Page:Federalist, Dawson edition, 1863.djvu/322

 administered in such a manner as to render it odious or contemptible to the People, there can be no reasonable foundation for the supposition, that the laws of the Union will meet with any greater obstruction from them, or will stand in need of any other methods to enforce their execution, than the laws of the particular members.

The hope of impunity is a strong incitement to sedition: the dread of punishment, a proportionably strong discouragement to it. Will not the Government of the Union, which, if possessed of a due degree of power, can call to its aid the collective resources of the whole Confederacy, be more likely to repress the former sentiment and to inspire the latter, than that of a single State, which can only command the resources within itself? A turbulent faction in a State may easily suppose itself able to contend with the friends to the Government in that State; but it can hardly be so infatuated as to imagine itself a match for the combined efforts of the Union. If this reflection be just, there is less danger of resistance from irregular combinations of individuals, to the authority of the Confederacy, than to that of a single member.

I will, in this place, hazard an observation, which will not be the less just, because to some it may appear new; which is, that the more the operations of the National authority are intermingled in the ordinary exercise of Government; the more the citizens are accustomed to meet with it in the common occurrences of their political life; the more it is familiarized to their sight and to their feelings; the further it enters into those objects which touch the most sensible chords, and put in motion the most active springs of the human heart; the greater will be the probability, that it will conciliate the respect and attachment of the community. Man is very much a creature of habit. A thing that rarely strikes his senses, will generally have but little influence upon his mind. A