Page:Federalist, Dawson edition, 1863.djvu/149

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
The Fœderalist.
5

however multiply professions on this head. My motives must remain in the depository of my own breast: My arguments will be open to all, and may be judged of by all. They shall at least be offered in a spirit which will not disgrace the cause of truth.

I propose, in a series of papers, to discuss the following interesting particulars.—The utility of the UNION to your political prosperityThe insufficiency of the present Confederation to preserve that UnionThe necessity of a Government at least equally energetic with the one proposed, to the attainment of this objectThe conformity of the proposed Constitution to the true principles of republican GovernmentIts analogy to your own state constitution—and lastly, The additional security, which its adoption will afford to the preservation of that species of Government, to liberty, and to property.

In the progress of this discussion I shall endeavor to give a satisfactory answer to all the objections which shall have made their appearance, that may seem to have any claim to your attention.

It may perhaps be thought superfluous to offer arguments to prove the utility of the UNION, a point, no doubt, deeply engraved on the hearts of the great body of the people in every State, and one, which it may be imagined, has no adversaries. But the fact is, that we already hear it whispered in the private circles of those who oppose the new Constitution, that the Thirteen States are of too great extent for any general system, and that we must of necessity, resort to separate confederacies of distinct portions of the whole.[1] This doctrine will, in all probability, be gradually propagated, till it has votaries enough to countenance an open avowal of it. For nothing can be more evident, to

  1. The same idea, tracing the arguments to their consequences, is held out in several of the late publications against the new Constitution.—Publius.