"To those who, with me, abhorring the practice of dueling, may think that I ought on no account to add to the number of bad examples, I answer that my relative situation, as well in public as private, enforcing all the considerations which men of the world designate honor, imposed on me, as I thought, a peculiar necessity not to decline the call. The ability to be in future useful, whether in resisting mischief or effecting good, _in those crises of our public affairs which seem likely to happen, would probably be inseparable from a conformity with prejudice in this particular_." Although not so pointed in expressing it, his disposition toward the State governments was scarcely more favorable than toward the plan of the general government. In his letter to Pickering, at a period when their usefulness and importance to the system were better appreciated, he says: "Though I would have enlarged the legislative power of the General Government, yet I never contemplated the abolition of the State governments, but, on the contrary, they were in some particulars a part,--constituent parts,--of my plan." But let us see what part it was that he would have them perform. He said in the Convention: "If they (the State governments) are extinguished, he was persuaded that great economy might be obtained by substituting a general government. He did not mean, however, to shock the public opinion by proposing such a measure. _On the other hand, he saw no other necessity for declining it._ They are not necessary for any of the great purposes of commerce, revenue, or agriculture. Subordinate authorities, he was aware, would be necessary. There must be district tribunals, corporations for local purposes. But _cui bono_ the vast and expensive apparatus now appertaining to the States?"