nd weak, even if it were proved that the
strength and wealth of the one are not the causes of the weakness and
poverty of the other. But union is still more difficult to maintain at a
time at which one party is losing strength, and the other is gaining it.
This rapid and disproportionate increase of certain States threatens
the independence of the others. New York might perhaps succeed, with its
2,000,000 of inhabitants and its forty representatives, in dictating to
the other States in Congress. But even if the more powerful States make
no attempt to bear down the lesser ones, the danger still exists; for
there is almost as much in the possibility of the act as in the act
itself. The weak generally mistrust the justice and the reason of the
strong. The States which increase less rapidly than the others look upon
those which are more favored by fortune with envy and suspicion. Hence
arise the deep-seated uneasiness and ill-defined agitation which are
observable in the South, and which form so striking a contrast to the
confidence and prosperity which are common to other parts of the Union.
I am inclined to think that the hostile measures taken by the Southern
provinces upon a recent occasion are attributable to no other cause. The
inhabitants of the Southern States are, of all the Americans, those
who are most interested in the maintenance of the Union; they would
assuredly suffer most from being left to themselves; and yet they are
the only citizens who threaten to break the tie of confederation. But
it is easy to perceive that the South, which has given four Presidents,
Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, to the Union, which
perceives that it is losing its federal influence, and that the number
of its representatives in Congress is diminishing from year to year,
whilst those of the Northern and Western States are increasing; the
South, which is peopled with ardent and irascible beings, is becoming
more and more irritated and alarmed. The citizens reflect upon their
present position and remember their past influence, with the melancholy
uneasiness of men who suspect oppression: if they discover a law of
the Union which is not unequivocally favorable to their interests,
they protest against it as an abuse of force; and if their ardent
remonstrances are not listened to, they threaten to quit an association
which loads them with burdens whilst it deprives them of their due
profits. "The tariff," said the inhabitants