lican
government for the nation. If one portion of the state governments
should be republican, like Vermont, where suffrage is open to all--and
another portion should be oligarchies, like South Carolina, and the
other slave states--another portion limited monarchies, like
England--another portion ecclesiastical, like that of the Pope of Rome,
or that of the ancient Jews--and another portion absolute despotisms,
like that of Nicholas, in Russia, or that of Francia, in Paraguay,--and
the same body, and only the same body, of electors, that sustained each
of these governments at home, should be represented in the national
government, each state would send into the national legislature the
representatives of its own peculiar system of government; and the
national legislature, instead of being composed of the representatives
of any one theory, or principle of government, would be made up of the
representatives of all the various theories of government that prevailed
in the different states--from the extreme of democracy to the extreme of
despotism. And each of these various representatives would be obliged to
carry his local principles into the national legislature, else he could
not retain the confidence of his peculiar constituents. The consequence
would be, that the national legislature would present the spectacle of a
perfect Babel of discordant tongues, elements, passions, interests and
purposes, instead of an assembly united for the accomplishment of any
agreed or distinct object.

Without some distinct and agreed object as a bond of union, it would
obviously be impracticable for any general union of the whole people to
subsist; and that bond of union, whatever it be, must also harmonize
with the principles of each of the state governments, else there would
be a collision between the general and state governments.

Now the great bond of union, agreed upon in the general government, was
"the rights of man"--expressed in the national constitution by the terms
"liberty and justice." What other bond could have been agreed upon? On
what other principle of government could they all have united? Could
they have united to sustain the divine right of kings? The feudal
privileges of nobles? Or the supremacy of the Christian, Mahometan, or
any other church? No. They all denied the divine right of kings, and the
feudal rights of nobles; and they were of all creeds in religion. But
they were agreed that all men had certain natural