Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/292

 284 aggrandizement, may be in a very opposite temper, and artfully using all their influence to cripple, or destroy the national government. Their motives and objects may not, at first, be clearly discerned; but time and reflection will enable the people to understand their own true interests, and to guard themselves against insidious factions. Besides; there will be occasions, in which the people will be excited to undue resentments against the national government. With so effectual a weapon in their hands, as the exclusive power of regulating elections for the national government, the combination of a few men in some of the large states might, by seizing the opportunity of some casual disaffection among the people, accomplish the destruction of the Union. And it ought not to be overlooked, that as a solid government will make us more and more an object of jealousy to the nations of Europe, so there will be a perpetual temptation, on their part, to generate intrigues of this sort for the purpose of subverting it.

§ 817. There is, too, in the nature of such a provision, something incongruous, if not absurd. What would be said of a clause introduced into the national constitution to regulate the state elections of the members of the state legislatures? It would be deemed a most unwarrantable transfer of power, indicating a premeditated design to destroy the state governments. It would be deemed so flagrant a violation of principle, as to require no comment. It would be said, and justly, that the state governments ought to possess the power of self-existence and self-organization, independent of