Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/514

504 The principle of equality was applied to strong and weak states, as it was to strong and weak men, because each was free; and that freedom brought all to a level in treating or confederating, just as freedom levels individuals of unequal size, in associating. But its beneficial effects outstrip those produced by its application to individuals, because of the wider range of social happiness arising from a society of nations, than from a society of individuals. And this principle has effected the supposed project of a French king to unite or associate Europe, as to more nations, and over a wider space, without war, expense or force; although a love of the union and a hatred of political equality often meet in the same breast, because it is not perceived that the object of our affection was begotten and subsists by the object of our abhorrence.

Without a federal will, to be ascertained by a majority, peace could not be preserved among the confederates. no separate existence of states could have been retained, and our new and efficacious division of power, between the general and state governments, must have been abandoned. And without a popular will, to be ascertained in the same mode, the natural right of self government would have been lost.

The senate being formed for the first end, its democratick complexion is equivalent to that of the house of representatives, constituted for the second. Both the wills provided by the constitution to operate upon the general government, are intended to produce the government of a majority, to be determined by the principle of equality; and the state governments being of unequal strength, democratical and popular, it could not have been intended, because it was not possible, that they should infuse aristocratical opinions into the senate. Just as an assent of the people to constitutions by conventions, cannot be considered as flowing from an aristocratical source, although given by a few persons. A nation has been considered as a moral or political being, capable of opinion, will and sovereignty. States,