Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/529

 CH. VI.] § 511. Besides; the perpetual organization of the state governments, in all their departments, executive, legislative, and judicial; their natural tendency to co-operation in cases of threatened danger to their common liberties; the perpetually recurring right of the elective franchise, at short intervals, must prevent the most formidable barriers against any deliberate usurpation, which does not arise from the hearty co-operation of the people of the suites. And when such a general co-operation for usurpation shall exist, it is obvious, that neither the general, nor the state governments, can interpose any permanent protection. Each must submit to that public will, which created, and may destroy them.

§ 512. Another not unimportant consideration is, that the powers of the general government will be, and indeed must be, principally employed upon external objects, such as war, peace, negotiations with foreign powers, and foreign commerce. In its internal operations it can touch but few objects, except to introduce regulations beneficial to the commerce, intercourse, and other relations, between the states, and to lay taxes for the common good. The powers of the states, on the other hand, extend to all objects, which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, and liberties, and property of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the state. The operations of the general government will be most extensive and important in times of war and danger; those of the state governments, in times of peace and security. Independent of all other considerations, the fact, that the states possess a concurrent power of taxation, and an