and civil justice to the respective States: on the one hand the defects of the old Confederacy are stated with emphasis and truth, and on the other, the transcendent benefits of Federal union are elaborately argued, and economy, stability, and vigor proved to be its legitimate fruits. Of the evils of the old system, it is said: 'Let the point of extreme depression to which our national dignity and credit have sunk, let the inconvenience felt everywhere from a lax and ill-administered government, let the revolt of a part of North Carolina, the memory of insurrection in Pennsylvania, and actual insurrection in Massachusetts, declare it.' An unique distinction of this political treatise is that while Pericles, Cato, Hume, Montesquieu, Junius, and other classical and modern authorities are cited with scholarly tact, the most practical arguments drawn from the facts of the hour and the needs of the people, are conveyed in language the most lucid and impressive. To give a complete analysis of the 'Federalist' would require a volume; the glance we have cast upon its various topics sufficiently indicates the extent and importance of the work. Not less memorable is the spirit in which it was undertaken. 'A nation without a national government,' it is said, 'is, in my view, an awful spectacle;' and elsewhere--'The establishment of a constitution in times of profound peace, by the voluntary consent of a whole people, is a prodigy, to the completion of which I look forward with trembling anxiety.' 'I dread,' writes Jay, 'the more the consequences of new attempts, because I know that powerful individuals in this and in other States are enemies to a General National Government in every possible shape.'