As to those
partial commotions and insurrections, which sometimes disquiet society,
from the intrigues of an inconsiderable faction, or from sudden or
occasional illhumors that do not infect the great body of the community
the general government could command more extensive resources for the
suppression of disturbances of that kind than would be in the power of
any single member. And as to those mortal feuds which, in certain
conjunctures, spread a conflagration through a whole nation, or through
a very large proportion of it, proceeding either from weighty causes of
discontent given by the government or from the contagion of some violent
popular paroxysm, they do not fall within any ordinary rules of
calculation. When they happen, they commonly amount to revolutions and
dismemberments of empire. No form of government can always either avoid
or control them. It is in vain to hope to guard against events too
mighty for human foresight or precaution, and it would be idle to object
to a government because it could not perform impossibilities.
PUBLIUS
____
FEDERALIST No. 17
The Same Subject Continued
(The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union)
For the Independent Journal.
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