A
skillful individual in his closet with all the local codes before him,
might compile a law on some subjects of taxation for the whole union,
without any aid from oral information, and it may be expected that
whenever internal taxes may be necessary, and particularly in cases
requiring uniformity throughout the States, the more simple objects will
be preferred. To be fully sensible of the facility which will be given
to this branch of federal legislation by the assistance of the State
codes, we need only suppose for a moment that this or any other State
were divided into a number of parts, each having and exercising within
itself a power of local legislation. Is it not evident that a degree of
local information and preparatory labor would be found in the several
volumes of their proceedings, which would very much shorten the labors
of the general legislature, and render a much smaller number of members
sufficient for it? The federal councils will derive great advantage from
another circumstance. The representatives of each State will not only
bring with them a considerable knowledge of its laws, and a local
knowledge of their respective districts, but will probably in all cases
have been members, and may even at the very time be members, of the
State legislature, where all the local information and interests of the
State are assembled, and from whence they may easily be conveyed by a
very few hands into the legislature of the United States.
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