In a single State, the requisite knowledge relates to the existing laws
which are uniform throughout the State, and with which all the citizens
are more or less conversant; and to the general affairs of the State,
which lie within a small compass, are not very diversified, and occupy
much of the attention and conversation of every class of people. The
great theatre of the United States presents a very different scene. The
laws are so far from being uniform, that they vary in every State;
whilst the public affairs of the Union are spread throughout a very
extensive region, and are extremely diversified by the local affairs
connected with them, and can with difficulty be correctly learnt in any
other place than in the central councils to which a knowledge of them
will be brought by the representatives of every part of the empire. Yet
some knowledge of the affairs, and even of the laws, of all the States,
ought to be possessed by the members from each of the States. How can
foreign trade be properly regulated by uniform laws, without some
acquaintance with the commerce, the ports, the usages, and the
regulatious of the different States? How can the trade between the
different States be duly regulated, without some knowledge of their
relative situations in these and other respects? How can taxes be
judiciously imposed and effectually collected, if they be not
accommodated to the different laws and local circumstances relating to
these objects in the different States? How can uniform regulations for
the militia be duly provided, without a similar knowledge of many
internal circumstances by which the States are distinguished from each
other? These are the principal objects of federal legislation, and
suggest most forcibly the extensive information which the
representatives ought to acquire.
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