the object in question, more competent than any other given number
whatever.
One government can collect and avail itself of the talents and
experience of the ablest men, in whatever part of the Union they may
be found. It can move on uniform principles of policy. It can
harmonize, assimilate, and protect the several parts and members,
and extend the benefit of its foresight and precautions to each. In
the formation of treaties, it will regard the interest of the whole,
and the particular interests of the parts as connected with that of
the whole. It can apply the resources and power of the whole to the
defense of any particular part, and that more easily and
expeditiously than State governments or separate confederacies can
possibly do, for want of concert and unity of system. It can place
the militia under one plan of discipline, and, by putting their
officers in a proper line of subordination to the Chief Magistrate,
will, as it were, consolidate them into one corps, and thereby
render them more efficient than if divided into thirteen or into
three or four distinct independent companies.
What would the militia of Britain be if the English militia
obeyed the government of England, if the Scotch militia obeyed the
government of Scotland, and if the Welsh militia obeyed the
government of Wales? Suppose an invasion; would those three
governments (if they agreed at all) be able, with all their
respective forces, to operate against the enemy so effectually as
the single government of Great Britain would?
We have heard much of the fleets of Britain, and the time may
come, if we are wise, when the fleets of America may engage
attention. But if one national government, had not so regulated the
navigation of Britain as to make it a nursery for seamen--if one
national government had not called forth all the national means and