State of Parties and the Country [pp. 1-53]

State of Parties and the Countr y.
The securities-short of weapons-for the popular liberties in our country, are to be found only in the constitution
of the United States, and in the recognition and maintenance
of the rights of the States. According to our notion, the latter first. The States constitute the only substantial barriers
against centralism, and centralism is always the great danger threatening confederated states. The confederacy has
its birth in the States, and in the desire fo,' their security.
It has no other object' and no blindness can be more fatal
or extreme than that which confounds the agent with his
principal, and finally substitutes the one for the other-a
thing whichl frequently happens among men and States-as
the overseer naturally usurps the soil of the absentee. It
follows that the people connot too jealously.or vigilantly
watch the progress of those influences, xwhich, whether de signedly- or not, inevitably go to change the character o
stitutions. Overseers, having no other care, wrill natura see
that they themselves suffer no loss; and, too indulgently to suf fer their management, invites to usurpation. If the States are
kept safe, the Federal Government is beyond all danger. It is
an intangibility, approached by the foreign assailant. It can
only be reached by piercing the States to the core. It is
accordingly absurd to talk of its danger. It suffers none;
but we may, in our simplicity, be persuaded to weep over
the sorrows and terrors of this widow, sitting desolate and
tearftil in her high places-another Jerusalem-while the
crocodile prepares to devour the consoler. Such may be the
relations of the parties, if we forget their true relations.
They were thus fprgotten when South-Carolina was offered
up as a victim to Federalism. It was, accordingly, an evil
hour for the best securities of the States, when President
Jackson, inflamed by personal anger against Mr. Calhoun,
committed himself-and by reason of his dominant will and
vast popularity, his party-to the most aggressive exactions
of Federalism-to the utterance of dogmas which went to
the utter annihilation of the States —yielding the principal
to the sway of the agent, and surrendering all the guar anties of the constitution to the tender mercies of a blind,
mad, headlong and totally irresponsible majority —federal
[July,
6