the will of the majority.
Under no other arrangement, perhaps, could the advantage be secured of every man being, in his turn, a servant of the commonwealth. If the general government managed everything, the public service would soon become the privilege of a certain class, or a number of classes of men; as is seen to be the case elsewhere. The relation and gradation of service which are now so remarkable a feature in the United States commonwealth, could never then happen naturally, as they now do. Almost every man serves in his township in New England, and in the corresponding ward or section elsewhere; and has his capability tried; and, if worthy, he serves his county, his State, and finally the Union, in Congress. Such is the theory: and if not followed up well in practice, if some of the best men never get beyond serving their township, and some of the worst now and then get into Congress, the people are unquestionably better served than if the selection of servants depended on accident, or the favour of men in power. Whatever extraneous impediments may interfere with the true working of the theory, every citizen feels, or ought to feel, what a glorious career may lie before him. In his country, every road to success is open to all. There are no artificial disqualifications which may not be surmounted. All humbug, whether of fashion and show, of sanctimoniousness, of licentiousness, or of anything else, is there destined to speedy failure and retribution. There is no hereditary humbug in the United States. If the honest, wise man, feels himself depressed below the knave, he has, if he did but know it, only to wait patiently a little while, and he will have his due. Though truth is equally great everywhere, and equally sure ultimately to prevail, men of other countries have often to wait till they reach the better country than all, before they witness this ultimate prevalence, except with the eye of faith. The young nation over the Atlantic, is indulged, for the encouragement, with a speedier retribution for her well or ill doings; and almost every one of her citizens, if he be truly honourable, may trust to be fitly honoured before he dies.
Another conservative effect of the state governments is the facilities they afford for the correction of solecisms, the renovation of institutions as they are outgrown, and the amendment of all unsuitable arrangements. If anything wants to be rectified in any State, it can be done on the mere will of the people concerned. There is no imploring of an uninterested government at a distance—a government so occupied with its foreign relations as to have little attention to spare for domestic grievances which it does not feel. There is no waiting any body's pleasure; nobody's leave to ask. The remedy is so close at hand, those who are to give it are so nearly concerned, that it may always, and, for the most part, speedily, be obtained, upon good cause being shown. No external observance is needed, except of the few and express prohibitions which the general and state governments have interchanged.
It is amusing to look over the proceedings of the state legislatures for any one year. Maine amends her libel law, decreeing that proof of truth shall be admitted as justification. Massachusetts decrees a revision and consolidation of her laws, and the annihilation of lotteries. Rhode Island improves her quarantine regulations. Connecticut passes an act for the preservation of corn-fields from crows. Vermont decrees the protection of the dead in their graves. New York prohibits the importation of foreign convicts. New Jersey incorporates a dairy company. Pennsylvania mitigates the law which authorises imprisonment for debt. Maryland authorises a geological survey. Georgia enlarges her law of divorce. Alabama puts children, in certain circumstances, under the protection of chancery. Mississippi decrees a census. Tennessee interdicts barbacues in the neighbourhood of camp meetings. Ohio regulates the care of escheated lands. Indiana prohibits a higher rate of interest than ten percent. Missouri authorises the conveyance of real estate by married women. And so on. It seems difficult to imagine how many abuses can reach an extreme, or be tardy of cure, where the will of the majority is not only speedily made known, but where the division of employment is so skilfully arranged that the majority may be trusted to understand the case on which they are to decide.
It has always appeared to me that much misapprehension is occasioned by its being supposed that the strength of the general government lies in the number of its functions; and its weakness in the extent of its area. To me it appears directly the reverse. A government which has the management of all the concerns of a people, the greater and the smaller, preserves its stability by the general interest in its more important functions. If you desire to weaken it, you must withdraw from its guardianship the more general and important of its affairs. If you desire to shield it from cavil and attack, you must put the more local and partial objects of its administration under other management. If the general government of the United States had to manage all legislation and administration within their boundaries, it could hardly hold together one year. If it had only one function, essential to all, and impossible to be otherwise fulfilled, there seems no reason why it should not work prosperously till there are fifty States around it, and longer. The importance of the functions of the general government depends partly upon the universality of the interest in them; and partly upon the numbers included under them. So far, therefore, from the enlargement of the area of the United States being perilous to the general government, by making it "cumbrous," as many fear, it seems to me likely to work a directly contrary effect. There are strong reasons why an extension of her area would be injurious to her, but I cannot regard this as one. A government which has to keep watch over the defence, foreign policy, commerce, and currency, of from twenty-five to fifty small republics, is safer in the guardianship of its subjects than if it had to manage these same affairs for one large republic, with the additional superintendence of its debtors, its libellers, and the crows of its corn-fields.
Little or no room for rebellion seems to be left under the constitution of the United States. In the progress of human affairs, familiar evils expire with worn-out institutions, and new dangers arise out of the midst of renovated arrangements. Assassinations are the form which resistance to government assumes in pure despotisms. Rebellion is the name it bears under governments somewhat more liberal. In the United States, nothing worse than professed Nullification has yet been heard of—unless Colonel Burr's secret schemes were indeed treasonable. A brief account of the South Carolina Nullification may exhibit the relations, and occasional enmities of the general and states government in a clearer way than could be done, otherwise than by a narrative of facts. This little history shows, among many other things, that America follows the rest of the world in quoting the constitution as a sanction of the most opposite designs and proceedings: what different sympathies respond to the word "patriotism;" and of how little avail is the letter of the constitution, when there is variance as to its spirit.
Georgia laid claim, some years ago, to the Cherokee territory, on the ground that the United States had no right to make the laws and treaties by which the Cherokees were protected; that such legislation was inconsistent with the reserved rights of the sovereign state of Georgia. Georgia thus acted upon the supposition, that she was to construe the federal compact in her own way, and proceed according to her own construction. Congress checked her in this assumption, and rejected her pretensions by an almost unanimous vote. Soon after the accession of General Jackson to the presidentship, Georgia, either presuming upon his favour, or wishing to test his dispositions, began to encroach upon the Cherokee lands. The Cherokees appealed to the federal government for protection, under the laws and treaties framed for that very purpose. The President replied, that Georgia was right in annulling those laws and treaties, and that the executive could not interfere. The Indian cause was brought before the Supreme Court. There was difficulty about the character in which the plaintiffs were to sue, and as to whether they could sue at all, under that provision of the constitution which authorises foreign nations to demand justice from the federal tribunals. The court expressed a strong, opinion however, that the Cherokees were entitled to protection from the Executive.
The Supreme Court and Georgia were thus brought into opposition, while the Executive took the part of Georgia. Compassion for the Cherokees was now swallowed up in anxiety about the decision of the question of state rights. The Executive had, as yet, only negatively declared himself, however; and the Supreme Court had not been driven on to deliver a verdict against the Georgian laws, by which the Cherokees were oppressed. The topic of the right of a State to annul the laws and treaties of the federal government was meantime generally discussed; and reconsideration was forced upon
