Page:The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 Volume 3.djvu/111

 and effect—our foreign politics are as much deranged, as our domestic economy—our friends are slackened in their affection,—and our citizens loosened from their obedience. We know neither how to yield or how to enforce—hardly anything abroad or at home is sound and entire—disconnection and confusion in offices, in States and in parties, prevail throughout every part of the Union. These are facts, universally admitted and lamented.

This state of things is the more extraordinary, because it immediately follows the close of a war, when we conceived our political happiness was to commence; and because the parties which divided and were opposed to our systems, are known, to be in a great measure, dissolved. No external calamity has visited us—we labor under no taxation that is new or oppressive, nor are we engaged in a war with foreigners, or in disputes with ourselves. To what then, are we to attribute our embarrassments as a nation? The answer is an obvious one.—To the weakness and impropriety of a government, founded in mistaken principles—incapable of combining the various interests it is intended to unite and support—and destitute of that force and energy, without which, no government can exist.

At the time I pronounce in the most decided terms, this opinion of our Confederation, permit me to remark, that considering the circumstances under which it was formed—in the midst of a dangerous and doubtful war, and by men, totally inexperienced in the operations of a system so new and extensive, its defects are easily to be excused. We have only to lament the necessity which obliged us to form it at that time, and wish that its completion had been postponed to a period better suited to deliberation. I confess myself in sentiment with those, who were of opinion, that we should have avoided it if possible, during the war. That it ought to have been formed by a Convention of the States, expressly delegated for that purpose, and ratified by the authority of the people. This indispensible power it wants; and is, therefore, without the validity a federal Constitution ought certainly to have had. In most of the States it has nothing more, strictly speaking, than a legislative authority, and might therefore to be said, in some measure, to be under the control of the State legislatures.

Independent of this primary defect, of not having been formed in a manner that would have given it an authority paramount to the Constitutions and laws of the several States, and rendered it impossible for them to have interfered with its objects or operations, the first principles are destructive, and contrary to those maxims of government which have been received, and approved for ages.