Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/492

 452 states. Such a distinction in government is so fraught with causes of irritation and alarm, that no honest patriot could contemplate it without many painful and distressing fears.

§ 470. But the material consideration, which should be kept steadily in view, is, that under such circumstances a national government, clothed with powers at least equally extensive with those given by the constitution, would be indispensable for the preservation of each separate confederacy. Nay, it cannot be doubted, that much larger powers, and much heavier expenditures would be necessary. No nation could long maintain its public liberties, surrounded by powerful and vigilant neighbours, unless it possessed a government clothed with powers of great efficiency, prompt to act, and able to repel every invasion of its rights. Nor would it afford the slightest security, that all the confederacies were composed of a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, and possessing similar manners, habits, and customs. If it be true, that these circumstances would not be sufficient to hold them in a bond of peace and union, when forming one government, acting for the interests, and as the representatives of the rights of the whole; how could a better fate be expected, when the interests and the representation were separate; and ambition, and local interests, and feelings, and peculiarities of climate, and products, and institutions, and imaginary or real aggressions and grievances, and the rivalries of commerce, and the jealousies of dominion, should spread themselves over the distinct councils, which would regulate their concerns by