All the peoples which have been obliged to sustain a long and serious warfare have consequently been led to augment the power of their government.
Those which have not succeeded in this attempt have been subjugated.
A long war almost always places nations in the wretched alternative of being abandoned to ruin by defeat or to despotism by success.

War therefore renders the symptoms of the weakness of a government most palpable and most alarming; and I have shown that the inherent defeat of federal governments is that of being weak.
The Federal system is not only deficient in every kind of centralized administration, but the central government itself is imperfectly organized, which is invariably an influential cause of inferiority when the nation is opposed to other countries which are themselves governed by a single authority.

In the Federal Constitution of the United States, by which the central government possesses more real force, this evil is still extremely sensible.

An example will illustrate the case to the reader.
The Constitution confers upon Congress the right of calling forth militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions; and another article declares that the President of the United States is the commander-in-chief of the militia.

In the war of 1812 the President ordered the militia of the Northern States to march to the frontiers; but Connecticut and Massachusetts, whose interests were impaired by the war, refused to obey the command.