How can uniform regulations
for the militia be duly provided, without a similar knowledge of many
internal circumstances by which the States are distinguished from each
other? These are the principal objects of federal legislation,
and suggest most forcibly the extensive information which the
representatives ought to acquire. The other interior objects will
require a proportional degree of information with regard to them.

It is true that all these difficulties will, by degrees, be very much
diminished. The most laborious task will be the proper inauguration
of the government and the primeval formation of a federal code.
Improvements on the first draughts will every year become both easier
and fewer. Past transactions of the government will be a ready and
accurate source of information to new members. The affairs of the Union
will become more and more objects of curiosity and conversation among
the citizens at large. And the increased intercourse among those of
different States will contribute not a little to diffuse a mutual
knowledge of their affairs, as this again will contribute to a general
assimilation of their manners and laws. But with all these abatements,
the business of federal legislation must continue so far to exceed, both
in novelty and difficulty, the legislative business of a single State,
as to justify the longer period of service assigned to those who are to
transact it.

A branch of knowledge which belongs to the acquirements of a federal
representative, and which has not been mentioned is that of foreign
affairs. In regulating our own commerce he ought to be not only
acquainted with the treaties between the United States and other
nations, but also with the commercial policy and laws of other nations.
He ought not to be altogether ignorant of the law of nations; for that,
as far as it is a proper object of municipal legislation, is submitted
to the federal government. And although the House of Representatives is
not immediately to participate in foreign negotiations and arrangements,
yet from the necessary connection between the several branches of public
affairs, those particular branches will frequently deserve attention in
the ordinary course of legislation, and will sometimes demand particular
legislative sanction and co-operation. Some portion of this knowledge
may, no doubt, be acquired in a man's closet; but some of it also can
only be derived from the public sources of information; and all