The first of these principles, he said, is an active and constant interest in the support of a government. This principle did not then exist in the States, in favor of the general government. They constantly pursued their own particular interests, which were adverse to those of the whole. The second principle is a conviction of the utility and necessity of a government. As the general government might be dissolved and yet the order of society would continue,--so that many of the purposes of government would still be attainable, to a considerable degree, within the States themselves,--a conviction of the utility or the necessity of a general government could not at that time be considered as an active principle among the people of the States. The third principle is an habitual sense of obligation; and here the whole force of the tie was on the side of State government. Its sovereignty was immediately before the eyes of the people; its protection they immediately enjoyed; by its hand, private justice was administered. In the existing state of things, the central government was known only by its unwelcome demands of money or service. The fourth principle on which government must rely is force; by which he meant both the coercion of laws and the coercion of arms. But as to the general government, the coercion of laws did not exist; and to employ the force of arms on the States would amount to a war between the parties to the confederacy. The fifth principle was influence; by which he did not mean corruption, but a dispensation of those regular honors and just emoluments which produce an attachment to government. Almost the whole weight of these was then on the side of the States, and must remain so in any mere confederacy, rendering it in its very nature feeble and precarious. The lessons afforded by experience led to the evident conclusion that all federal governments were weak and distracted. They were so, because the strong principles which he had enumerated operated on the side of the constituent members of the confederacy, and against the central authority. In order, therefore, to establish a general and national government, with any hope of its duration, they must avail themselves of these principles. They must interest the wants of men in its support; they must make it useful and necessary; and they must give it the means of coercion. For these purposes, it would be necessary to make it completely sovereign.