There is an equal distribution of landed property,
freed from the laws of entail and primogeniture; there is no standing
army, and there is freedom from ecclesiastical tyranny; education is
general; there is no artificial rank in society, and from necessity
Americans are not confined to single lines of industry; but various
occupations will meet in one man. "Knowledge is diffused and genius
roused by the very situation of America."

From these considerations he proceeds to lay down a "Plan of Policy for
improving the Advantages and perpetuating the Union of the American
States." This union, he shows, cannot depend upon a standing army, upon
ecclesiastical authority, or upon the fear of an external force; it must
find its reason in the constitutions of the States, and he sees,
therefore, the need of a supreme head, in which the power of all the
States is united. "There must be a supreme head, clothed with the same
power to make and enforce laws respecting the general policy of all the
States, as the legislatures of the respective States have to make laws
binding on those States respecting their own internal police. The truth
of this is taught by the principles of government, and confirmed by the
experience of America. Without such a head the States cannot be
_united_, and all attempts to conduct the measures of the continent will
prove but governmental farces. So long as any individual State has power
to defeat the measures of the other twelve, our pretended union is but a
name, and our confederation a cobweb." He illustrates his point by the
analogy of the Constitution of Connecticut. It is clear that by the head
of the Union he meant the combined executive and legislative force,
which in the Constitution was vested in the President and Congress. He
recognizes the necessity of an authoritative head, but he had not in his
own mind separated the powers of government. He clings fast to the
doctrine that all power is vested in the people, and proceeds from the
people, and he pleads for such a union as may be analogous to the union
of towns in the State, where the power of all the towns united is
compulsory over the conduct of a single member. "The general concerns of
the continent may be reduced to a few heads; but in all the affairs that
respect the whole, Congress must have the same power to enact laws and
compel obedience throughout the continent as the legislatures of the
several States have in their respective jurisdic