Constitutional history -- United States -- Sources; Constitutional law -- United States
The experiment has, however, demonstrated that this expectation was
ill-founded and illusory; and the observations, made under the last
head, will, I imagine, have sufficed to convince the impartial and
discerning, that there is an absolute necessity for an entire change in
the first principles of the system; that if we are in earnest about
giving the Union energy and duration, we must abandon the vain project
of legislating upon the States in their collective capacities; we must
extend the laws of the federal government to the individual citizens of
America; we must discard the fallacious scheme of quotas and
requisitions, as equally impracticable and unjust. The result from all
this is that the Union ought to be invested with full power to levy
troops; to build and equip fleets; and to raise the revenues which will
be required for the formation and support of an army and navy, in the
customary and ordinary modes practiced in other governments.
If the circumstances of our country are such as to demand a compound
instead of a simple, a confederate instead of a sole, government, the
essential point which will remain to be adjusted will be to
discriminate the OBJECTS, as far as it can be done, which shall
appertain to the different provinces or departments of power; allowing
to each the most ample authority for fulfilling the objects committed
to its charge. Shall the Union be constituted the guardian of the
common safety? Are fleets and armies and revenues necessary to this
purpose? The government of the Union must be empowered to pass all
laws, and to make all regulations which have relation to them. The same
must be the case in respect to commerce, and to every other matter to
which its jurisdiction is permitted to extend. Is the administration of
justice between the citizens of the same State the proper department of
the local governments? These must possess all the authorities which are
connected with this object, and with every other that may be allotted
to their particular cognizance and direction. Not to confer in each
case a degree of power commensurate to the end, would be to violate the
most obvious rules of prudence and propriety, and improvidently to
trust the great interests of the nation to hands which are disabled
from managing them with vigor and success.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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