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wise and just to protect manufactures by legislation, may have the satisfaction of doing it at their own expense, and not at the expense of the citizens of other states, who entertain precisely the opposite opinion.
The committee having presented its views on the partial and oppressive operation ot the system, will now proceed to discuss the next position which they proposed. That its tendency is to corrupt the government and destroy the liberties of the country.
If there be a political proposition universally true, one which springs directly from the nature of man, and is independent of circumstances, it is, that irresponsible power is inconsistent with liberty and must corrupt those who exercise it. On this great principle our political system rests. We consider a⟨l⟩l powers as delegated from the people and to be controlled by those who are interested in their just and proper exercise; and our governments, both state and general, are but a system of judicious contrivances to bring this fundamental principle into fair practical operation. Among the most permanent of these is the responsibility of representatives to their constituents, through frequent periodical elections. Without such a check in their powers, however clearly they may be defined and distinctly prescribed, our liberty would be but a mockery. The government, instead of being devoted to the general good, would speedily become but the instrument ⟨to ag⟩grandize those who might be entrusted with its administration. On the other hand, if laws were uniform in their operation; if that which imposed a burden on one, imposed it alike on all; or that which acted beneficially for one, should act so for all, the responsibility of representatives to their constituents, would alone be sufficient to guard against abuse and tyranny, provided the people be sufficiently intelligent to understand their interests, and the motives and conduct of their public agents. But if it be supposed that from diversity of interest in the several classes of the people and sections of the country, laws act differently, so that the same law, though couched in general terms and apparently fair, shall in reality transfer the power and prosperity of one class or section to another; in such case responsibility to constituents, which is but the means of enforcing the fidelity of representatives to them, must prove wholly insufficient to preserve the purity of public agents, or the liberty of the country. It would in fact be inapplicable to the evil. The disease would be in the community itself; in the constituents, not in the representatives. The opposing interest of the community would engender necessarily opposing hostile parties, organized in this very diversity of interest; the stronger of which, if the gov-
