Page:Federalist, Dawson edition, 1863.djvu/230

 Erie lies below that latitude. Computing the distance between the thirty-first and forty-fifth degrees, it amounts to nine hundred and seventy-three common miles; computing it from thirty-one to forty-two degrees, to seven hundred sixty-four miles and a half. Taking the mean for the distance, the amount will be eight hundred sixty-eight miles and three-fourths. The mean distance from the Atlantic to the Mississippi does not probably exceed seven hundred and fifty miles. On a comparison of this extent with that of several countries in Europe, the practicability of rendering our system commensurate to it appears to be demonstrable. It is not a great deal larger than Germany, where a Diet, representing the whole empire, is continually assembled; or than Poland before the late dismemberment, where another National Diet was the depositary of the supreme power. Passing by France and Spain, we find that in Great Britain, inferior as it may be in size, the representatives of the northern extremity of the island have as far to travel to the National Council, as will be required of those of the most remote parts of the Union.

Favorable as this view of the subject may be, some observations remain, which will place it in a light still more satisfactory.

In the first place it is to be remembered, that the general Government is not to be charged with the whole power of making and administering laws. Its jurisdiction is limited to certain enumerated objects, which concern all the members of the republic, but which are not to be attained by the separate provisions of any. The subordinate Governments, which can extend their care to all those other objects which can be separately provided for, will retain their due authority and activity. Were it proposed by the plan of the Convention to abolish the Governments of the particular States, its adversaries would have some ground for their objection; though it