likely to escape the penetration of select bodies of men, as of the people at large. The legislatures will have better means of information; they can discover the danger at a distance; and possessing all the organs of civil power, and the confidence of the people, they can at once adopt a regular plan of opposition, in which they can combine all the resources of the community. They can readily communicate with each other in the different states; and unite their common forces, for the protection of their common liberty.
The great extent of the country is a further security. We have already experienced its utility against the attacks of a foreign enemy. And it would have precisely the same effect against the enterprises of ambitious rulers in the national councils. If the federal army should be able to quell the resistance of one state, the distant states would have it in their power to make head with fresh forces. The advantages obtained in one place must be abandoned, to subdue the opposition in others; and the moment the part which had been reduced to submission was left to itself, its efforts would be renewed, and its resistance revive.
We should recollect, that the extent of the military force must, at all events, be regulated by the resources of the country. For a long time to come, it will not be possible to maintain a large army; and as the means of doing this, increase the population, and the natural strength of the community will proportionably increase. When will the time arrive, that the federal government can raise and maintain an army capable of erecting a despotism over the great body of the people of an immense empire, who are in a situation, through the medium of their state governments, to take measures for their own defence, with all the celerity, regularity, and system, of independent nations? The apprehension may be considered as a disease, for which there can be found no cure in the resources of argument and reasoning.
Publius.
