U.S. state

“ The Federal Government is, as the term imports, a confederation of States, and the People of each State have transferred to the United States, such a portion of their power as is, in the Constitution specified, to be exercised by Congress, and have reserved the Remainder to the States, to be exercised by their respective Legislatures ... ”

“ In its internal operations it can touch but few objects, except to introduce regulations beneficial to the commerce, intercourse, and other relations, between the states, and to lay taxes for the common good. The powers of the states, on the other hand, extend to all objects, which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, and liberties, and property of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the state. The operations of the general government will be most extensive and important in times of war and danger ”

“ How grateful, then, should we be, that, at this important period,—a period important, not to us alone, but to the general rights of mankind,—so much harmony and concession should prevail throughout the states; that the public opinion should be so much actuated by candor, and an attention to their general interests; that, disdaining to be governed by the narrow motives of state policy, they have liberally determined to dedicate a part of their advantages to the support of that government from which they received them! ”

“ But his education, his registration, his residence, his payment of a portion of the burdens of the State, and the other matters, are in his power and his control. I find it to be in accord with the wisdom of the people of the country that it is the true policy to let the States govern those matters for themselves. The Constitution of the United States touches those things that are out of the man’s control. ”

“ Thus, at length, was realized the sublime conception of a nation in which every citizen lives under two complete and well-rounded systems of laws,—the state law and the federal law,—each with its legislature, its executive, and its judiciary moving one within the other, noiselessly and without friction. ”

“ The Federal Government has its appropriate line of action in the specific and limited powers conferred on it by the Constitution, chiefly as to those things in which the States have a common interest in their relations to one another and to foreign governments, while the great mass of interests which belong to cultivated men--the ordinary business of life, the springs of industry, all the diversified personal and domestic affairs of society--rest securely upon the general reserved powers of the people of the several States. ”

“ There are now twenty-four states in the Union, and each has, in its sovereign capacity, a right to decide for itself in the last resort, what is the true construction of the constitution; what are its powers; and what are the obligations founded on it. We may, then, have, in the free exercise of that right, twenty-four honest, but different expositions of every power in that constitution, and of every obligation involved in it. What one state may deny, another may assert; what one may assert at one time, it may deny at another time. ”

“ Each state established a constitution for itself, and, in that constitution, provided such limitations and restrictions on the powers of its particular government as its judgment dictated. The people of the United States framed such a government for the United States as they supposed best adapted to their situation and best calculated to promote their interests. ”

“ Let us compare the members composing the legislative, executive, and judicial powers, in the general government, with these in the states, and let us take into view the vast number of persons employed in the states: from the chief officers to the lowest, we shall find the scale preponderating so much in favor of the states, that, while so many persons are attached to them, it will be impossible to turn the balance against them. There will be an irresistible bias towards the state governments. ”

“ A spirit of strict deference to the sovereign rights and dignity of every State, rather than a disposition to subordinate the States into a provincial relation to the central authority, should characterize all our exercise of the respective powers temporarily vested in us as a sacred trust from the generous confidence of our constituents. ”

“ No political dreamer was ever wild enough to think of breaking down the lines, which separate the states, and of compounding the American people into one common mass. Of consequence, when they act, they act in their states. But the measures they adopt do not, on that account, cease to be the measures of the people themselves, or become the measures of the state governments. ”

“ It is to be hoped that those virtues in government will be exercised and displayed, when we consider that the powers of the federal government and those of the state governments are drawn from sources equally pure. ”

“ It is such a government that the genius of our people requires--such an one only under which our States may remain for ages to come united, prosperous, and free. In pursuance of a constitutional provision requiring the President from time to time to give to the Congress information of the state of the Union, I have the satisfaction to announce that the close of the year finds the United States in the enjoyment of domestic tranquillity and at peace with all the nations. ”

“ These points being agreed, they proceeded to consider how and in what manner such a government could be formed, as, on the one hand, should be sufficiently energetic to raise us from our prostrate and distressed situation, and, on the other, be perfectly consistent with the liberties of the people of every state. ”

“ We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, to establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. ”

“ Would the people of any one state trust those of another with a power to control the most insignificant operations of their state government? We know they would not. Why, then, should we suppose, that the people of any one state would be willing to trust those of another with a power to control the operations of a government, to which they have confided their most important and most valuable interests? In the legislature of the Union alone are all represented. ”

“ Our peculiar form of government, a Government in which the Nation is supreme throughout the Union in certain respects, while each of nearly half a hundred States is supreme in its part of the Union in certain other respects, renders the task of dealing with these conditions especially difficult. No finally satisfactory result can be expected from merely State action. The action must come through the Federal Government. ”

“ The perpetuation of the Federal Union and constitution, as the palladium of our civil and religious liberties, are the only sure bulwarks of American independence.
3. Americans must rule America; and to this end native-born citizens should be selected for all state, federal, and municipal offices of government employment, in preference to all others. ”

“ To this I answer, the name is immaterial; the thing unites the several states, and makes them like one, in particular instances and for particular purposes—which is what is ardently desired by most of the sensible men in this country I care not whether it is called a consolidation, confederation, or national government, or by what other name, if it is a good government, and calculated to promote the blessings of liberty, tranquillity, and happiness. ”

“ It was doubtless with reference principally to this territory, that the article of the constitution, now under consideration, was adopted. The general precaution, that no new states shall be formed without the concurrence of the national government, and of the states concerned, is consonant to the principles, which ought to govern all such transactions. The particular precaution against the erection of new states by the partition of a state without its own consent, will quiet the jealousy of the larger states ”

“ It was to frame, for the consideration of their constituents, one federal and national constitution—a constitution that would produce the advantages of good, and prevent the inconveniences of bad government—a constitution whose beneficence and energy would pervade the whole Union, and bind and embrace the interests of every part—a constitution that would insure peace, freedom, and happiness, to the states and people of America. ”

“ We are now approaching the period when the American people began to perceive that something more was necessary to their safety and happiness than the formation of State governments;—when they found, or were about to find, that some digested system of national government was essential to the great objects for which they were contending; and that, for the formation of such a government, other arrangements than the varying instructions of different [115] colonies or states to a body of delegates were indispensable. ”

“ Whatever belongs to the power of Congress and the jurisdiction of the courts of the Union, they may confidently be relied upon to provide and perform; and to the legislatures, the courts, and the executive authorities of the several States I earnestly appeal to secure, by adequate, appropriate, and seasonable means, Within their borders, these common and uniform rights of a united people which loves liberty, abhors oppression, and reveres justice. ”

“ Recurring to these principles, which constitute the organic basis of union, we perceive that vast as are the functions and the duties of the Federal Government, vested in or intrusted to its three great departments--the legislative, executive, and judicial--yet the substantive power, the popular force, and the large capacities for social and material development exist in the respective States, which, all being of themselves well-constituted republics, as they preceded so they alone are capable of maintaining and perpetuating the American Union. ”

“ It is observable enough, that the doctrine for which the honorable gentleman contends leads him to the necessity of maintaining, not only that this general government is the creature of the states, but that it is the creature of each of the states severally; so that each may assert the power, for itself, of determining whether it acts within the limits of its authority. ”

“ Indeed, it would be useful for the general good, if the State Legislatures were often to cast a watchful eye towards the general government, with a view, candidly to consider, and judiciously discern, whether the powers delegated to the United States are not exceeded, or are so exercised as not to interfere with or counteract those which are reserved by the people for their own management. ”