"federalist" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Alexander)

confederacy, instead of the general interests of all America, would
be the only objects of their policy and pursuits. Hence, like most
other BORDERING nations, they would always be either involved in
disputes and war, or live in the constant apprehension of them.
The most sanguine advocates for three or four confederacies
cannot reasonably suppose that they would long remain exactly on an
equal footing in point of strength, even if it was possible to form
them so at first; but, admitting that to be practicable, yet what
human contrivance can secure the continuance of such equality?
Independent of those local circumstances which tend to beget and
increase power in one part and to impede its progress in another, we
must advert to the effects of that superior policy and good
management which would probably distinguish the government of one
above the rest, and by which their relative equality in strength and
consideration would be destroyed. For it cannot be presumed that
the same degree of sound policy, prudence, and foresight would
uniformly be observed by each of these confederacies for a long
succession of years.
Whenever, and from whatever causes, it might happen, and happen
it would, that any one of these nations or confederacies should rise
on the scale of political importance much above the degree of her
neighbors, that moment would those neighbors behold her with envy
and with fear. Both those passions would lead them to countenance,
if not to promote, whatever might promise to diminish her
importance; and would also restrain them from measures calculated
to advance or even to secure her prosperity. Much time would not be
necessary to enable her to discern these unfriendly dispositions.
She would soon begin, not only to lose confidence in her neighbors,
but also to feel a disposition equally unfavorable to them.
Distrust naturally creates distrust, and by nothing is good-will
and kind conduct more speedily changed than by invidious jealousies
and uncandid imputations, whether expressed or implied.
The North is generally the region of strength, and many local
circumstances render it probable that the most Northern of the
proposed confederacies would, at a period not very distant, be
unquestionably more formidable than any of the others. No sooner
would this become evident than the NORTHERN HIVE would excite the
same ideas and sensations in the more southern parts of America
which it formerly did in the southern parts of Europe. Nor does it
appear to be a rash conjecture that its young swarms might often be
tempted to gather honey in the more blooming fields and milder air
of their luxurious and more delicate neighbors.
They who well consider the history of similar divisions and
confederacies will find abundant reason to apprehend that those in
contemplation would in no other sense be neighbors than as they
would be borderers; that they would neither love nor trust one
another, but on the contrary would be a prey to discord, jealousy,
and mutual injuries; in short, that they would place us exactly in
the situations in which some nations doubtless wish to see us, viz.,
FORMIDABLE ONLY TO EACH OTHER.