The Federalist No. 45
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authority of the Union. Should it happen, however, that separate collections of internal revenue should be appointed under the Federal Government, the influence of the whole number would not bear a comparison
with that of the multitude of State officers in the opposite scale. Within
every district to which a Federal collector would be allotted, there would
not be less than thirty or forty, or even more, officers of different descriptions, and many of them persons of character and weight whose influence would lie on the side of the State.
The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal
Government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State
Governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised
principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign
commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part,
be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all
the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties and properties of the people; and the internal order, improvement,
and prosperity of the State.
The operations of the Federal Government will be most extensive and
important in times of war and danger; those of the State Governments in
times of peace and security. As the former periods will probably bear a
small proportion to the latter, the State Governments will here enjoy another advantage over the Federal Government. The more adequate, indeed, the Federal powers may be rendered to the national defence, the
less frequent will be those scenes of danger which might favor their ascendancy over the governments of the particular States.
If the new Constitution be examined with accuracy and candor, it will
be found that the change which it proposes consists much less in the addition of new powers to the Union, than in the invigoration of its original powers. The regulation of commerce, it is true, is a new power; but
that seems to be an addition which few oppose, and from which no apprehensions are entertained. The powers relating to war and peace, armies and fleets, treaties and finance, with the other more considerable
powers, are all vested in the existing Congress by the Articles of Confederation. The proposed change does not enlarge these powers; it only
substitutes a more effectual mode of administering them. The change
relating to taxation may be regarded as the most important; and yet the