provisions of the constitution. But they will most properly come under consideration in a future part of these Commentaries. At present, it may suffice to say, that with reference to due energy in the government, due protection of the national interests, and due security to the Union, fewer powers could scarcely have been granted, without jeoparding the whole system. Without the power of the purse, the power to declare war, or to promote the common defence, or general welfare, would have been wholly vain and illusory. Without the power exclusively to regulate commerce, the intercourse between the states would have been constantly liable to domestic dissensions, jealousies, and rivalries, and to foreign hostilities, and retaliatory restrictions. The other powers are principally auxiliary to these; and are dictated at once by an enlightened policy, a devotion to justice, and a regard to the permanence (may it ripen into a perpetuity!) of the Union.[1]
- ↑ Among the extraordinary opinions of Mr. Jefferson, in regard to government in general, and especially to the government of the United States, none strikes the calm observer with more force, than the cool and calculating manner, in which he surveys the probable occurrence of domestic rebellions. "I am," he says, "not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive. It places the governors, indeed, more at their ease, at the expense of the people. The late rebellion in Massachusetts (in 1787) has given more alarm, than I think it should have done. Calculate, that one rebellion in thirteen states, in the course of eleven years, is but one for each state, in a century and a half. No country should he so long without one. Nor will any degree of power in the hands of government prevent insurrections." Letter to Mr. Madison, in 1787, 2 Jefferson's Corresp. 276. Is it not surprising, that any statesman should have overlooked the horrible evils, and immense expenses, which are attendant upon every rebellion? The loss of life, the summary exercise of military power, the desolations of the country, and the inordinate expenditures, to which every rebellion must give rise? Is not the great object of every good government to
