Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/305

 CH. II.] § 289. Perhaps, from the very nature and organization of our government, being partly federal and partly national in its character, whatever modifications in other respects parties may undergo, there will forever continue to be a strong line of division between those, who adhere to the state governments, and those, who adhere to the national government, in respect to principles and policy. It was long ago remarked, that in a contest for power, "the body of the people will always be on the side of the state governments. This will not only result from their love of liberty and regard to their own safety, but from other strong principles of human nut are. The state governments operate upon those familiar personal concerns, to which the sensibility of individuals is awake. The distribution of private justice, in a great measure belonging to them, they must always appear to the sense of the people, as the immediate guardians of their rights. They will of course have the strongest hold on their attachment, respect, and obedience." To which it may be added, that the state governments must naturally open an easier field for the operation of domestic ambition, of local interests, of personal popularity, and of flattering influence to those, who have no eager desire for a wide spread tame, or no acquirements to justify it.

§ 290. On the other hand, if the votaries of the national government are fewer in number, they are likely to enlist in its favour men of ardent ambition, comprehensive views, and powerful genius. A love of the Union; a sense of its importance, nay, of its necessity, to secure permanence and safety to our political liberty; a consciousness, that die powers of the national 34