l condition after fifty years' trial of our system
with what it was in the commencement of its operations and ascertain
whether the predictions of the patriots who opposed its adoption or the
confident hopes of its advocates have been best realized. The great
dread of the former seems to have been that the reserved powers of the
States would be absorbed by those of the Federal Government and a
consolidated power established, leaving to the States the shadow only of
that independent action for which they had so zealously contended and on
the preservation of which they relied as the last hope of liberty.
Without denying that the result to which they looked with so much
apprehension is in the way of being realized, it is obvious that they
did not clearly see the mode of its accomplishment. The General
Government has seized upon none of the reserved rights of the States. AS
far as any open warfare may have gone, the State authorities have amply
maintained their rights. To a casual observer our system presents no
appearance of discord between the different members which compose it.
Even the addition of many new ones has produced no jarring. They move in
their respective orbits in perfect harmony with the central head and
with each other. But there is still an undercurrent at work by which, if
not seasonably checked, the worst apprehensions of our antifederal
patriots will be realized, and not only will the State authorities be
overshadowed by the great increase of power in the executive department
of the General Government, but the character of that Government, if not
its designation, be essentially and radically changed. This state of
things has been in part effected by causes inherent in the Constitution
and in part by the never-failing tendency of political power to increase
itself. By making the President the sole distributer of all the
patronage of the Government the framers of the Constitution do not
appear to have anticipated at how short a period it would become a
formidable instrument to control the free operations of the State
governments. Of trifling importance at first, it had early in Mr.
Jefferson's Administration become so powerful as to create great alarm
in the mind of that patriot from the potent influence it might exert in
controlling the freedom of the elective franchise. If such could have
then been the effects of its influence, how much greater must be the
danger at this time, quadrupled in amount as it c