improper." He urged that such a universality of the power was in dispensably necessary to render it effectual; that the states must be kept in due subordination to the nation; that, if the states were left to act of themselves in any case, it would be impossible to defend the national prerogatives, however extensive they might be, on paper; that the acts of Congress had been defeated by this means; nor had foreign treaties escaped repeated violations; that this universal negative was in fact the corner-stone of an efficient national government; that, under the British government, the negative of the crown had been found beneficial, and the states are more one nation now than the colonies were then.
Mr. MADISON seconded the motion. He could not but regard an indefinite power to negative legislative acts of the states as absolutely necessary to a perfect system. Experience had evinced a constant tendency in the states to encroach on the federal authority; to violate national treaties; to infringe the rights and interests of each other; to oppress the weaker party within their respective jurisdictions. A negative was the mildest expedient that could be devised for preventing these mischiefs. The existence of such a check would prevent attempts to commit them. Should no such precaution be engrafted, the only remedy would be in an appeal to coercion. Was such a remedy eligible? Was it practicable? Could the national resources, if exerted to the utmost, enforce a national decree against Massachusetts, abetted, perhaps, by several of her neighbors? It would not be possible. A small proportion of the community, in a compact situation, acting on the defensive, and at one of its extremities, might at any time bid defiance to the national authority. Any government for the United States, formed on the supposed practicability of using force against the unconstitutional proceedings of the states, would prove as visionary and fallacious as the government of Congress. The negative would render the use of force unnecessary. The states could of themselves pass no operative act, any more than one branch of a legislature, where there are two branches, can proceed without the other. But, in order to give the negative this efficacy, it must extend to all cases. A discrimination would only be a fresh source of contention between the two authorities. In a word, to recur to the illustrations borrowed from the planetary system, this prerogative of the general government is the great pervading principle that must control the centrifugal tendency of the states; which, without it, will continually fly out of their proper orbits, and destroy the order and harmony of the political system.
Mr. WILLIAMSON was against giving a power that might restrain the states from regulating their internal police.
Mr. GERRY could not see the extent of such a power, and was against every power that was not necessary. He thought a remonstrance against unreasonable acts of the states would restrain them. If it should not, force might be resorted to. He had no objection to authorize a negative to paper money, and similar measures. When
