deeply interested in the preservation of
every part; which, from the responsibility implied in the duty assigned
to it, will be most sensibly impressed with the necessity of proper
exertions; and which, by the extension of its authority throughout the
States, can alone establish uniformity and concert in the plans and
measures by which the common safety is to be secured? Is there not a
manifest inconsistency in devolving upon the federal government the
care of the general defense, and leaving in the State governments the
EFFECTIVE powers by which it is to be provided for? Is not a want of
co-operation the infallible consequence of such a system? And will not
weakness, disorder, an undue distribution of the burdens and calamities
of war, an unnecessary and intolerable increase of expense, be its
natural and inevitable concomitants? Have we not had unequivocal
experience of its effects in the course of the revolution which we have
just accomplished?

Every view we may take of the subject, as candid inquirers after truth,
will serve to convince us, that it is both unwise and dangerous to deny
the federal government an unconfined authority, as to all those objects
which are intrusted to its management. It will indeed deserve the most
vigilant and careful attention of the people, to see that it be modeled
in such a manner as to admit of its being safely vested with the
requisite powers. If any plan which has been, or may be, offered to our
consideration, should not, upon a dispassionate inspection, be found
to answer this description, it ought to be rejected. A government, the
constitution of which renders it unfit to be trusted with all the powers
which a free people ought to delegate to any government, would be an
unsafe and improper depositary of the NATIONAL INTERESTS. Wherever
THESE can with propriety be confided, the coincident powers may safely
accompany them. This is the true result of all just reasoning upon the
subject. And the adversaries of the plan promulgated by the convention
ought to have confined themselves to showing, that the internal
structure of the proposed government was such as to render it unworthy
of the confidence of the people. They ought not to have wandered into
inflammatory declamations and unmeaning cavils about the extent of the
powers. The POWERS are not too extensive for the OBJECTS of federal
administration, or, in other words, for the management of our NATIONAL
INTERESTS; nor can any sat