order, an undue distribution of the burdens and calamities of war, an unnecessary and intolerable increase of expense, be its natural and inevitable concomitants? Have we not had unequivocal experience of its effects in the course of the revolution, which we have just accomplished?
Every view we may take of the subject, as candid inquirers after truth, will serve to convince us, that it is both unwise and dangerous to deny the Fœderal Government an unconfined authority, as to all those objects which are intrusted to its management. It will indeed deserve the most vigilant and careful attention of the People, to see that it be modelled in such a manner as to admit of its being safely vested with the requisite powers. If any plan which has been, or may be, offered to our consideration, should not, upon a dispassionate inspection, be found to answer this description, it ought to be rejected. A Government, the Constitution of which renders it unfit to be trusted with all the powers which a free People ought to delegate to any Government, would be an unsafe and improper depositary of the National interests. Wherever these can with propriety be confided, the coincident powers may safely accompany them. This is the true result of all just reasoning upon the subject. And the adversaries of the plan promulgated by the Convention ought to have confined themselves to showing, that the internal structure of the proposed Government was such as to render it unworthy of the confidence of the People. They ought not to have wandered into inflammatory declamations and unmeaning cavils, about the extent of the powers. The powers are not too extensive for the objects of Fœderal administration, or, in other words, for the management of our National interests; nor can any satisfactory argument be framed to show that they are chargeable with such an excess. If it be true, as
