States. How can foreign trade be properly regulated by uniform laws, without some acquaintance with the commerce, the ports, the usages, and the regulations of the different States? How can the trade between the different States be duly regulated, without some knowledge of their relative situations in these and other respects? How can taxes be judiciously imposed, and effectually collected, if they be not accommodated to the different laws and local circumstances relating to these objects in the different States? How can uniform regulations for the militia be duly provided, without a similar knowledge of many internal circumstances by which the States are distinguished from each other? These are the principal objects of Fœderal Legislation, and suggest, most forcibly, the extensive information which the Representatives ought to acquire. The other interior objects will require a proportional degree of information with regard to them.
It is true, that all these difficulties will, by degrees, be very much diminished. The most laborious task will be the proper inauguration of the Government, and the primeval formation of a Fœderal code. Improvements on the first draughts will every year become both easier and fewer. Past transactions of the Government will be a ready and accurate source of information to new members. The affairs of the Union will become more and more objects of curiosity and conversation among the citizens at large. And the increased intercourse among those of different States will contribute not a little to diffuse a mutual knowledge of their affairs, as this again will contribute to a general assimilation of their manners and laws. But with all these abatements, the business of Fœderal Legislation must continue so far to exceed, both in novelty and difficulty, the Legislative business of a single State, as to justify the longer period of service assigned to those who are to transact it.
