Page:HOUSE CR Exposition and Protest 1828-12-19.pdf/22

 cannot prevail without associating others, and thus instead of a single act of oppression we must bear many. The history the woollens’ bill will illustrate the truth of this position, The woollen manufacturers found they were too feeble to enforce their exactions alone, and of necessity resorted to the expedient, (which will ever be adopted in such cases,) of associating their interests till a majority was formed; the result of which was in this case, that instead of increased duties on woollens alone, which would have been the case if that interest alone governed us, we have to bear increased duties on more than a dozen of the leading articles of consumption. It would be weakness to attempt to disguise the fact, on a full knowledge of which, and of the danger which it threatens, the hope of deriving some means of security depends; that different and opposing interests do, and must ever exist in this country, against the danger of which representation affords not the slightest protection.—Laws so far from being uniform in their operation, are scarcely ever so. It requires the greatest wisdom and moderation to form over any country, a system of equal laws; and it is this very opposition of interest, which in all associations of men for common purposes, be they public or private, constitutes the main difficulty in forming and administering free and just governments. Liberty comprehends the idea of responsible power, that those who make and execute the laws should be controlled by those on whom they operate; that the governed should govern. Thus to prevent rulers from abusing their trust, constituents must controul them through elections; and so to prevent the major from oppressing the minor interests of society, the constitution must provide (as the committee hope to prove it does,) a check founded on the same principle, and equally efficacious. In fact the abuse of delegated power, and the tyranny of the greater over the less interests of society, are the two great dangers, and the only two, to be guarded against; and if they be effectually guarded liberty must be eternal. Of the two, the latter is the greater danger, and most difficult to check. It is less perceptible. Every circumstance of life teaches us the liability of delegated power to abuse. We cannot appoint an agent without being admonished of the fact; and therefore it has become well understood, and is sufficiently guarded against in our political institutions. Not so with the other and greater danger. Though it exists in all associations, the law, the courts, and the government itself, are checks to its extreme abuse in most cases of private and subordinate companies, which prevents them from displaying their real tendency. But let it be supposed that there was no paramount authority, no court, no government to control, what sober individual, who