Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/306

tution are eminently calculated to preserve peace at home, and dignity abroad, and to give value to property, and system and harmony to the great interests of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures; a consciousness, too, that the restraints, which it imposes upon the states, are the only efficient means to preserve public and private justice, and to ensure tranquillity amidst the conflicting interests and rivalries of the states:—these will, doubtless, combine many sober and reflecting minds in its support. If to this number we add those, whom the larger rewards of fame, or emolument, or influence, connected with a wider sphere of action, may allure to the national councils, there is much reason to presume, that the Union will not be without resolute friends.

§ 291. This view of the subject, on either side, (for it is the desire of the commentator to abstain, as much as possible, from mere private political speculation,) is not without its consolations. If there were but one consolidated national government, to which the people might look up for protection and support, they might in time relax in that vigilance and jealousy, which seem so necessary to the wholesome growth of republican institutions. If, on the other hand, the state governments could engross all the affections of the people, to the exclusion of the national government, by their familiar and domestic regulations, there would be danger, that the Union, constantly weakened by the distance and discouragements of its functionaries, might at last become, as it was under the confederation, a mere show, if not a mockery of sovereignty. So, that this very division of empire may, in the end, by the blessing of Providence, be the means of perpetuating our rights and liberties, by keeping alive in every state at once a sincere love of its own government, and a love of the Union,