Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/289

 CH. IV.] defects of the confederation, into violations of their chartered authorities, would not a little surprise those, who have paid no attention to the subject." Again, speaking of the western territory, and referring to the ordinance of 1787, for the government thereof, it is observed: "Congress have assumed the administration of this stock. They have begun to render it productive. Congress have undertaken to do more; they have proceeded to form now states, to erect temporary governments, to appoint officers for thorn, and to prescribe the conditions, on which such states shall be admitted into the confederacy. All this has been done, and done without the least colour of constitutional authority. Yet no blame has been whispered; no alarm has been sounded."

§ 270. Whatever may be thought as to some of these enumerated defects, whether they were radical deficiencies or not, there cannot be a doubt, that others of them went to the very marrow and essence of government. There had been, and in fact then were, different parties in the several states, entertaining opinions hostile, or friendly to the existence of a general government. The former would naturally cling to the state governments with a close and unabated zeal, and deem the least possible delegation of power to the Union sufficient, (if any were to be permitted,) with which it could creep on in a semi-animated state. The latter would as naturally desire, that the powers of the general government should have a real, and not merely a suspended vitality; that it should act, and move, and guide, and not merely totter under its own weight, or sink into a drowsy decrepitude, powerless and. palsied. But each party must 32