Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/524

 484 ease, and expedition, and noiseless uniformity of movement, is the whole now accomplished through the instrumentality of the national government!

§ 503. Let us take another example, drawn from the perils of navigation; and ask ourselves, how it would be possible, without an efficient national government, to provide adequately for the erection and support of light-houses, monuments, buoys, and other guards against shipwreck. Many of these are maintained at an expense wholly disproportionate to their advantage to the state, in which they are situate. Many of them never would be maintained, except for the provident forecast of a national government, intent on the good of the whole, and possessing powers adequate to secure it. The same considerations apply to all measures of internal improvement, either to navigation by removing obstructions in rivers and inlets, or by erecting fortifications for purposes of defence, and to guard our harbours against the inroads of enemies.

§ 504. Independent of these means of promoting the general welfare, we shall at once see, in our negotiations with foreign powers, the vast superiority of a nation combining numbers and resources over states of small extent, and divided by different interests. If we are to negotiate for commercial or other advantages, the national government has more authority to speak, as well as more power to influence, than can belong to a single state. It has more valuable privileges to give in exchange, and more means of making those privileges felt by prohibitions, or relaxations of its commercial legislation. Is money wanted; how much more easy and cheap to borrow upon the faith of a nation competent to pay, than of a single state of fluctuating policy. Is confidence asked for the faithful fulfilment