It was, nevertheless, invariably found, after the
transient enthusiasm for the early Congresses was over, that the
attention and attachment of the people were turned anew to their own
particular governments; that the federal council was at no time the idol
of popular favor; and that opposition to proposed enlargements of its
powers and importance was the side usually taken by the men who wished
to build their political consequence on the prepossessions of their
fellow-citizens.
If, therefore, as has been elsewhere remarked, the people should in
future become more partial to the federal than to the State governments,
the change can only result from such manifest and irresistible proofs of
a better administration, as will overcome all their antecedent
propensities. And in that case, the people ought not surely to be
precluded from giving most of their confidence where they may discover
it to be most due; but even in that case the State governments could
have little to apprehend, because it is only within a certain sphere
that the federal power can, in the nature of things, be advantageously
administered.
The remaining points on which I propose to compare the federal and State
governments, are the disposition and the faculty they may respectively
possess, to resist and frustrate the measures of each other.
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