e States are united under one government,
there will be but one national civil list to support; if they are
divided into several confederacies, there will be as many different
national civil lists to be provided for--and each of them, as to the
principal departments, coextensive with that which would be necessary
for a government of the whole. The entire separation of the States into
thirteen unconnected sovereignties is a project too extravagant and
too replete with danger to have many advocates. The ideas of men who
speculate upon the dismemberment of the empire seem generally turned
toward three confederacies--one consisting of the four Northern, another
of the four Middle, and a third of the five Southern States. There is
little probability that there would be a greater number. According
to this distribution, each confederacy would comprise an extent
of territory larger than that of the kingdom of Great Britain. No
well-informed man will suppose that the affairs of such a confederacy
can be properly regulated by a government less comprehensive in
its organs or institutions than that which has been proposed by
the convention. When the dimensions of a State attain to a certain
magnitude, it requires the same energy of government and the same forms
of administration which are requisite in one of much greater extent.
This idea admits not of precise demonstration, because there is no rule
by which we can measure the momentum of civil power necessary to the
government of any given number of individuals; but when we consider that
the island of Britain, nearly commensurate with each of the supposed
confederacies, contains about eight millions of people, and when we
reflect upon the degree of authority required to direct the passions of
so large a society to the public good, we shall see no reason to doubt
that the like portion of power would be sufficient to perform the same
task in a society far more numerous. Civil power, properly organized and
exerted, is capable of diffusing its force to a very great extent; and
can, in a manner, reproduce itself in every part of a great empire by a
judicious arrangement of subordinate institutions.

The supposition that each confederacy into which the States would be
likely to be divided would require a government not less comprehensive
than the one proposed, will be strengthened by another supposition, more
probable than that which presents us with three confederacies as the
alternati