The more I revolve the subject, the more fully I am
persuaded that the balance is much more likely to be disturbed by the
preponderancy of the last than of the first scale.
We have seen, in all the examples of ancient and modern confederacies,
the strongest tendency continually betraying itself in the members, to
despoil the general government of its authorities, with a very
ineffectual capacity in the latter to defend itself against the
encroachments. Although, in most of these examples, the system has been
so dissimilar from that under consideration as greatly to weaken any
inference concerning the latter from the fate of the former, yet, as the
States will retain, under the proposed Constitution, a very extensive
portion of active sovereignty, the inference ought not to be wholly
disregarded. In the Achaean league it is probable that the federal head
had a degree and species of power, which gave it a considerable likeness
to the government framed by the convention. The Lycian Confederacy, as
far as its principles and form are transmitted, must have borne a still
greater analogy to it. Yet history does not inform us that either of
them ever degenerated, or tended to degenerate, into one consolidated
government.
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