The Federal Congress of the
American Union is a substantive part of the government of every
individual State. Within the limits of its attributions, it makes laws
which are obeyed by every citizen individually, executes them
through its own officers, and enforces them by its own tribunals. This
is the only principle which has been found, or which is ever likely,
to produce an effective federal government. A union between the
governments only is a mere alliance, and subject to all the
contingencies which render alliances precarious. If the acts of the
President and of Congress were binding solely on the Governments of
New York, Virginia, or Pennsylvania, and could only be carried into
effect through orders issued by those Governments to officers
appointed by them, under responsibility to their own courts of justice
no mandates of the Federal Government which were disagreeable to a
local majority would ever be executed. Requisitions issued to a
government have no other sanction, or means of enforcement, than
war: and a federal army would have to be always in readiness to
enforce the decrees of the Federation against any recalcitrant
State; subject to the probability that other States, sympathising with
the recusant, and perhaps sharing its sentiments on the particular
point in dispute, would withhold their contingents, if not send them
to fight in the ranks of the disobedient State.
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