Constitutional history -- United States -- Sources; Constitutional law -- United States
I will, in this place, hazard an observation, which will not be the
less just because to some it may appear new; which is, that the more
the operations of the national authority are intermingled in the
ordinary exercise of government, the more the citizens are accustomed
to meet with it in the common occurrences of their political life, the
more it is familiarized to their sight and to their feelings, the
further it enters into those objects which touch the most sensible
chords and put in motion the most active springs of the human heart,
the greater will be the probability that it will conciliate the respect
and attachment of the community. Man is very much a creature of habit.
A thing that rarely strikes his senses will generally have but little
influence upon his mind. A government continually at a distance and out
of sight can hardly be expected to interest the sensations of the
people. The inference is, that the authority of the Union, and the
affections of the citizens towards it, will be strengthened, rather
than weakened, by its extension to what are called matters of internal
concern; and will have less occasion to recur to force, in proportion
to the familiarity and comprehensiveness of its agency. The more it
circulates through those channels and currents in which the passions of
mankind naturally flow, the less will it require the aid of the violent
and perilous expedients of compulsion.
One thing, at all events, must be evident, that a government like the
one proposed would bid much fairer to avoid the necessity of using
force, than that species of league contend for by most of its
opponents; the authority of which should only operate upon the States
in their political or collective capacities. It has been shown that in
such a Confederacy there can be no sanction for the laws but force;
that frequent delinquencies in the members are the natural offspring of
the very frame of the government; and that as often as these happen,
they can only be redressed, if at all, by war and violence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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