coveries, or have made their principal progress towards perfection in modern times. They are means, and powerful means, by which the excellences of Republican Government may be retained, and its imperfections lessened, or avoided. To this catalogue of circumstances, that tend to the amelioration of popular systems of civil Government, I shall venture, however novel it may appear to some, to add one more, on a principle which has been made the foundation of an objection to the New Constitution; I mean the enlargement of the orbit within which such systems are to revolve, either in respect to the dimensions of a single State, or to the consolidation of several smaller States into one great Confederacy. The latter is that which immediately concerns the object under consideration. It will, however, be of use to examine the principle, in its application to a single State, which shall be attended to in another place.
The utility of a Confederacy, as well to suppress faction, and to guard the internal tranquillity of States, as to increase their external force and security, is in reality not a new idea. It has been practised upon, in different countries and ages, and has received the sanction of the most approved writers on the subject of politics. The opponents of the Plan proposed, have, with great assiduity, cited and circulated the observations of Montesquieu on the necessity of a contracted territory for a Republican Government. But they seem not to have been apprised of the sentiments of that great man, expressed in another part of his work, nor to have adverted to the consequences of the principle, to which they subscribe with such ready acquiescence.
When Montesquieu recommends a small extent for Republics, the standards he had in view were of dimensions far short of the limits of almost every one of these States. Neither Virginia, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania,
