It can never be harmonious and solid, while so respectable a
portion of its citizens support principles which go directly to a change
of the federal constitution, to sink the State governments, consolidate
them into one, and to monarchize that. Our country is too large to have
all its affairs directed by a single government. Public servants at such
a distance, and from under the eye of their constituents, must, from the
circumstance of distance, be unable to administer and overlook all the
details necessary for the good government of the citizens, and the same
circumstance, by rendering detection impossible to their constituents,
will invite the public agents to corruption, plunder, and waste. And I
do verily believe, that if the principle were to prevail, of a common
law being in force in the United States, (which principle possesses the
General Government at once of all the powers of the State governments,
and reduces us to a single consolidated government) it would become the
most corrupt government on the earth. You have seen the practices by
which the public servants have been able to cover their conduct, or,
where that could not be done, delusions by which they have varnished it
for the eye of their constituents. What an augmentation of the field for
jobbing, speculating, plundering, office-building, and office-hunting
Would be produced by an assumption of all the State powers into the
hands of the General Government.
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