Page:Federalist, Dawson edition, 1863.djvu/276

  in place of law, or the destructive coercion of the sword in place of the mild and salutary coercion of the magistracy. PUBLIUS. 

For the Independent Journal.

THE FŒDERALIST. No. XXI.

:

AVING in the three last numbers taken a summary review of the principal circumstances and events, which have depicted the genius and fate of other confederate Governments, I shall now proceed in the enumeration of the most important of those defects, which have hitherto disappointed our hopes from the system established among ourselves. To form a safe and satisfactory judgment of the proper remedy, it is absolutely necessary that we should be well acquainted with the extent and malignity of the disease.

The next most palpable defect of the subsisting Confederation, is the total want of a to its laws. The United States, as now composed, have no powers to exact obedience, or punish disobedience to their resolutions, either by pecuniary mulcts, by a suspension or divestiture of privileges, or by any other constitutional mode. There is no express delegation of authority to them to use force against delinquent members; and if such a right should be ascribed to the Fœderal head, as resulting from the nature of the social compact between the States, it must be by inference and construction, in the face of that part of the second Article, by which it is declared, "that each State shall retain every power, jurisdiction, and 