Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v1.djvu/504

484 beyond that of enlistments,—this resource ought to be adopted with caution.

As strongly, too, am I persuaded that the requisitions for money will not be more cordially received; for, besides the distrust which would prevail with respect to them also, besides the opinion entertained by each state of its own liberality and unsatisfied demands against the United States, there is another consideration, not less worthy of attention—the first rule for determining each quota by the value of all lands granted or surveyed, and of the buildings and improvements thereon. It is no longer doubted that an equitable, uniform mode of estimating that value is impracticable; and therefore twelve states have substituted the number of inhabitants, under certain limitations, as the standard according to which money is to be furnished. But under the subsisting articles of the Union, the assent of the thirteenth state is necessary, and has not yet been given. This does itself lessen the hope of procuring a revenue for federal uses; and the miscarriage of the impost almost rivets our despondency.

Amidst these disappointments, it would afford some consolation, if, when rebellion shall threaten any state, an ultimate asylum could be found under the wing of Congress. But it is at least equivocal whether they can intrude forces into a state rent asunder by civil discord, even with the purest solicitude for our federal welfare, and on the most urgent entreaties of the state itself. Nay, the very allowance of this power would be pageantry alone, from the want of money and of men.

To these defects of congressional power, the history of man has subjoined others, not less alarming. I earnestly pray that the recollection of common sufferings, which terminated in common glory, may check the sallies of violence, and perpetuate mutual friendship between the states. But I cannot presume that we are superior to those unsocial passions which, under like circumstances, have infested more ancient nations. I cannot presume that, through all time, in the daily mixture of American citizens with each other, in the conflicts for commercial advantages, in the discontents which the neighborhood of territory has been seen to engender in other quarters of the globe, and in the efforts of faction and intrigue,—thirteen distinct communities, under no effective superintending control, (as the United States confessedly now are, notwithstanding the bold terms of the Confederation,) will avoid a hatred to each other deep and deadly.

In the prosecution of this inquiry, we shall find the general prosperity to decline under a system thus unnerved. No sooner is the merchant prepared for foreign ports, with the treasures which this new world kindly offers to his acceptance, than it is announced to him that they are shut against. American shipping, or opened under oppressive regulations. He urges Congress to a counter-policy, and is answered only by a condolence on the general misfortune. He is immediately struck with the conviction that, until exclusion shall be opposed to exclusion, and restriction to restriction, the American flag will be disgraced; for who can conceive that thirteen legislatures, viewing commerce under different points of view, and fancying themselves discharged from every obligation to concede the smallest of their commercial advantages for the benefit of the whole, will be wrought into a concert of action, and defiance of every prejudice? Nor is this all. Let the great improvements be recounted which have enriched and illustrated Europe; let it be noted how few those are which will be absolutely denied to the United States, comprehending within their