A considerable part of it has been paid. Our share of
what remains would annually amount to about sixty or seventy thousand
pounds. If, therefore, Congress were put in possession of such branches of
the impost as would raise this sum in our state, we should fairly be
considered as having done our part towards their debt; and our remaining
resources, whether arising from impost, excise, or dry tax, might be
applied to the reduction of our own debt. The principal of this last
amounts to about thirteen hundred thousand pounds, and the interest to
between seventy or eighty thousand. This is, surely, too much property to
be sacrificed; and it is as reasonable that it should be paid as the
continental debt. But if the new system should be adopted, the whole
impost, with an unlimited claim to excise and dry tax, will be given to
Congress. There will remain no adequate found for the state debt, and the
state will still be subject to be sued on their notes. This is, then, an
article which ought to be limited. We can, without diffic