Politics & Power Quote by Henry Knox

Knox is arguing like a man who has watched a war get won and a peace nearly get lost in the paperwork. The phrase "wish for a general government of unity" sounds almost devotional, but the real muscle is in his diagnosis of what stands in the way: "local legislatures" that "naturally and necessarily tend to retard" national aims. He frames obstruction not as a fluke of bad actors but as an inherent feature of state politics. "Naturally" and "necessarily" are doing a lot of work here, turning federal weakness from a temporary inconvenience into a structural problem that demands redesign.

The intent is plainly political: to justify a stronger central authority at a moment when the Articles of Confederation were proving inadequate for revenue, debt, interstate coordination, and even basic credibility abroad. Knox, a Revolutionary War general and Washington ally, speaks from the perspective of someone who needed consistent supply lines, unified strategy, and dependable commitments. In that light, state autonomy reads less like liberty and more like friction.

The subtext is a warning about incentives. Local legislatures answer to immediate constituencies, parochial economies, and short-term resentments; a "general government" has to answer to survival, finance, and diplomacy. Knox implies those priorities will collide every time, so delay and sabotage are predictable outcomes, not moral failings. It's an early articulation of the Federalist bet: that unity isn't just an ideal, it's an administrative requirement. The rhetorical tightness of "must" makes it feel like gravity, not opinion - a soldier's pragmatism translated into constitutional pressure.