Page:Works of John C. Calhoun, v1.djvu/243

were far from realizing the magnitude of the change which was made by it in governments of that form. Had this been fully realized, they would never have assumed that those who administered the government of the United States, and those of the separate States, would stand in hostile relations to each other; or have believed that it would depend on the relative force of the powers delegated and the powers reserved, whether either would encroach on, and absorb the other — an assumption and belief which experience has proved to be utterly unfounded. The conflict took, from the first, and has continued ever since to move in, a very different direction. Instead of a contest for power between the government of the United States, on the one side, and the separate governments of the several States, on the other — the real struggle has been to obtain the control of the former — a struggle in which both States and people have united: And the result has shown that, instead of depending on the relative force of the delegated and reserved powers, the latter, in all contests, have been brought in aid of the former, by the States on the side of the party in the possession and control of the government of the United States — and by the States on the side of the party in the opposition, in their efforts to expel those in possession, and to take their place. There must then be at all times — except in a state of transition of parties, or from some accidental cause — a majority of the several States, and of their people, estimated in federal numbers, on the side of those in power; and, of course, on