This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
The Federalist.
71

of their respective productions, not only for the supply of reciprocal wants, but for exportation to foreign markets. The veins of commerce in every part will be replenished, and will acquire additional motion and vigour from a free circulation of the commodities of every part. Commercial enterprise will have much greater scope, from the diversity in the productions of different states. When the staple of one fails, from a bad harvest or unproductive crop, it can call to its aid the staple of another. The variety, not less than the value, of products for exportation, contributes to the activity of foreign commerce. It can be conducted upon much better terms, with a large number of materials of a given value, than with a small number of materials of the same value; arising from the competitions of trade, and from the fluctuations of markets. Particular articles may be in great demand at certain periods, and unsaleable at others; but if there be a variety of articles, it can scarcely happen that they should all be at one time in the latter predicament; and on this account, the operation of the merchant would be less liable to any considerable obstruction or stagnation. The speculative trader will at once perceive the force of these observations; and will acknowledge, that the aggregate balance of the commerce of the United States, would bid fair to be much more favourable than that of the Thirteen States, without union, or with partial unions.

It may perhaps be replied to this, that whether the states are united, or disunited, there would still be an intimate intercourse between them, which would answer the same ends: but this intercourse would be fettered, interrupted, and narrowed, by a multiplicity of causes; which in the course of these papers have been amply detailed. An unity of commercial, as well as political interests, can only result from an unity of government.

There are other points of view, in which this subject might be placed, of a striking and animating kind. But they would lead us too far into the regions of futurity, and would involve topics not proper for newspaper discussion. I shall briefly observe, that our situation invites; and our interests prompt us, to aim at an ascen-