Page:Works of John C. Calhoun, v1.djvu/322

 between the sections; to be followed by discord, disorder, convulsions, and, not improbably, a disruption of the system.

In one or the other of these results, it must terminate, if the federal government be left to decide, definitively and in the last resort, as to the extent of its powers. Having no sufficient counteraction, exterior to itself, it must necessarily move in the direction marked out by the inherent tendency belonging to its character and position. As a constitutional, popular government, its tendency will be, in the first place, to an absolute form, under the control of the numerical majority; and, finally, to the most simple of these forms, that of a single, irresponsible individual. As a federal government, extending over a vast territory, the tendency will be, in the first place, to the formation of sectional parties, and the concentration of all power in the stronger section; and, in the next, to conflict between the sections, and disrupture of the whole system. One or the other must be the end, in the case supposed. The laws that would govern are fixed and certain. The only question would be, as to which end, and at what time. All the rest is as certain as the future, if not disturbed by causes exterior to the system.

So strong indeed is the tendency of the government in the direction assigned — if left to itself — that nothing short of the most powerful negatives, exterior to itself, can effectually counteract and arrest it. These, from the nature of the system, can only be found in the mutual negative of the two co-ordinate governments, and the interposition of a