among ourselves, as well as in every other confederated republic, ancient and modern. By the Federal Articles, transactions with the Indians appertain to Congress, yet in several instances the states have entered into treaties and wars with them. In like manner, no two or more states can form among themselves any treaties, &c., without the consent of Congress; yet Virginia and Maryland, in one instance—Pennsylvania and New Jersey, in another—have entered into compacts without previous application or subsequent apology. No state, again, can of right raise troops in time of peace without the like consent. Of all cases of the league, this seems to require the most scrupulous observance. Has not Massachusetts, notwithstanding, (the most powerful member of the Union,) already raised a body of troops? Is she not now augmenting them, without having even deigned to apprise Congress of her intentions? In fine, have we not seen the public land dealt out to Connecticut to bribe her acquiescence in the decree constitutionally awarded against her claim on the territory of Pennsylvania?—for no other possible motive can account for the policy of Congress in that measure. If we recur to the examples of other confederacies, we shall find in all of them the same tendency of the parts to encroach on the authority of the whole. He then reviewed the Amphictyonic and Achaean confederacies, among the ancients, and the Helvetic, Germanic, and Belgic, among the moderns; tracing their analogy to the United States in the constitution and extent of their federal authorities; in the tendency of the particular members to usurp on these authorities, and to bring confusion and ruin on the whole. He observed, that the plan of Mr. Patterson, besides omitting a control over the states, as a general defence of the federal prerogatives, was particularly defective in two of its provisions. In the first place, its ratification was not to be by the people at large, but by the legislatures. It could not, therefore, render the acts of Congress, in pursuance of their powers, even legally paramount to the acts of the states. And, in the second place, it gave to the federal tribunal an appellate jurisdiction only even in the criminal cases enumerated. The necessity of any such provision supposed a danger of undue acquittal in the state tribunals: of what avail would an appellate tribunal be after an acquittal? Besides, in most, if not all, of the states, the executives have, by their respective constitutions, the right of pardoning: how could this be taken from them by a legislative ratification only?
3. Will it prevent trespasses of the states on each other? Of these, enough has been already seen. He instanced acts of Virginia and Maryland, which gave a preference to their own citizens in cases where the citizens of other states are entitled to equality of privileges by the Articles of Confederation. He considered the emissions of paper money, and other kindred measures, as also aggressions. The states, relatively to one another, being each of them either debtor or creditor, the creditor states must suffer unjustly
