Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/513

 CH. VI.] which, in a free government, is impracticable without the destruction of liberty; the other, by controlling its effects. If a faction be a minority, the majority may apply the proper corrective, by defeating or checking the violence of the minority in the regular course of legislation. In small states, however, this is not always easily attainable, from the difficulty of combining in a permanent form sufficient influence for this purpose. A feeble domestic faction will naturally avail itself, not only of all accidental causes of dissatisfaction at home, but also of all foreign aid and influence to carry its projects. And, indeed, in the gradual operations of factions, so many combinations are formed and dissolved, so many private resentments become embodied in public measures, and success and triumph so often follow after defeat, that the remnants of different factions, which have had a brief sway, however hostile to each other, have an interest to unite in order to put down their rivals. But if the faction be a majority, and stand unchecked, except by its own sense of duty, or its own fears, the dangers are imminent to all those, whose principles, or interests, or characters stand in the way of their supreme dominion.

§ 492. These evils are felt in great states; but it has been justly observed, that in small states they are far more aggravated, bitter, cruel, and permanent. The most effectual means to control such effects seem to be in the formation of a confederate republic, consisting of several states. It will be rare, under such circumstances, if proper powers are confided to the general government, that the state line does not form the natural, as it will the jurisdictional boundary of the