Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/662

650 asserted and denied this doctrine, as they happened to be in or out of power; for or against the existing administration. But I am unable to discern any better resource for the preservation of civil liberty, than it affords. The state governments are wise, watchful and temperate sentinels, checks upon each other as well as upon the general government, not dictators armed with force, but advocates armed with reason. Vindications of this salutary doctrine are necessary to save it from the usurpations of precedents, of which parties will even avail themselves in power, although that power was obtained by opposing them. But this mode of extending the powers of the general government, is inconsistent with the principles of our policy. It is restricted by limitations imposed by a superior authority, which it can neither diminish nor destroy by its own acts. It is not a complete government, but associated with the state governments by the same superior authority, which has allotted specified powers to each party, and neither can increase these powers by its own precedents, nor even by its positive laws, without rebellion against this authority. If both should concur in extending or diminishing the powers of one or either, by the plainest precedents or laws, it would still be the same species of rebellion, and unconstitutional. Prescription and precedent, founded upon the acts of an entire government, are extremely different from those founded upon the acts of a section of a government, because the first is a complete political representative of the nation and the second not so. Their authority is also widely different in limited and unlimited governments; if the former could extend their powers by such agents, they could make themselves unlimited. The legislation of congress, contrary to the principles of the general constitution, is in every view similar to the legislation of the senate without the concurrence of the house of representatives, and equally entitled to the authority claimed by precedents under absolute governments; an authority founded only in unlimited power.