ust be renounced. Usurpation
may rear its crest in each State, and trample upon the liberties of the
people, while the national government could legally do nothing more
than behold its encroachments with indignation and regret. A successful
faction may erect a tyranny on the ruins of order and law, while no
succor could constitutionally be afforded by the Union to the friends
and supporters of the government. The tempestuous situation from which
Massachusetts has scarcely emerged, evinces that dangers of this kind
are not merely speculative. Who can determine what might have been the
issue of her late convulsions, if the malcontents had been headed by
a Caesar or by a Cromwell? Who can predict what effect a despotism,
established in Massachusetts, would have upon the liberties of New
Hampshire or Rhode Island, of Connecticut or New York?

The inordinate pride of State importance has suggested to some minds an
objection to the principle of a guaranty in the federal government,
as involving an officious interference in the domestic concerns of the
members. A scruple of this kind would deprive us of one of the
principal advantages to be expected from union, and can only flow from
a misapprehension of the nature of the provision itself. It could be
no impediment to reforms of the State constitution by a majority of
the people in a legal and peaceable mode. This right would remain
undiminished. The guaranty could only operate against changes to be
effected by violence. Towards the preventions of calamities of this
kind, too many checks cannot be provided. The peace of society and
the stability of government depend absolutely on the efficacy of
the precautions adopted on this head. Where the whole power of the
government is in the hands of the people, there is the less pretense for
the use of violent remedies in partial or occasional distempers of
the State. The natural cure for an ill-administration, in a popular
or representative constitution, is a change of men. A guaranty by the
national authority would be as much levelled against the usurpations of
rulers as against the ferments and outrages of faction and sedition in
the community.

The principle of regulating the contributions of the States to
the common treasury by QUOTAS is another fundamental error in the
Confederation. Its repugnancy to an adequate supply of the national
exigencies has been already pointed out, and has sufficiently appeared
from the trial which h