any probable or possible alliance of foreign powers could hope to
effect anything, with an army of three or four millions of soldiers that
the entire republic could raise and keep in the field. Thus in union is
our strength at home, for it gives the whole power and resources of the
nation to works of common utility and necessity. Such are the
maintenance of the army and navy, the building and support of forts,
lighthouses, and customhouses, collection of the revenue, the keeping
rivers and harbors navigable, the establishment of a general post
office, and its countless ramifying branches, constructing immense
public works, like the Pacific railroad, providing for extensive coast
surveys, and the like. Then in a different department, harmonizing the
action of States by national laws, by the Supreme Court, and by the
national courts in each State, dispensing an even justice throughout the
entire Union, by deciding appeals from State and county courts. Each
State enjoys the benefits of these national functions, with the least
possible cost to itself; and were there no national government, each
State would have to provide itself with all these things, or what
proportion of them it required, at a very heavy outlay of its own more
limited resources, and would be obliged to double, perhaps quadruple its
taxes. Each State requires the means of its own defence; and as they
would all be independent sovereignties, each would be compelled, like
the European nations, to keep its own standing army, and watch its
neighbors closely, and be ready to bristle up on the least sign of
aggression on their part. The soldiers of each standing army would be,
as in Europe, so much power withdrawn from productive industry, kept in
idleness, and supported by those who were left free to labor. Each State
requires a postal system; those on the seaboard require tariffs, a navy,
etc., and in the absence of a national government we can hardly form an
idea of the endless disputes that would ensue from these and a thousand
other sources. For this reason the old federation of the States was an
experience of inexpressible value. It settled forever, in the minds of
all communities who are governed by cool common sense and not mad
passion, the utter impracticability (for efficient cooeperation, and
peaceful union) of a mere league or confederacy among sovereign and
independent States. While the seven years' war of independence lasted,
it managed to hold the S