Our states are much larger than the little democracies of ancient Greece or of modern Italy--the new and improved principle of representation, combined with the modern improvements in the whole machinery of government, have rendered the republican form much better suited to large states than formerly. Some of our states may perhaps be too large, and others too small. But our ancestors very wisely avoided that geometrical policy, which would have divided our country into equal squares, like France in the dark days of her revolution. "No man ever was attached," says Burke, "by a sense of pride, partiality, or real affection, to a description of square measurement. He never will glory in belonging to the chequer No. 71, or to any other badge ticket. We begin our public affections in our families. No cold relation is a zealous citizen. We pass on to our neighborhoods and our habitual provincial connections;" and these ties and habits were respected by our forefathers. No sovereign state, no matter how small, was disfranchised--the giant and the dwarf had their rights and liberties alike respected and secured in this new system, and all were bound together by a wise and beneficent plan of government, based upon the mutual interests and sympathies of all the members of the confederacy--a plan which was wisely framed to give lasting peace to our country, and to demonstrate the inapplicability to our portion of the western hemisphere at least, of the gloomy philosophy of the European statesman, that the natural condition of man is war. Thus organized, our system was calculated to apply the beneficial stimulus of government to every portion of our soil and every division of our population, and at the same time in the midst of profound peace and freedom of intercourse, both social and commercial, among the states, to secure that enlarged and extended theatre for action, which may stimulate and reward the exalted genius and talent of the country, and crown the pyramid of our greatness. But I must turn from this view of my subject, which has ever been so delightful to my mind, to the contemplation always gloomy, of the dangerous evils which may beset us in our progress onwards. It is too true that there can be nothing pure in this world; good and evil are always intertwined. It has well been said that the wave which wafts to our shore the genial seed that may spring up and gladden our land with luxuriant vegetation, may unfold the deadly crocodile.