Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/530

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

490

CONSTITUTION OF THE U. STATES.

[BOOK III.

exclusive power to regulate the descents, devise, and distribution of estates, (a power the most formidable to despotism, and the most indispensable in its right exercise to republicanism,) will for ever give them an influence, which will be as commanding, as, with reference to the safety of the Union, they could deliberately desire.^[1]

§ 513. Indeed, the constant apprehension of some of the most sincere patriots, who by their wisdom have graced our country, has been of an opposite character. They have believed, that the states would, in the event, prove too formidable for the Union. That the tendency would be to anarchy in the members, and not to tyranny in the head.^[2] Whether their fears, in this respect, were not those of men, whose judgments were misled by extreme solicitude for the welfare of their country, or whether they but too well read the fate of our own in the history of other republics, time, the great expounder of such problems, can alone determine.^[3]

↑ The Federalist, No. 31.
↑ Id. 17, 45, 46, 31.
↑ Mr. Turgot appears to have been strongly impressed with the difficulty of maintaining a national government, under such circumstances. In his letter to Dr. Price, he says: "In the general union of the states, I do not observe a coalition, a fusion of all the parts to form one homogeneous body. It is only a jumble of communities too discordant, and which contain a constant tendency to separation, owing to the diversity in their laws, customs, and opinions, to the inequality of their present strength, but still more to the inequality of their advances to greater strength. It is only a copy of the Dutch republic, with this difference, that the Dutch republic had nothing to fear, as the American republic has, from the future possible increase of any one of the provinces. All this edifice has been hitherto supported upon the erroneous foundation of the most ancient and vulgar policy; upon the prejudice, that nations and states, as such, may have an interest distinct from the interest, which individuals have to be free, and defend their property against the attacks of robbers and conquerors," &c. &c. Similar views seem to have

[1] The Federalist, No. 31.

[2] Id. 17, 45, 46, 31.

[p490-3] Mr. Turgot appears to have been strongly impressed with the difficulty of maintaining a national government, under such circumstances. In his letter to Dr. Price, he says: "In the general union of the states, I do not observe a coalition, a fusion of all the parts to form one homogeneous body. It is only a jumble of communities too discordant, and which contain a constant tendency to separation, owing to the diversity in their laws, customs, and opinions, to the inequality of their present strength, but still more to the inequality of their advances to greater strength. It is only a copy of the Dutch republic, with this difference, that the Dutch republic had nothing to fear, as the American republic has, from the future possible increase of any one of the provinces. All this edifice has been hitherto supported upon the erroneous foundation of the most ancient and vulgar policy; upon the prejudice, that nations and states, as such, may have an interest distinct from the interest, which individuals have to be free, and defend their property against the attacks of robbers and conquerors," &c. &c. Similar views seem to have

[1]

[2]

[3]