Page:Works of John C. Calhoun, v1.djvu/284



It may be laid down as a fundamental principle in constructing constitutional governments, that a strong government requires a negative proportionally strong, to restrict it to its appropriate sphere; and that, the stronger the government — if the negative be proportionally strong, the better the government. It is only by making it proportionally strong, than an equilibrium can be established between the positive and negative powers — the power of acting, and the power of restricting action to its assigned limits. It is difficult to form a conception of a constitutional government stronger than that of the United States; and, consequently, of one requiring a stronger negative to keep it within its appropriate sphere. Combining, habitually, as it necessarily does, the united power and patronage of a majority of the States and of their population estimated in federal numbers, in opposition to a minority of each, with nothing but their separate and divided power and patronage, it is, to the full as strong, if not stronger, than was the government of Rome — with its powerfully constituted Senate, including its control of the auspices, the censorship, and the dictatorship. It will, of course, require, in order to keep it within its proper bounds, a negative fully as strong in proportion, as the tribuneship; which, in its prime, consisted of ten members, elected by the Plebeians, each of whom (as has been supposed by some — but a majority of whom, all admit) had a negative, not only on the acts of the Senate, but on their execution. As powerful as was this negative, experiment proved that it was not too