The Stutt-Holder Ship Holland

The surrounding powers impose an absolute necessity of union to a certain degree. At the same time that they nourish by their intrigues the constitutional vices, which keep the Republic in some degree always at their mercy. The true patriots have long bewailed the fatal tendency of these vices and have made no less than four regular experiments by extraordinary assemblies convened for the special purpose to apply a remedy. A design was also conceived of establishing a general tax to be administered by the federal authority. This also had its adversaries and failed. I make no apology for having dwelt so long on the contemplation of these federal precedents. Experience is the oracle of truth, and where its responses are