the principal of which
reasons are that the extension of the spheres of election will present
a greater option, or latitude of choice, to the people; that through
the medium of the State legislatures which are select bodies of men, and
which are to appoint the members of the national Senate there is reason
to expect that this branch will generally be composed with peculiar care
and judgment; that these circumstances promise greater knowledge and
more extensive information in the national councils, and that they will
be less apt to be tainted by the spirit of faction, and more out of
the reach of those occasional ill-humors, or temporary prejudices and
propensities, which, in smaller societies, frequently contaminate
the public councils, beget injustice and oppression of a part of the
community, and engender schemes which, though they gratify a momentary
inclination or desire, terminate in general distress, dissatisfaction,
and disgust. Several additional reasons of considerable force, to
fortify that probability, will occur when we come to survey, with a more
critical eye, the interior structure of the edifice which we are invited
to erect. It will be sufficient here to remark, that until satisfactory
reasons can be assigned to justify an opinion, that the federal
government is likely to be administered in such a manner as to render
it odious or contemptible to the people, there can be no reasonable
foundation for the supposition that the laws of the Union will meet with
any greater obstruction from them, or will stand in need of any other
methods to enforce their execution, than the laws of the particular
members.
The hope of impunity is a strong incitement to sedition; the dread of
punishment, a proportionably strong discouragement to it. Will not the
government of the Union, which, if possessed of a due degree of power,
can call to its aid the collective resources of the whole Confederacy,
be more likely to repress the FORMER sentiment and to inspire the
LATTER, than that of a single State, which can only command the
resources within itself? A turbulent faction in a State may easily
suppose itself able to contend with the friends to the government in
that State; but it can hardly be so infatuated as to imagine itself a
match for the combined efforts of the Union. If this reflection be
just, there is less danger of resistance from irregular combinations of
individuals to the authority of the Confederacy than to that
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