Most
carefully were all these circumstances weighed, and the
foundations of the new Government laid upon principles of
reciprocal concession and equitable compromise. The jealousies
which the smaller States might entertain of the power of the rest
were allayed by a rule of representation confessedly unequal at
the time, and designed forever to remain so. A natural fear that
the broad scope of general legislation might bear upon and
unwisely control particular interests was counteracted by limits
strictly drawn around the action of the Federal authority, and to
the people and the States was left unimpaired their sovereign
power over the innumerable subjects embraced in the internal
government of a just republic, excepting such only as necessarily
appertain to the concerns of the whole confederacy or its
intercourse as a united community with the other nations of the
world.
This provident forecast has been verified by time. Half a century,
teeming with extraordinary events, and elsewhere producing
astonishing results, has passed along, but on our institutions it
has left no injurious mark. From a small community we have risen
to a people powerful in numbers and in strength; but with our
increase has gone hand in hand the progress of just principles.
The privileges, civil and religious, of the humblest individual
are still sacredly protected at home, and while the valor and
fortitude of our people have removed far from us the slightest
apprehension of foreign power, they have not yet induced us in a
single instance to forget what is right.
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