Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v2.djvu/144

128 the manner of choosing senators under the constitution of Maryland.

The legislative cowers of the President are precisely those of the governors of this state and those of New York—rather negative than positive powers, given with a view to secure the independence of the executive, and to preserve a uniformity in the laws which are committed to them to execute.

The executive powers of the President are very similar to those of the several states, except in those points which relate more particularly to the Union, and respect ambassadors, public ministers, and consuls.

Of the genius of the people of the states, as expressed by their different constitutions of government, if the similarity of each, and the general spirit of governments, concur to point out the policy of a confederate government, by comparing the federal Constitution with those of the several states, can we expect one more applicable to the people, to the different states, and to the purposes of the Union, than the one proposed, unless it should be contended that a union was unnecessary?

"If a republic is small," says Baron Montesquieu, "it is destroyed by a foreign force; if it is large, it is ruined by an internal imperfection"—"Fato potentiæ sua vi nixæ." And if mankind had not contrived a confederate republic, says the same author, "a constitution that has all the internal advantages of a republican, and the external force of a monarchical government," they would probably have always lived under the tyranny of a single person. Admitting this principle of Baron Montesquieu's, the several states are either too small to be defended against a foreign enemy, or too large for republican constitutions of government. If we apply the first position to the different states, which reason and the experience of the late war point out to be true, a confederate government is necessary. But if we admit the latter position, then the several governments, being in their own nature imperfect, will be necessarily destroyed, from their being too extensive for republican governments.

From whence it follows, if the foregoing principles are true, that we ought to adopt a confederation, presuming the different states well calculated for republican governments