l want of a SANCTION to its laws. The United States, as now
composed, have no powers to exact obedience, or punish disobedience
to their resolutions, either by pecuniary mulcts, by a suspension or
divestiture of privileges, or by any other constitutional mode. There
is no express delegation of authority to them to use force against
delinquent members; and if such a right should be ascribed to the
federal head, as resulting from the nature of the social compact between
the States, it must be by inference and construction, in the face of
that part of the second article, by which it is declared, "that each
State shall retain every power, jurisdiction, and right, not EXPRESSLY
delegated to the United States in Congress assembled." There is,
doubtless, a striking absurdity in supposing that a right of this kind
does not exist, but we are reduced to the dilemma either of embracing
that supposition, preposterous as it may seem, or of contravening or
explaining away a provision, which has been of late a repeated theme of
the eulogies of those who oppose the new Constitution; and the want
of which, in that plan, has been the subject of much plausible
animadversion, and severe criticism. If we are unwilling to impair the
force of this applauded provision, we shall be obliged to conclude, that
the United States afford the extraordinary spectacle of a government
destitute even of the shadow of constitutional power to enforce the
execution of its own laws. It will appear, from the specimens which have
been cited, that the American Confederacy, in this particular, stands
discriminated from every other institution of a similar kind, and
exhibits a new and unexampled phenomenon in the political world.

The want of a mutual guaranty of the State governments is another
capital imperfection in the federal plan. There is nothing of this kind
declared in the articles that compose it; and to imply a tacit guaranty
from considerations of utility, would be a still more flagrant departure
from the clause which has been mentioned, than to imply a tacit power of
coercion from the like considerations. The want of a guaranty, though
it might in its consequences endanger the Union, does not so immediately
attack its existence as the want of a constitutional sanction to its
laws.

Without a guaranty the assistance to be derived from the Union in
repelling those domestic dangers which may sometimes threaten the
existence of the State constitutions, m