Page:Federalist, Dawson edition, 1863.djvu/471

 If, therefore, as has been elsewhere remarked, the People should in future become more partial to the Fœderal than to the State Governments, the change can only result from such manifest and irresistible proofs of a better administration, as will overcome all their antecedent propensities. And in that case, the People ought not surely to be precluded from giving most of their confidence where they may discover it to be most due; but even in that case the State Governments could have little to apprehend, because it is only within a certain sphere, that the Fœderal power can, in the nature of things, be advantageously administered.

The remaining points, on which I propose to compare the Fœderal and State Governments, are the disposition and the faculty they may respectively possess, to resist and frustrate the measures of each other.

It has been already proved, that the members of the Fœderal will be more dependent on the members of the State Governments, than the latter will be on the former. It has appeared also, that the prepossessions of the People, on whom both will depend, will be more on the side of the State Governments, than of the Fœderal Government. So far as the disposition of each towards the other may be influenced by these causes, the State Governments must clearly have the advantage. But in a distinct and very important point of view, the advantage will lie on the same side. The prepossessions, which the members themselves will carry into the Fœderal Government, will generally be favorable to the States; whilst it will rarely happen, that the members of the State Governments will carry into the public councils a bias in favor of the General Government. A local spirit will infallibly prevail much more in the members of Congress, than a National spirit will prevail in the Legislatures of the particular States. Every one knows, that a great proportion of the errors committed