The lovers of a strong consolidated government have labored strenuously,and I fear with too much success,to remove every available restriction upon the powers of Congress.The tendency of their principles is to establish that legislative omnipotence which is the fundamental principle of the British Constitution,and which renders every form of written constitution idle and useless.They suffer themselves to be too much attracted by the splendors of a great central power.Dazzled by these splendors,they lose sight of the more useful,yet less ostentatious purposes of the State governments,and seem to be unconscious that,in building up this huge temple of federal power,they necessarily destroy those less pretending structures from which alone they derive shelter,protection and safety.This is the ignis fatuus which has so often deceived nations,and betrayed them into the slough of despotism.On all such,the impressive warning of Patrick Henry,drawn from the lessons of all experience,would be utterly lost:
"Those nations who have gone in search of grandeur,power and splendor,have always fallen a sacrifice and been the victims of their own folly.
While they acquired those visionary blessings,they lost their freedom."
The consolidationists forget these wholesome truths,in their eagerness to invest the federal government with every power which is necessary to realize their visions in a great and splendid nation.Hence they do not discriminate between the several classes of federal powers,but contend for all of them,with the same blind and devoted zeal.It is remarkable that,in the exercise of all those functions of the Federal Government which concern our foreign relations,scarcely a case can be supposed,requiring the aid of any implied or incidental power,as to which any serious doubt can arise.The powers of that government,as to all such matters,are so distinctly and plainly pointed out in the very letter of the Constitution,and they are so ample for all the purposes contemplated,that it is only necessary to understand them according to their plain meaning and to exercise them according to their acknowledged extent.No auxiliaries are required;
The government has only to go on in the execution of its trusts,with powers at once ample and unquestioned.It is only in matters which concern our domestic policy,that any serious struggle for federal power has ever arisen,or is likely to arise.Here,that love of splendor and display,which deludes so large a portion of mankind,unites with that self-interest by which all mankind are swayed,in aggrandizing the Federal Government,and adding to its powers.He who thinks it better to belong to a splendid and showy government,than to a free and happy one,naturally seeks to surround all our institutions with a gaudy pageantry,which belongs only to aristocratic or monarchical systems.But the great struggle is for those various and extended powers,from the exercise of which avarice may expect its gratifications.
Hence the desire for a profuse expenditure of the public money,and hence the thousand schemes under the name of internal improvements,by means of which hungry contractors may plunder the public treasury,and wily speculators prey upon the less skillful and cunning.And hence,too,another sort of legislation,the most vicious of the whole,which,professing a fair and legitimate object of public good,looks,really,only to the promotion of private interests.It is thus that classes are united in supporting the powers of government,and an interest is created strong enough to carry all measures and sustain all abuses.
Let it be borne in mind that,as to all these subjects of domestic concern,there is no absolute necessity that the Federal Government should possess any power at all.They are all such as the State governments are perfectly competent to manage;and the most competent,because each State is the best judge of what is useful or necessary to itself.There is,then,no room to complain of any want of power to do whatever the interests of the people require to be done.This is the topic upon which Judge Story has lavishly expended his strength.Looking upon government as a machine contrived only for the public good,he thinks it strange that it should not be supposed to possess all the faculties calculated to answer the purposes of its creation.
And surely it would be strange if it were,indeed,so defectively constructed.
But the author seems to forget that in our system the Federal Government stands not alone.That is but a part of the machine;complete in itself,certainly,and perfectly competent,without borrowing aid from any other source,to work out its own part of the general result.But it is not competent to work out the whole result.The State governments have also their part to perform,and the two together make the perfect work,then,are all the powers which it is necessary that government should possess;not lodged in one place,but distributed;not the power of the State governments,nor of the Federal Government,but the aggregate of their several and respective powers.In the exercise of those functions which the State governments are forbidden to exercise,the Federal Government need not look beyond the letter of its charter for any needful power;and in the exercise of any other function,there is still less necessity that it should do so;
because,whatever power that government does not plainly possess,is plainly possessed by,the State governments.I speak,of course,of such powers only as may be exercised either by the one or the other,and not of such as are denied to both.I mean only to say,that so far as the States and the people have entrusted power to government at all,they have done so in language plain and fall enough to render all implication unnecessary.
Let the Federal Government exercise only such power as plainly belongs to it,rejecting all such as is even doubtful,and it will be found that our system will work out all the useful ends of government,harmoniously and without contest,and without dispute,and without usurpation.26
