Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/491

 CH. VI.] § 469. The constitution, then, was adopted first "to form a more perfect union." Why this was desirable has been in some measure anticipated in considering the defects of the confederation. When the constitution, however, was before the people for ratification, suggestions were frequently made by those, who were opposed to it, that the country was too extensive for a single national government, and ought to be broken up into several distinct confederacies, or sovereignties; and some even went so far, as to doubt, whether it were not, on the whole, best, that each state should retain a separate, independent, and sovereign political existence. Those, who contemplated several confederacies, speculated upon a dismemberment into three great confederacies, one of the northern, another of the middle, and a third of the southern states. The greater probability, certainly, then was of a separation into two confederacies; the one composed of the northern and middle states, and the other of the southern. The reasoning of the Federalist on this subject seems absolutely irresistible. The progress of the population in the western territory, since that period, has materially changed the basis of all that reasoning. There could scarcely now, upon any dismemberment, exist, with a view to local interests, political associations, or public safety, less than three confederacies, and most probably four. And it is more than probable, that the line of division would be traced out by geographical boundaries, which would separate the slave-holding from the