Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v2.djvu/230

214 delays, even if they were disposed to carry them into effect; but that, if (which, experience had shown, would often be the case) they should either neglect or refuse to comply with the requisition, no means were pointed out by the Confederation to coerce them, but that it was left, as all leagues among nations, to military force. He showed, in a strong point of view, the danger of applying this; and deduced from all those observations, that the old Confederation was defective in its principle, and impeachable in its execution, as it operated upon states in their political capacity, and not upon individuals; and that it carried with it the seeds of domestic violence, and tended ultimately to its dissolution. He then appealed to our experience in the late war, to show the operation of this system, and demonstrated that it must, from its own construction, leave every state to struggle with its own difficulties, and that none would be roused to action but those that were near the seat of war. He alleged that this idea of a federal republic, on the ground of a league among independent states, had, in every instance, disappointed the expectations of its advocates. He mentioned its effects in the ancient republics, and took a view of the union of the Netherlands, and showed that, even when they were struggling for every thing that was dear to them, in the contest with Spain, they permitted the burden of the war to be borne, in a great measure, by the province of Holland; which was, at one time, compelled to attempt to force a neighboring province, by arms, to a compliance with their federal engagements. He cited the Germanic league, as a proof that no government, formed on the basis of the total independency of its parts, could produce the effects of union. He showed that, notwithstanding the power of their federal head, from his hereditary dominions, the decrees of their general diet were little regarded, and different members of the confederacy were perpetually rushing upon each other's swords.

He then observed upon the necessity of adding to the powers of Congress, that of regulating the militia, referring to the article in the proposed plan, which he said he would not anticipate. He urged the common consent of America as a proof of the necessity of adding the power of regulating commerce to those Congress already possessed, which, he said, not only included those of forming laws, but of deciding upon those laws, and carrying them into effect; that this power