also certain, though perhaps less obvious, that this ftiest aim is the sovereignty of a petty canton? attachment will have less of the fervor of passion, What is that avarice, whose cravings can be satisin proportion as its object is weakened and diluted fied by the plunder of a sinall and poor state? by being combined with other objects which are Weak, indeed, must be the love of country which regarded with indifference and perhaps aversion? would not be proof against such paltry temptaEvery man is more deeply sensible of the ties tions. Between the chief of a community, whose which bind him to his own immediate family, place can scarcely be distinguished on the map— than of his more extended relation to the society whose existence is hardly noted in the history of of which his family is a member. But let that the world-and him who is but eminent among his family form but an inconceivably small part of a neighbors for probity, benevolence and wisdom, collective whole, made up of jarring opinions, and ambition itself sees little choice. The love of uncongenial feelings, and incongruous habits, and power is rarely any thing but the love of money, adverse prejudices, and conflicting interests, and or the love of fame, and weak must be the tempthere is danger that the love of family and friends, tation to seek a station which promises little of the on the one hand, and the love of country on the one, and nothing of the other. Ambition is inother, instead of being identical, will become deed at work every where; in the village as in antagonist passions. The very sentiments-out of the metropolis; in the canton as in the mighty whose delicate fibre is spun the strong cord that empire. "Little things are great to little men.” binds the heart of man to his country-may they But, gentlemen, it is not by little men that the not thus hold back his affections from fastening on liberties of states are overthrown, and the destithat object? In short, gentlemen, does not a sound nies of nations fixed for good or ill. The evils, view of the philosophy of the human mind point against which we have to guard on the side of to the conclusion, verified by all experience, that ambition, are those which might furnish motives it is in small communities only, that the love of of prevailing influence over men capable of great country is found to glow, with the intensity of achievements. Ambition, in such a man, when those passions, which account life as worthless, in his lot is cast in an inconsiderable community, lifts comparison with the honor of a wife, the purity of his aspiring eye to objects far above the paltry ofa daughter, or even a wanton's whim. When fices and petty political distinctions of the state. the countless hosts of Germany met at Auster-She reminds him that he is a member of the relitz the army of Bonaparte, the pride of military public of letters, of the great family of man, and glory, the very certaminis gaudia nerved them to incites him a short and vigorous struggle, and then they scattered like chaff before the wind, and their country sunk unresisting before the triumphant invader. Hence the flood of light-the continued stream of But when three hundred inhabitants of a petty moral and intellectual influences—that the little reSwiss canton encountered at Mogarten the over-public of Geneva has poured upon the world, whelming force of Austria, they thought not of from minds, which placed in mightier states, victory--they thought not of glory-they thought not of safety. Their thoughts were only of their country. Their country, their whole country, was spread out before their eyes, and from every commanding height each soldier looked on the scenes of his childhood's sports, on the fields his own hands had tilled, on the roof that sheltered his loving wife and tender babes. There they stood, fighting as Gentlemen: had the task which lay before our men who, in the midst of despair, perform the tasks fathers, been nothing more than to devise a goof hope. There each fell fighting where he stood, vernment for the small, though magnanimous coand none was left to tell the story of that glorious lony of Virginia, adequate to her wants and conbut disastrous day. Such are the deeds that tes-sistent with her free spirit, that task would have tify that the love of country may be a passion which shall spurn at every thing which might frighten or allure, and which can triumph even in death by leaving the conqueror nothing but the worthless carcass of him he would enslave.

"To make his mind the mind of other men,
The enlightener of nations."

might have shaken thrones, and changed the destinies of the earth. It is in such states-in states that figure in the drama of the great commonwealth of nations, and whose annals form a conspicuous part in the history of the world-here it is that ambition finds its natural aliment, and displays its portentous power.

been comparatively easy. Experience has shown that the slight change in her domestic polity, rendered necessary by a severance of her connexion with the mother country, was all sufficient. The history of the world might be safely challenged But, gentlemen, it is not through sear alone that to produce an example of a government more exliberty is endangered. Other passions, though actly fulfilling all its legitimate purposes, and no less abject, are more corrupting; and death itself more, for fifty years after that event. Do you ask does not more powerfully influence the mind than the reason? Look at the powers of your public the temptations of avarice, and the allurements of functionaries! What object was there to provoke ambition. But what is that ambition, whose lof- ambition? Look to the fiscal resources of the

state!

What was there to fill the rapacious man of avarice? Look to the whole structure of the government, and then find the man who could promise himself, from any abuse of its powers, an equivalent for the blessings to be enjoyed under its faithful administration!

The extreme simplicity and perfect efficiency of the original constitution of Virginia, so long as it was retained, may suggest to some the thought, that, in the problem of free government, there is less difficulty than I have supposed. But, alas! gentlemen, there was, in that constitution, one capital defect. It had not the faculty of preserving itself; for it provided no security against corruptions from without, and a consequent spirit of innovation, which first changed the people, and, through them, changed the constitution.

The history of the time is full of proof that this danger was viewed with an anxious eye. The formation of a vast reservoir of patronage and influence, which might burst its bounds, and sweep before it all the barriers of the constitution, was a work which demanded all the skill and all the caution of the able men engaged in it. The possibility, that such a destroying stream might be poured over the land, was a necessary consequence of the union. To stay the torrent by direct opposition, might be impracticable. What remained, but to remove, as far as possible, from its desolating course, the great bulwarks which defend the rights of life, and liberty, and property, and domestic peace, and the blissful relations of private life?

To secure this end, an attempt was made to dissociate, from the command of these sources of inBut still the question comes back upon us: fluence, all authority to legislate over the private How did it happen, that, through the lapse of half interests of men; to accumulate as many as posa century, the history of Virginia fully justifies sible of the powers of government in the hands the boast of one of her noblest sons-the boast, of state functionaries, having little of patronage that during all that time," not only did no instance to recommend misrule to the favor of the aspiring occur, but no charge was ever made, no suspicion entertained, of one single act of corruption in any officer in legislative, executive or judicial station: that no poor man had ever been oppressed with impunity; no rich man exalted on the mere strength of wealth alone; and that no commotion, no faction, no animosities had ever arisen among us, in relation to our internal affairs of government."

and greedy; and to strip the dispensers of the enormous revenues of the union of all pretexts to invade the sanctuaries of private rights.

Another consideration strongly recommended the same distribution of powers. It has been well and truly said, that it is the duty of every people to consider themselves as the trustees of the providence of God, in the use and enjoyment of such portion of his earth as he has allotted to The answer to this bold challenge is to be found them. Made for the use of man, it is his office to in considering how much of the sources of corrup- develope its resources, and to task its utmost powtion and undue influence, how many of the incen-ers for the benefit of the human race. To this tives to ambition, and lures to rapacity are found in the management of the external relations of a state. These give rise to armies, and navies, and foreign embassies; and these to commercial regulations and overflowing revenues; and here it is that ambition finds objects worthy of its aspirations, and the means of attaining them by the corrupting influence of gold.

object his legislation should be adapted. Is he blessed with a fertile soil and genial climate, that he may suffer the earth to waste its affluence in wild luxuriance, poisoning the air with rank and unprofitable vegetation? Will not the cry of the hungry orphan rise up to heaven against him, who thus abuses the bounty of the common father of all? Do the bowels of his land teem with rich From these mischiefs, our domestic institutions ores, designed for man, and shall he not draw them were happily exempted, by the arrangement forth from the deep recesses, where almighty wiswhich committed to the federal government the dom has deposited them for his use? Do gushing management of all these high and delicate concerns. streams pour down from barren hills into unfruitWithin itself, therefore, the state government car-ful vallies, and shall he fail to subdue to his serried no principle of corruption-no disturbing in-vice the mighty power, which, since the world fluence to unsettle the balance of its powers, and began, has thus been wasting its gigantic strength, the harmony of its action. But it would have and waiting only for the controlling hand of man been unworthy of the wisdom of our ancestors to to direct its energies to the mill, the forge, the suppose that the evil was eradicated, because the loom, and all the infinite variety of machineries, mischief was thus turned aside. On the contrary, by which the comforts of life are extended, mulit became them to reflect, that if the foreign rela- tiplied and diffused? Do his insular situation, and tions of a petty state might awaken ambition and safe and capacious harbors, give him peculiar adafford the means of swaying and corrupting her vantages for commercial enterprise, and shall he public servants, the same danger was more to be not spread his sails to every wind of heaven, and apprehended from a government wielding the devote himself to the noble task of communicating sword and the trident, and administering the reve- to every part of the earth all the peculiar advannues of all this vast continent. tages of each?

That such is the duty of man to his Maker and | fice of interest to sympathy in favor of the people his race, none will deny; and, so far as legislation of a distant region, of different manners, habits, is necessary to the fulfilment of this duty, so far opinions, and prejudices, perhaps of a different should it be directed to that object. But how race, or deriving from their ancestors a far-dewould this task be performed by a legislative body, scended and long-cherished animosity, both relisupreme in all things, and giving law in all things, gious and political? But even though, could such to a country extending from Passamaquoddy to appeals be made to the people directly, some moCape Florida, to the Gulph of Mexico, and to the mentary relentings might touch their hearts, what shores of the Pacific; a country embracing every advantage of this sort could be expected, in a revariety of soil, and climate, and production, and presentative assembly, where each man acts, not including various states, some exclusively fitted for himself, but for others, and makes it a point of for agriculture, some for manufactures, and some conscience to harden his heart against the comfor commerce? Could the system of legislation punctious visitings of nature, and to resist the inwhich is best for each, be best for all? Must the fluence of every consideration but those that spring resources of all be but partially and imperfectly from the peculiar, and even the mere local intercalled forth; or must the mean necessary to their ests of his immediate constituents? full development in one part, be used to the utter Such, gentlemen, are the evils, to which our destruction of all hope of a like result in the other? | masters in political philosophy allude, when they Gentlemen-we had just seen the trial and the warn us against the consequences of consolidation. failure of a like experiment made on this princi-Such are the mischiefs, against which the authors ple. The British colonies in North America, so of our institutions intended to guard, when distrilong as the parent government confined her legis-buting the powers of government between the lation to the proper objects of mere commercial functionaries of the states respectively, and those regulation, had grown and flourished in a degree of the whole collective union. In the necessity of unexampled in the history of man. But a claim was set up by the imperial parliament, of a right to legislate for the colonies in all things; by an old country, for a country in its infancy; by a commercial and manufacturing country, for a country almost exclusively agricultural. The consequence of this pretension was a severance of the connexion, which our fathers saw must be fatal to the ultimate prosperity of the colonies.

devising some means to place the external relations of all the states on the same footing, and to unite the powers of all for the common defence, was found the sole and avowed motive to the adoption of the federal constitution. So far as the general government is made instrumental to other ends besides these, so far do its administrators offend against the spirit, even when they do not transcend the letter of that instrument.

What different result could have been expected, On the other hand, we behold the state governhad the general congress of the United States ments in the full exercise of that sovereignty, been endued with powers to legislate in all things which holds at its disposal the life, the liberty, the for the whole of this vast continent? How long property of every man in the community; yet so would it have been before a fixed local majority restrained from any abuse of powers so formidawould find or create a fixed local interest, to be ble, that we become almost unconscious of their advanced by legislation at the expense of a fixed existence. Yet there they are, and so few were local minority? What hope would there have the limitations imposed by the original constitubeen, that such a project, once formed, would ever tion of this state in particular, that theoretical have been relinquished? In small communities, politicians did not hesitate to pronounce the omthe occasions for such combinations might be more nipotent legislature of Virginia the very beau obvious and more frequent. But in such it might ideal of a many-headed despotism. Yet where not always be in vain to appeal to the sympathy were its despotic acts? Where do we find the or magnanimity of the stronger party. Such an history of its abuse of this seemingly gigantic appeal, made in an assembly of the people, ad-power? No where. Where then do we find the dressed to men, each acting for himself, and re-principle which bas restrained this body from persponsible to none but himself, each exercising his verting its authority to any purpose of oppression share of legislative power in his own person, and or injustice? for his own behoof; such an appeal, addressed to We find it, gentlemen, in the total absence of men so circumstanced, and on behalf of friends, all those sources of corrupting influence, which and neighbors, and kindred, might not unfrequent-take their rise in the management of external rely prevail. The unequal working of an oppres-lations, and the disbursement of the vast revenues sive system could not be denied. Their own necessary for that purpose. Wanting these, the senses would be the witnesses. The complaints government of Virginia has nothing wherewithal of the sufferers would sink into the hearts of those to gild oppression, to varnish injustice, to buy the having daily before their eyes the evidence of the calamities endured. But who will expect a sacri

support of the mercenary, and to engage the cooperation of the ambitious. Look at our history!

escape.

From what quarter of the state has the voice of] to regulate our civil conduct, and to enforce them complaint risen up against the state government, by the most fearful penalties, is powerless, except for the alleged abuse of any of its powers? What for good. In like manner, in the regulation of public functionary, however armed with official our domestic police, and of the rights of individuauthority, however conspicuous for talent, how-als, and in all that pertains to the general welfare ever illustrious for public service, has dared to de- of the people and state, we find the duties of equal fy the popular will, or professing to respect it, has and exact justice to all men enforced by a responattempted to mould it to the purposes of his am-sibility to the public will, from which there is no bition? Look, gentlemen, to the highest office in the gift of the people of this state. Who feels the If these things be so-if such be the security to influence of the incumbent? Respectable as he private right and public weal, resulting from the certainly is, how many of us here present actually denial of such means of influence to those who know his name? Who has ever imputed to him minister in our domestic relations-how important the power of controlling elections in favor of his must it be, to guard the barrier intended to secure partizans? What fawning minion can he provide our private interests and pursuits from the invafor by means of lucrative salaries; passing him sions of an authority armed with all the power on from post to post, and while his unfitness for and all the influence incident to the management all alike is manifest to the world, retaining him of the foreign relations of this vast continent! The still in office? What female of tainted reputation danger is alike in both cases, but far different in would he dare to obtrude on the chaste society of degree. Was it unsafe to commit to the state Richmond? On whom can he cast the mantle of executive the dispensation of the patronage incihis authority? Where is the man whom his anoint-dent to the representation of the miniature soveing hand can consecrate as his successor?

reignty of Virginia among the nations of the earth; and can it be safe to trust to the government, which manages the whole foreign relations of all the states collectively of this extensive confederacy, any, the least, right to meddle in matters properly belonging to the municipal sovereignty? If it be unsafe to trust the trident—the thunder-bolt-the olive-branch-to him who presides over the calm relations of private life, can it be safe to permit him who is already familiar with these emblems of rule and instruments of power, to touch, with his heavy hand, the delicate interests of individuals, and to bring his portentous authority to interfere in adjusting the domestic rights and relations of men?

Nor do I limit the application of these questions to the present incumbent of that office. The answers, which would be true in his case, will prove equally true with reference to the most illustrious of his predecessors. The page of Virginia's annals is bright with the most glorious names that live in history. Among them we find that of Patrick Henry. "His breath was agitation, and his life a storm whereon he rode." But, in the silent discharge of his duties as governor of Virginia, that tempest was stilled: the word of power, which struck the sceptre from the tyrant's grasp, was heard no more; and his official career is nowise distinguishable by any extraordinary influence or authority, from that of the humblest These thoughts are suggested, gentlemen, for the of his successors. There too we find the name of purpose of presenting fully to your view the obThomas Jefferson. As president of the United jects which the framers of our institutions proposed States, he has been seen to exercise a power over to themselves, in dissociating the power to reguthe thoughts, the affections, the will of his coun- late the foreign relations of the confederacy, from trymen, without example before his time. As the power to manage the domestic concerns, and governor of Virginia, what was he, but an offi- to legislate over the peculiar interests of the states cial drudge, bound down to the literal execution of respectively. How far their purposes were wise, his limited functions? Was the chair of state a throne of power to James Monroe, or but a stepping-stone from which his ambition might mount -up-to a higher place on the footstool-of the president of the United States?

and their plan judicious, is well illustrated by the operation of the state governments in which this plan has done its perfect work. If it has failed elsewhere, it is because the wise and patriotic statesmen of that day had no measure by which to These questions, gentlemen, are asked in no in- estimate with accuracy the force of the untried vidious spirit. They are but meant to remind powers which they were about to commit to the you how perfectly the great ends of free govern- hands of the federal government. The history of ment have been accomplished among ourselves, the time shows that they but imperfectly foresaw by cutting off from the state authorities all the the extent of those powers, the magnitude and imsources of influence which spring from armies, portance of the confederacy, the abundance of its and navies, and foreign representation, and the resources, the overflowing affluence of its reveenormous revenues necessary to these objects. nues, and the vast amount and various character of Deprived of these, the full and unquestioned au- its wide-spread and all-pervading patronage. Had thority to prescribe to us all the rules which are they foreseen these things, they would have heeded

the warning voice of that great statesman, whose |der the overwhelming power of the government tomb is in the midst of you,* admonishing them of the United States, and all the rights of a fixed "that a defect of power may be supplied, but that local minority are held at the mercy of a fixed an excess of power can never be recalled." local majority, interested to plunder and oppress. Gentlemen, in this simple proposition there is at I have said that the error which has led to these once a manifest truth and a self-evident impor-consequences had its rise in a miscalculation of tance, which startle us with their palpable dis- the force of the untried powers conferred by the tinctness. We pause. We reflect. We won-constitution on the federal government. But there der that men engaged in the delicate task of devi- was, moreover, a fatally mistaken reliance on the sing a form of government for themselves, should pride of state sovereignty, and the attachment of ever fail to practise on this maxim. What so the people to the authority and institutions of their simple, as to give, in the first instance, powers states respectively. certainly not excessive, and, guided by experience, to add more as events might show that more were necessary?

for south of the Chesapeake they saw the descendants of the very men, with whom their ancestors had struggled, in their common country, for mas

In that day the primitive people of the ancient and respectable states of New England, cherished, in a spirit of exclusive appropriation, the hoGentlemen, this is precisely the problem which nor of their descent from men, who, for conscience the framers of our institutions proposed to work, sake, had turned their backs on all the comforts of in adjusting the balance of power between the civilized life, on all the dear delights of home, and state and federal governments. With a vast ma- on all the hallowed scenes of their father land, to jority of the men of that day there was a para-seek, in a savage wilderness, a sanctuary of the mount desire to guard the sovereignty of the heart, where they might worship God in their own states, and by no means to arm the hands of fede-way. This was their peculiar boast and pride. In ral functionaries with any pretext for interfering this the other states had no part. Far from it; with the proper subjects of state legislation. But it happened, unfortunately, that while these were candidly discussing the more or less of power, which might be entrusted to the federal govern-tery, for property, for freedom, and for life. ment without impairing the sovereignty of the states, there were some among them who deemed any such distribution of powers wholly impracticable. To them the very idea of state sovereignty was alternately an object of dread and of derision. To them it seemed "that the rod of Aaron must swallow up the rods of the magicians, or that the rods of the magicians would devour the rod of Aaron." I here use the language of one of the members of the convention which framed the constitution, as spoken in debate, and recorded by the hand of him who uttered it. To such gentle-measure, the language of her people, distinguishmen it seemed best to carry out the parable, in conformity with the scriptural account, and so to give the rods of the magicians to be devoured by the rod of Aaron.

In that day, the people of Pennsylvania still celebrated in their hearts the mild glories of their pacific triumphs over the savage race. To them, the success which had crowned their labor of love, and established them the peaceful and prosperous masters of a soil unstained by blood, was a source of exultation all their own.

Interposed between these, the state of New York still retained many of the features of her original character as a Dutch colony. The uncouth names, the habits, the manners, and, in some

ed them from their neighbors on either hand. Their traditional honors were those of another and a rival race. The triumphs of the Blakes and Boscawens of England, were not their boast. Their glory was in the achievements of De Ruyter and Van Tromp, in laurels plucked from the British crown, and in the long and doubtful struggle maintained with the British flag, for the mastery of the narrow seas.

It is no impeachment of the motives of such men to say, that in all attempts to adjust the balance of power, they were ever ready to throw their weight into the scale of the central government. Hence the warning voice of Patrick Henry was uttered to unheeding ears. The consequence has been that Proudest of all, in that day, stood old VIRGIwe have lived to experience the truth, so simple in NIA, vaunting her descent from the gallant cavaits announcement, and in its application so little liers, who had poured out their blood like water understood; and to learn that a government, how-in loyal devotion to an undeserving prince: who, ever weak, having power to assume more power, has already too much. Overlooking this, we have fallen into an unsuspecting confidence in the sufficiency of the state governments to control federal usurpations, until the authority and name of the state governments have sunk into contempt, un*Patrick Henry lies buried in the county of Campbell in which the town of Lynchburg is situated.

when, all was lost, found refuge here-and here, in defiance of the parliament of England, offered an asylum to his worthless and ungrateful son. She had scarce then forgotten, when, in the provinces beyond the Delaware, she saw none but the Swede and the Hollander, and the lineal and devoted inheritor of the far-descended antipathy between the Round-head and the Cavalier. In that