herself
to have been injured by the decision; and States, like individuals,
acquiesce with great reluctance in determinations to their disadvantage.

Those who had an opportunity of seeing the inside of the transactions
which attended the progress of the controversy between this State and
the district of Vermont, can vouch the opposition we experienced, as
well from States not interested as from those which were interested
in the claim; and can attest the danger to which the peace of the
Confederacy might have been exposed, had this State attempted to assert
its rights by force. Two motives preponderated in that opposition: one,
a jealousy entertained of our future power; and the other, the interest
of certain individuals of influence in the neighboring States, who had
obtained grants of lands under the actual government of that district.
Even the States which brought forward claims, in contradiction to ours,
seemed more solicitous to dismember this State, than to establish
their own pretensions. These were New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and
Connecticut. New Jersey and Rhode Island, upon all occasions, discovered
a warm zeal for the independence of Vermont; and Maryland, till alarmed
by the appearance of a connection between Canada and that State, entered
deeply into the same views. These being small States, saw with an
unfriendly eye the perspective of our growing greatness. In a review of
these transactions we may trace some of the causes which would be
likely to embroil the States with each other, if it should be their
unpropitious destiny to become disunited.

The competitions of commerce would be another fruitful source of
contention. The States less favorably circumstanced would be desirous
of escaping from the disadvantages of local situation, and of sharing
in the advantages of their more fortunate neighbors. Each State,
or separate confederacy, would pursue a system of commercial policy
peculiar to itself. This would occasion distinctions, preferences, and
exclusions, which would beget discontent. The habits of intercourse, on
the basis of equal privileges, to which we have been accustomed since
the earliest settlement of the country, would give a keener edge to
those causes of discontent than they would naturally have independent
of this circumstance. WE SHOULD BE READY TO DENOMINATE INJURIES THOSE
THINGS WHICH WERE IN REALITY THE JUSTIFIABLE ACTS OF INDEPENDENT
SOVEREIGNTIES CONSULTING A DISTINCT INTEREST. T