The Federalist #5

Author - Jay

"The most sanguine advocates for three or four confederacies cannot reasonably suppose that they would long remain exactly on 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?"

For those of you who are anti-federalists, can you make a reasonable case that a limited government among three or four confederacies would have continued in their limited capacity any longer than the Union maintained its limited posture? Would we still have a few limited confederacies or would we simply have more statist regimes on the continent?

While I concede that it is possible that some form of competition between the free people of several confederacies could have maintained their liberty longer, I would also posit that once the respective governments accrued enough power to themselves, the competition would have been turned on its head and the political body, no longer controlled by the people, would race to be the most socialist.