Constitutional history -- United States -- Sources; Constitutional law -- United States
Various reasons have been suggested, in the course of these papers, to
induce a probability that the general government will be better
administered than the particular governments; the principal of which
reasons are that the extension of the spheres of election will present
a greater option, or latitude of choice, to the people; that through
the medium of the State legislatures which are select bodies of men,
and which are to appoint the members of the national Senate there is
reason to expect that this branch will generally be composed with
peculiar care and judgment; that these circumstances promise greater
knowledge and more extensive information in the national councils, and
that they will be less apt to be tainted by the spirit of faction, and
more out of the reach of those occasional ill-humors, or temporary
prejudices and propensities, which, in smaller societies, frequently
contaminate the public councils, beget injustice and oppression of a
part of the community, and engender schemes which, though they gratify
a momentary inclination or desire, terminate in general distress,
dissatisfaction, and disgust. Several additional reasons of
considerable force, to fortify that probability, will occur when we
come to survey, with a more critical eye, the interior structure of the
edifice which we are invited to erect. It will be sufficient here to
remark, that until satisfactory reasons can be assigned to justify an
opinion, that the federal government is likely to be administered in
such a manner as to render it odious or contemptible to the people,
there can be no reasonable foundation for the supposition that the laws
of the Union will meet with any greater obstruction from them, or will
stand in need of any other methods to enforce their execution, than the
laws of the particular members.
The hope of impunity is a strong incitement to sedition; the dread of
punishment, a proportionably strong discouragement to it. Will not the
government of the Union, which, if possessed of a due degree of power,
can call to its aid the collective resources of the whole Confederacy,
be more likely to repress the FORMER sentiment and to inspire the
LATTER, than that of a single State, which can only command the
resources within itself? A turbulent faction in a State may easily
suppose itself able to contend with the friends to the government in
that State; but it can hardly be so infatuated as to imagine itself a
match for the combined efforts of the Union. If this reflection be
just, there is less danger of resistance from irregular combinations of
individuals to the authority of the Confederacy than to that of a
single member.
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