Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v3.djvu/148

132 their misfortunes, and that she may escape a similar fate by avoiding the causes from which their infelicity sprang. If the general government is to depend on the voluntary contribution of the states for its support, dismemberment of the United States may be the consequence. In cases of imminent danger, the states more immediately exposed to it only would exert themselves; those remote from it would be too supine to interest themselves warmly in the fate of those whose distresses they did not immediately perceive. The general government ought, therefore, to be empowered to defend the whole Union.

Must we not suppose that those parts of America which are most exposed will first be the scenes of war? Those nations whose interest is incompatible with an extension of our power, and who are jealous of our resources to become powerful and wealthy, must naturally be inclined to exert every means to prevent our becoming formidable. Will they not be impelled to attack the most exposed parts of the Union? Will not their knowledge of the weakness of our government stimulate them the more readily to such an at tack? Those parts to which relief can be afforded with most difficulty are the extremities of the country, and will be the first objects of our enemies. The general government, having no resources beyond what are adequate to its existing necessities, will not be able to afford any effectual succor to those parts which may be invaded.

America, in such a case, would palpably perceive the danger and folly of withholding from the Union a power sufficient to protect the whole territory of the United States. Such an attack is far from improbable; and if it be actually made, it is difficult to conceive a possibility of escaping the catastrophe of a dismemberment. On this subject we may receive an estimable and instructive lesson from an American confederacy—from an example which has happened in our country, and which applies to us with peculiar force, being most analogous to our situation: I mean that species of association or union which subsisted in New England. The colonies of Massachusetts, Bristol, Connecticut, and New Hampshire, were confederated together.

The object of that confederacy was, primarily, to defend themselves against the inroads and depredations of the Indians. They had a common council, consisting of deputies