our national system;
but the usefulness of the concession, on the part of the old adversaries
of federal measures, is destroyed by a strenuous opposition to a remedy,
upon the only principles that can give it a chance of success. While
they admit that the government of the United States is destitute of
energy, they contend against conferring upon it those powers which
are requisite to supply that energy. They seem still to aim at things
repugnant and irreconcilable; at an augmentation of federal authority,
without a diminution of State authority; at sovereignty in the Union,
and complete independence in the members. They still, in fine, seem
to cherish with blind devotion the political monster of an imperium in
imperio. This renders a full display of the principal defects of the
Confederation necessary, in order to show that the evils we experience
do not proceed from minute or partial imperfections, but from
fundamental errors in the structure of the building, which cannot be
amended otherwise than by an alteration in the first principles and main
pillars of the fabric.

The great and radical vice in the construction of the existing
Confederation is in the principle of LEGISLATION for STATES or
GOVERNMENTS, in their CORPORATE or COLLECTIVE CAPACITIES, and as
contradistinguished from the INDIVIDUALS of which they consist. Though
this principle does not run through all the powers delegated to the
Union, yet it pervades and governs those on which the efficacy of the
rest depends. Except as to the rule of appointment, the United States
has an indefinite discretion to make requisitions for men and money; but
they have no authority to raise either, by regulations extending to the
individual citizens of America. The consequence of this is, that
though in theory their resolutions concerning those objects are laws,
constitutionally binding on the members of the Union, yet in practice
they are mere recommendations which the States observe or disregard at
their option.

It is a singular instance of the capriciousness of the human mind, that
after all the admonitions we have had from experience on this head,
there should still be found men who object to the new Constitution, for
deviating from a principle which has been found the bane of the old, and
which is in itself evidently incompatible with the idea of GOVERNMENT;
a principle, in short, which, if it is to be executed at all, must
substitute the violent and sanguinary agenc