Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v3.djvu/98

82 Reflect but a moment on our situation. Does it not invite real hostility? The conduct of the British ministry to us is the natural effect of our unnerved government. Consider the commercial regulations between us and Maryland. Is it not known to gentlemen that the states have been making reprisals on each other—to obviate a repetition of which, in some degree, these regulations have been made? Can we not see, from this circumstance, the jealousy, rivalship, and hatred that would subsist between them, in case this state was out of the Union? They are importing states, and importing states will ever be competitors and rivals. Rhode Island and Connecticut have been on the point oi war, on the subject of their paper money; Congress did not attempt to interpose. When Massachusetts was distressed by the late insurrection, Congress could not relieve her. Who headed that insurrection? Recollect the facility with which it was raised, and the very little ability of the ring leader, and you cannot but deplore the extreme debility of our merely nominal government. We are too despicable to be regarded by foreign nations. The defects of the Confederation consisted principally in the want of power: it had nominally powers, powers on paper, which it could not use. The power of making peace and war is expressly delegated to Congress; yet the power of granting passports, though within that of making peace and war, was considered by Virginia as belonging to herself. Without adequate powers vested in Congress, America cannot be respectable in the eyes of other nations. Congress, sir, ought to be fully vested with power to support the Union, protect the interests of the United States, maintain their commerce, and defend them from external invasions and insults, and internal insurrections; to maintain justice, and promote harmony and public tranquillity among the states.

A government not vested with these powers will ever be found unable to make us happy or respectable. How far the Confederation is different from such a government, is known to all America. Instead of being able to cherish and protect the states, it has been unable to defend itself against the encroachments made upon it by the states. Every one of them has conspired against it; Virginia as much as any This fact could be proved by reference to actual history. I might quote the observations of an able modern author, not