Constitutional history -- United States -- Sources; Constitutional law -- United States
The more numerous part invaded the rights of the less numerous part.
The attempt was unjust and unwise; but it was not in speculation
absolutely chimerical. But what would be the contest in the case we are
supposing? Who would be the parties? A few representatives of the
people would be opposed to the people themselves; or rather one set of
representatives would be contending against thirteen sets of
representatives, with the whole body of their common constituents on
the side of the latter. The only refuge left for those who prophesy the
downfall of the State governments is the visionary supposition that the
federal government may previously accumulate a military force for the
projects of ambition. The reasonings contained in these papers must
have been employed to little purpose indeed, if it could be necessary
now to disprove the reality of this danger. That the people and the
States should, for a sufficient period of time, elect an uninterrupted
succession of men ready to betray both; that the traitors should,
throughout this period, uniformly and systematically pursue some fixed
plan for the extension of the military establishment; that the
governments and the people of the States should silently and patiently
behold the gathering storm, and continue to supply the materials, until
it should be prepared to burst on their own heads, must appear to every
one more like the incoherent dreams of a delirious jealousy, or the
misjudged exaggerations of a counterfeit zeal, than like the sober
apprehensions of genuine patriotism.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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