Page:Works of John C. Calhoun, v1.djvu/170

 House of Representatives, in the event of a failure on the part of the electors to make a choice, it ought to be regarded as national, and not federal, as they contend. It would, indeed, seem to involve a strange confusion of ideas to make the same department partly federal and partly national, on such a process of reasoning. It indicates a deep and radical error somewhere in the conception of the able authors of the work, in reference to a question the most vital that can arise under our system of government.

The next reason assigned is, that the government will operate on individuals composing the several States, and not on the States themselves. This, however, is very little relied on. It admits that even a confederacy may operate on individuals without losing its character as such — and cites the articles of confederation in illustration; and it might have added, that mere treaties, in some instances, operate in the same way. It is readily conceded that one of the strongest characteristics of a confederacy is, that it usually operates on the states or communities which compose it, in their corporate capacity. When it operates on individuals, it departs, to that extent, from its appropriate sphere. But this is not the case with a federal government — as will be shown when I come to draw the line of distinction between it and a confederacy. The argument, then, might be appropriate to prove that the government is not a confederacy — but not that it is a national government.

It next relies on the amending power to prove that it is partly national and partly federal. It