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ernment provided no efficient check, would exercise unlimited and unrestrained power over the weaker. The relations of equality between them would thus be destroyed, and in its place there would be substituted the relation of sovereign and subject, between the stronger and the weaker interest, in its most odious and oppressive form. That this is a possible state of society even when the representative system prevails, we have high authority. Mr. Hamilton, in the 51st No. of the Federalist, says, “It is of the greatest importance in a republic not only to guard society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. Different interests necessarily exist in different classes of citizens. If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure” Again, “In a society under the forms of which, the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may be said as truly to reign as in a state of nature, where the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger.” We have still higher authority, the unhappy existing examples. of which we are the victims. The committee have labored to little purpose if they have not demonstrated, that the very case which Mr. Hamilton so forcibly describes, does now exist in our country, under the name of the “American System;” which if not speedily arrested must be followed by all the consequences that never fail to spring from the exercise of irresponsible power. On the great and vital point, the industry of the country, which comprehends nearly all the other interests, two great sections of the Union are opposed. We want free trade; they, restrictions. We want moderate taxes, frugality in the government, economy, accountability, and a rigid application of the public money, to the payment of the public debt, and the objects authorized by the constitution; in all these particulars, if we may judge by experience, their views of their interest are the opposite.—They act and feel on all questions connected with the American System, as sovereigns; as those always do who impose burdens on others for their own benefit; and we, on the contrary, like those on whom such burdens are imposed. In a word; to the extent stated, the country is divided and organized into two great opposing parties, one sovereign and the other subject; marked by all the characteristics which must ever accompany that relation, under whatever form it may exist. That our industry is controlled by the many, instead of one, by a majority in congress elected by a majority in the community having an opposing interest, instead of hereditary rulers, forms not the slightest mitigation of the evil. In fact, instead of mitigating, it aggravates. In our case one opposing branch of industry
