[P_A_I]

Read further.. Sure, he admits we must have overall fed control over commerce but only with State acquiescence:

" --- How is this harmony to be obtained? only by an acquiescence of all the States in the opinion of a reasonable majority.
If Congress as they are now constituted, can not be trusted with the power of digesting and enforcing this opinion, let them be otherwise constituted: let their numbers be increased, let them be chosen oftener, and let their period of service be short[e]ned; or if any better medium than Congress can be proposed, by which the wills of the States may be concentered, let it be substituted;
-- or lastly let no regulation of trade adopted by Congress be in force untill it shall have been ratified by a certain proportion of the States.

But let us not sacrifice the end to the means: let us not rush on certain ruin in order to avoid a possible danger. I conceive it to be of great importance that the defects of the federal system should be amended, not only because such amendments will make it better answer the purpose for which it was instituted, but because I apprehend danger to its very existence from a continuance of defects which expose a part if not the whole of the empire to severe distress. -- "

So here we have it.. Severe State distress, no harmony, -- because the feds insist that they have the power to prohibit, rather than to reasonably regulate.

Why is that? What drives otherwise reasonable people to prohibitionism?

[inquest]

"...only by an acquiescence of all the States in the opinion of a reasonable majority.

The context of his statement is that the states should obey the orders of this "reasonable majority". The problem that existed at the time was that each state was setting its own trade policy, and that diminished the effectiveness of any trade policy. He wanted there to be a national policy, that all the states would be bound to go along with. He was not saying that it should require a unanimous vote of the states in order to adopt such a policy.