CHAPTER XIV.
POWERS OF CONGRESS.
§ 902. We have now arrived, in the course of our inquiries, at the eighth section of the first article of the constitution, which contains an enumeration of the principal powers of legislation confided to congress. A consideration of this most important subject will detain our attention for a considerable time; as well, because of the variety of topics, which it embraces, as of the controversies, and discussions, to which it has given rise. It has been, in the past time, it is in the present time, and it will probably in all future time, continue to be the debatable ground of the constitution, signalized, at once, by the victories, and the defeats of the same parties. Here, the advocates of state rights, and the friends of the Union will meet in hostile array. And here, those, who have lost power, will maintain long and arduous struggles to regain the public confidence, and those, who have secured power, will dispute every position, which may be assumed for attack, either of their policy, or their principles. Nor ought it at all to surprise us, if that, which has been true in the political history of other nations, shall be true in regard to our own; that the opposing parties shall occasionally be found to maintain the same system, when in power, which they have obstinately resisted, when out of power. Without supposing any insincerity or departure from principle in such cases, it will be easily imagined, that a very different course of reasoning will force itself on the minds of those, who are responsible for the measures of government, from that, which the ardour
