Page:Works of John C. Calhoun, v1.djvu/245

 to elude its requisitions, and reserve their means for their own control and use, than to enter into combinations to control its councils. But very different is the case in their existing confederated character. The present government possesses extensive and important powers; among others, that of carrying its acts into execution by its own authority, without the intermediate agency of the States. And, hence, the principal motives to get the control of the government, with all its powers and vast patronage; and for this purpose, to form combinations as the only means by which it can be accomplished. Hence, also, the fact, that the present danger is directly the reverse of that of the confederacy. The one tended to dissolution — the other tends to consolidation. But there is this difference between these tendencies. In the former, they were far more rapid — not because they were stronger, but because there were few or no impediments in their way; while in the latter, many and powerful obstacles are presented. In the case of the confederacy, the antagonistic position which the States occupied in respect to it — and their indifference to its acts, after the acknowledgment of their independence, led to a non-compliance with its requisitions — and this, without any active measure on their parts, was sufficient, if left to itself, to have brought about a dissolution of the Union, from its weakness, at no distant day. But such is not the case under the present system of government. To form combinations in order to get the control of the government, in a country of such vast extent — and