Page:Federalist, Dawson edition, 1863.djvu/277

 right, not expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled." There is, doubtless, a striking absurdity in supposing that a right of this kind does not exist, but we are reduced to the dilemma either of embracing that supposition, preposterous as it may seem, or of contravening or explaining away a provision, which has been of late a repeated theme of the eulogies of those who oppose the new Constitution; and the want of which, in that plan, has been the subject of much plausible animadversion, and severe criticism. If we are unwilling to impair the force of this applauded provision, we shall be obliged to conclude, that the United States afford the extraordinary spectacle of a Government, destitute even of the shadow of constitutional power to enforce the execution of its own laws. It will appear, from the specimens which have been cited, that the American Confederacy, in this particular, stands discriminated from every other institution of a similar kind, and exhibits a new and unexampled phenomenon in the political world.

The want of a mutual guaranty of the State Governments is another capital imperfection in the Fœderal plan. There is nothing of this kind declared in the Articles that compose it; and to imply a tacit guaranty from considerations of utility, would be a still more flagrant departure from the clause which has been mentioned, than to imply a tacit power of coercion, from the like considerations. The want of a guaranty, though it might in its consequences endanger the Union, does not so immediately attack its existence, as the want of a constitutional sanction to its laws.

Without a guaranty, the assistance to be derived from the Union in repelling those domestic dangers, which may sometimes threaten the existence of the State Constitutions, must be renounced. Usurpation may rear its crest in each State, and trample upon the liberties