I shall now proceed
to delineate dangers of a different and, perhaps, still more alarming
kind -- those which will in all probability flow from dissensions
between the States themselves, and from domestic factions and
convulsions. These have been already in some instances slightly
anticipated; but they deserve a more particular and more full
investigation.
A man must be far gone in Utopian speculations who can seriously doubt
that, if these States should either be wholly disunited, or only united
in partial confederacies, the subdivisions into which they might be
thrown would have frequent and violent contests with each other. To
presume a want of motives for such contests as an argument against their
existence, would be to forget that men are ambitious, vindictive, and
rapacious. To look for a continuation of harmony between a number of
independent, unconnected sovereignties in the same neighborhood, would
be to disregard the uniform course of human events, and to set at
defiance the accumulated experience of ages.
The causes of hostility among nations are innumerable. There are some
which have a general and almost constant operation upon the collective
bodies of society.
Pages:
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57