which are daily employed against the same evil, under the State Governments. The Magistracy, being equally the Ministers of the law of the land, from whatever source it might emanate, would doubtless be as ready to guard the National as the local regulations from the inroads of private licentiousness. As to those partial commotions and insurrections, which sometimes disquiet society, from the intrigues of an inconsiderable faction, or from sudden or occasional ill-humors, that do not infect the great body of the community, the General Government could command more extensive resources, for the suppression of disturbances of that kind, than would be in the power of any single member. And as to those mortal feuds, which, in certain conjunctures, spread a conflagration through a whole nation, or through a very large proportion of it, proceeding either from weighty causes of discontent, given by the Government, or from the contagion of some violent popular paroxysm, they do not fall within any ordinary rules of calculation. When they happen, they commonly amount to revolutions, and dismemberments of empire. No form of Government can always either avoid or control them. It is in vain to hope to guard against events too mighty for human foresight or precaution; and it would be idle to object to a Government, because it could not perform impossibilities.
PUBLIUS.
