Is the same doctrine to be revived in the New, in
another shape that the solid happiness of the people is to be sacrificed
to the views of political institutions of a different form? It is too
early for politicians to presume on our forgetting that the public good,
the real welfare of the great body of the people, is the supreme object
to be pursued; and that no form of government whatever has any other
value than as it may be fitted for the attainment of this object. Were
the plan of the convention adverse to the public happiness, my voice
would be, Reject the plan. Were the Union itself inconsistent with the
public happiness, it would be, Abolish the Union. In like manner, as far
as the sovereignty of the States cannot be reconciled to the happiness
of the people, the voice of every good citizen must be, Let the former
be sacrificed to the latter. How far the sacrifice is necessary, has
been shown. How far the unsacrificed residue will be endangered, is the
question before us.
Several important considerations have been touched in the course of
these papers, which discountenance the supposition that the operation of
the federal government will by degrees prove fatal to the State
governments.
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