We are accustomed to hear it said that the great powers of government in this country are divided into two classes; National powers and State powers. That is an incomplete classification. Our fathers carefully divided all governmental powers into three classes; one they gave to the States, another to the Nation; but the third great class, comprising the most precious of all powers, they refused to confer on the State or Nation, but reserved to themselves. This third class of powers has been almost uniformly overlooked by men who have written and discussed the American system. * * * * * Congress must always be the exponent of the political character and culture of the people, and if the next centennial does not find us a great Nation with a great and worthy Congress, it will be because those who represent the enterprise, the culture, and the morality of the Nation do not aid in controlling the political forces which are employed to select the men who shall occupy the great places of trust and power. * * * * * There is scarcely a conceivable form of corruption or public wrong that does not at last present itself at the cashier's desk and demand money. The Legislature therefore, that stands at the cashier's desk and watches with its Argus eyes the demands for payment over the counter is most certain to see all the forms of public rascality. * * * * * A steady and constant Revenue drawn from sources that represent the prosperity of the nation,--a Revenue that grows with the growth of national wealth, and is so adjusted to the expenditures, that a constant and considerable surplus is annually left in the Treasury above all the necessary current demands, a surplus that keeps the Treasury strong, that holds it above the fear of sudden panic, that makes it impregnable against all private combinations, that makes it a terror to all stock-jobbing and gold-gambling,--this is financial health. [From the "Atlantic Monthly," July, 1877.]