Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/417

 CH. IV.]  decisions must altogether distract the government of the onion, and speedily put an end to the union itself. A uniform authority of the laws, is in itself a vital principle. Some of the most important laws could not be partially executed. They must be executed in all the states, or they could be duly executed in Done. An impost, or an excise, tor example, if not in force in some states, would be defeated in others. It is well known, that this was among the lessons of experience, which had a primary influence in bringing about the existing constitution. A loss of its general authority would moreover revive the exasperating questions between the states holding ports for foreign commerce, and the adjoining states without them ; to which are now added, all the inland states, necessarily carrying on their foreign commerce through other states.

"To have made the decisions under the authority of the individual states, co-ordinate, in all cases, with decisions under the authority of the United States, would unavoidably produce collisions incompatible with the peace of society, and with that regular and efficient administration, which is of the essence of free governments. Scenes could not be avoided, in which a ministerial officer of the United States, and the correspondent officer of an individual state, would have rencounters in executing conflicting decrees ; the result of which would depend on the comparative force of the local posses attending them ; and that, a casualty depending on the political opinions and party feelings in different states.

"To have referred every clashing decision, under the two authorities, for a final decision, to the states as parties to the constitution, would be attended with delays, with inconveniencies, and with expenses, amounting to a prohibition of the expedient ; not to mention its tendency to impair the salutary veneration for a system requiring such frequent interpositions, nor the delicate questions, which might present themselves as to the form of stating the appeal, and as to the quorum for deciding it.

"To have trusted to negotiation for adjusting disputes between the government of the United States and the state governments, as between independent and separate sovereignties, would have lost sight altogether of a constitution and government for the Union ; and opened a direct road from a failure of that resort, to the ultima ratio between nations wholly independent of, and alien to each other. If the idea had its origin in the process of adjustment between separate branches of the same government, the analogy entirely fails. In the case of disputes between independent parts of the same government, neither part being able to consummate its will, nor the government to proceed without a concurrence of the parts, necessity brings about an accommodation. In disputes between a state government, and the government of the United States, the case is practically, as well as theoretically different; each party possessing all the departments of an organized government, legislative, executive, and judiciary; and having each a physical force to support 48