Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/514

 474 of factions. The authority of the general government will have a natural tendency to suppress the violence of faction, by diminishing the chances of ultimate success; and the example of the neighbouring states, who will rarely, at the same time, partake of the same feelings, or have the same causes to excite them into action, will mitigate, if it does not wholly disarm, the violence of the predominant faction.

§ 493. One of the ordinary results of disunion among neighbouring states is the necessity of creating and keeping up standing armies, and other institutions unfavourable to liberty. The immediate dangers from sudden inroads and invasions, and the perpetual jealousies and discords incident to their local position, compel them to resort to the establishment of armed forces, either disproportionate to their means, or inadequate for their defence. Either alternative is fraught with public mischiefs. If they do not possess an adequate military force to repel invasion, they have no security against aggression and insult. If they possess an adequate military force, there is much reason to dread, that it may, in the hands of aspiring or corrupt men, become the means of their subjugation. There is no other refuge in such cases, but to seek an alliance always unequal, and to be obtained only by important concessions to some powerful nation, or to form a confederacy with other states, and thus to secure the co-operation and the terror of numbers. Nothing has so strong a tendency to suppress hostile enterprises, as the consciousness, that they will not be easily successful. Nothing is so sure to produce moderation, as the consciousness, that resistance will steadily maintain the