It will be readily understood that I allude to the COMITIA CENTURIATA
and the COMITIA TRIBUTA. The former, in which the people voted by
centuries, was so arranged as to give a superiority to the patrician
interest; in the latter, in which numbers prevailed, the plebian
interest had an entire predominancy. And yet these two legislatures
coexisted for ages, and the Roman republic attained to the utmost height
of human greatness.
In the case particularly under consideration, there is no such
contradiction as appears in the example cited; there is no power on
either side to annul the acts of the other. And in practice there is
little reason to apprehend any inconvenience; because, in a short course
of time, the wants of the States will naturally reduce themselves within
A VERY NARROW COMPASS; and in the interim, the United States will, in
all probability, find it convenient to abstain wholly from those objects
to which the particular States would be inclined to resort.
To form a more precise judgment of the true merits of this question, it
will be well to advert to the proportion between the objects that will
require a federal provision in respect to revenue, and those which will
require a State provision.
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