ernment, and must
one day or other revolve into more vigorous ones, or by separation be
reduced into smaller and more useful, as well as moderate ones. You have
already observed the feeble efforts of Massachusetts against their
insurgents; with what difficulty did they quell that insurrection; and is
not the province of Maine at this moment on the eve of separation from
her? The reason of these things is, that for the security of the
_property_ of the community, in which expressive term Mr. Locke makes
life, liberty, and estate, to consist--the wheels of a republic are
necessarily slow in their operation; hence in large free republics, the
evil sometimes is not only begun, but almost completed, before they are in
a situation to turn the current into a contrary progression: the extremes
are also too remote from the usual seat of government, and the laws,
therefore, too feeble to afford protection to all its parts, and insure
_domestic tranquility_ without the aid of another principle. If,
therefore, this state, and that of North Carolina, had an army under their
control, they never would have lost Vermont, and Frankland, nor the state
of Massachusetts suffer an insurrection, or the dismemberment of her
fairest district, but the exercise of a principle which would have
prevented these things, if we may believe the experience of ages, would
have ended in the destruction of their liberties.

Will this consolidated republic, if established, in its exercise beget
such confidence and compliance, among the citizens of these states, as to
do without the aid of a standing army? I deny that it will. The
malcontents in each state, who will not be a few, nor the least important,
will be exciting factions against it--the fear of a dismemberment of some
of its parts, and the necessity to enforce the execution of revenue laws
(a fruitful source of oppression) on the extremes and in the other
districts of the government, will incidentally and necessarily require a
permanent force, to be kept on foot: will not political security, and even
the opinion of it, be extinguished? Can mildness and moderation exist in a
government where the primary incident in its exercise must be force? Will
not violence destroy confidence, and can equality subsist where the
extent, policy, and practice of it will naturally lead to make odious
distinctions among citizens?

The people who may compose this national legislature from the southern
states, in which,