Page:Works of John C. Calhoun, v1.djvu/358

 amendments suggested by the several States, when these articles were under consideration, not one is found which alludes to the great and radical error, which, on trial, has discovered itself!" If this was true in reference to the confederacy — an old and well known form of government — how much more was actual trial necessary to point out the dangers to which the present system was exposed — a system, so novel in its character, and so vastly more complicated than the confederacy? The very opinion, so confidently entertained by Mr. Madison, Gen. Hamilton, and the national party generally (and which, in all probability led to the insertion of the 25th section of the judiciary bill), that the federal government would prove too weak to resist the State governments — strongly illustrates the truth of Mr. Madison's remarks. No one can now doubt, that the danger is on the other side. Indeed, the public man, who has had much experience of the working of the system, and does not more clearly perceive where the danger lies, than the ablest and most sagacious member of the convention, must be a dull observer.

But this is not the only instance of a great departure, during the same session, from the principles of the constitution. Among others, a question was decided in discussing the bill to organize the treasury department, which strikingly illustrates how imperfectly, even the framers of so complex a system as ours, understood it; and how necessary