Page:Federalist, Dawson edition, 1863.djvu/224



For the Independent Journal.

THE FŒDERALIST. No. XIII.



S connected with the subject of revenue, we may with propriety consider that of economy. The money saved from one object may be usefully applied to another; and there will be so much the less to be drawn from the pockets of the people. If the States are united under one Government, there will be but one National civil list to support: if they are divided into several Confederacies, there will be as many different National civil lists to be provided for; and each of them, as to the principal departments, coextensive with that which would be necessary for a Government of the whole. The entire separation of the States into thirteen unconnected sovereignties is a project too extravagant, and too replete with danger, to have many advocates. The ideas of men who speculate upon the dismemberment of the empire, seem generally turned towards three Confederacies; one consisting of the four Northern, another of the four Middle, and a third of the five Southern States. There is little probability that there would be a greater number. According to this distribution, each Confederacy would comprise an extent of territory larger than that of the kingdom of Great Britain. No well-informed man will suppose that the affairs of such a Confederacy can be properly regulated by a Government less comprehensive in its organs or institutions than that which has been proposed by the Convention. When the dimensions of a State attain to a certain magnitude, it requires the same energy