“Though I fear that he possessed a prescience which too few of our contemporaries share.” “Oh?” I ask, wishing to make him elaborate. And he does, intoning Alexander’s words, “‘If these states should either be wholly disunited, or only united in partial confederacies, the subdivisions into which they might be thrown—” “—would have frequent and violent contest with each other,” I finish, for I know the words by heart. “Federalist Number Six.”