History is full of examples of the good and great sacrificed to the hasty judgments of infuriated multitudes,and of the most fatal public measures adopted under the excitements of the moment.How easy it is for the adroit and cunning to avail themselves of such occasions,and how impossible it is,for a people so acted on,to watch their rulers wisely,and guard themselves against the encroachments of power?In a federative system,this danger is avoided,so far as their common government is concerned.The right of interposition belongs,not to the people in the aggregate,but to the people in separate and comparatively small subdivisions.And even in these subdivisions,they can act only through the forms of their own separate governments.
These are necessarily slow and deliberate,affording time for excitement to subside,and for passion to cool.Having to pass through their own governments,before they reach that of the United States,they are forbidden to act until they have had time for reflection,and for the exercise of a cool and temperate judgment.Besides,they are taught to look,not to one government only,for the protection and security of their rights,and not to feel that they owe obedience only to that.Conscious that they can find,in their own State governments,protection against the wrongs of the Federal Government,their feeling of dependence is less oppressive,and their judgments more free.And while their efforts to throw off oppression are not repressed by a feeling that there is no power to which they can appeal,these efforts are kept under clue restraints,by a consciousness that they cannot be unwisely exerted,except to the injury of the people themselves.It is difficult to perceive how a Federal Government,established on correct principles,can ever be overthrown,except by external violence,so long as the federative principle is duly respected and maintained.All the requisite checks and balances will be found,in the right of the States to keep their common government within their common sphere;and a sufficient security for the due exercise of that right is afforded by the fact,that it is the interest of the States to exercise it discreetly.So far as our own government is concerned,I venture to predict that it will become absolute and irresponsible,precisely in proportion as the rights of the States shall cease to be respected,and their authority to interpose for the correction of federal abuses shall be denied and overthrown.
It should be the object of every patriot in the United States to encourage a high respect for the State governments.The people should be taught to regard them as their greatest interest,and as the first objects of their duty and affection.Maintained in their just rights and powers,they form the true balance-wheel,the only effectual check on federal encroachments.
