But if ever our state institutions shall be overthrown, and the concentration of all the powers into one great central government shall mould this system of republics into one grand consolidated empire, then will the last and greatest evil which can befal our country have arrived. The wide extent of our territory, and the numbers of our population, which under a system of confederated republics, would awaken the genius and patriotism of the country, and call forth an almost resistless energy and enterprise in our citizens, would then be a blighting curse--the bane of our land. All eyes would be turned to that great and fearful engine at the centre, whose oppressive action would paralyze all the parts, whilst it would bind them together in indissoluble union--in the numbness and torpor of death itself. Could it be possible for our government, after such consolidation, to retain its democratic form, then would it become the most corrupt, the most demoralizing, the most intolerably oppressive government which the annals of history could furnish. That diversity of climate, of soil, of character, and of interest--that great difference of condition springing from the existence or non-existence of slavery, all of which, under a mild, federative system, would increase the general happiness and add to the blessings of union, by interlocking, in the harmony of free trade, all the interests of the parts, would then lead on to vicious combinations in our national legislature, for the purpose of robbing one portion of the union for the benefit of another--then would be formed our fixed and sectional majorities, who by their unprincipled and irresponsible legislation, would prostrate the rights and suck out the very substance from the minority. The history of past ages informs us that physical force has hitherto been the great engine which has distributed the wealth and overthrown the liberties of nations. But the system would be changed here. Governmental action and legislative jugglery would accomplish more effectually what the sword has done elsewhere. And to the oppressed there would be but one right left--the right that belongs to the worm when trodden on--the right of turning upon the oppressor and shaking off his iron grasp, if possible. This is the most valuable of all rights to the European citizen--because there the few, the units, are the oppressors, and the millions are the oppressed; and when tyranny has passed beyond the point of endurance, and the people are at last roused to a sense of the injustice and wrongs which they are suffering, they rise in their might and pull down the pillars of the political edifice.