University of Virginia Library

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CONSOLIDATION.[39]

Much has been said, and not without reason, against a
consolidation of the States into one government. Omitting
lesser objections, two consequences would probably flow
from such a change in our political system, which justify the
cautions used against it. First, it would be impossible to
avoid the dilemma, of either relinquishing the present energy
and responsibility of a single executive magistrate, for some
plural substitute, which by dividing so great a trust might
lessen the danger of it; or suffering so great an accumulation
of powers in the hands of that officer, as might by degrees
transform him into a monarch. The incompetency of one
Legislature to regulate all the various objects belonging to
the local governments, would evidently force a transfer of
many of them to the executive department; whilst the increasing
splendour and number of its prerogatives supplied
by this source, might prove excitements to ambition too
powerful for a sober execution of the elective plan, and consequently
strengthen the pretexts for an hereditary designation
of the magistrate. Second, were the state governments
abolished, the same space of country that would produce an
undue growth of the executive power, would prevent that
controul on the Legislative body, which is essential to a faithful
discharge of its trust, neither the voice nor the sense of
ten or twenty millions of people, spread through so many
latitudes as are comprehended within the United States,
could ever be combined or called into effect, if deprived of
those local organs, through which both can now be conveyed.
In such a state of things, the impossibility of acting together,
might be succeeded by the inefficacy of partial expressions
of the public mind, and at length, by a universal silence and
insensibility, leaving the whole government to that self
directed course, which, it must be owned, is the natural propensity
of every government.

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But if a consolidation of the states into one government
be an event so justly to be avoided, it is not less to be desired,
on the other hand, that a consolidation should prevail in their
interests and affections; and this, too, as it fortunately happens,
for the very reasons, among others, which lie against a
government consolidation. For, in the first place, in proportion
as uniformity is found to prevail in the interests and
sentiments of the several states, will be the practicability of
accommodating Legislative regulations to them, and thereby
of withholding new and dangerous prerogatives from the
executive. Again, the greater the mutual confidence and
affection of all parts of the Union, the more likely they will
be to concur amicably, or to differ with moderation, in the
elective designation of the chief magistrate; and by such
examples, to guard and adorn the vital principle of our
republican constitution. Lastly, the less the supposed
difference of interests, and the greater the concord and
confidence throughout the great body of the people, the
more readily must they sympathize with each other, the
more seasonably can they interpose a common manifestation
of their sentiments, the more certainly will they take
the alarm at usurpation or oppression, and the more
effectually will they consolidate their defence of the public
liberty.

Here then is a proper object presented, both to those who
are most jealously attached to the separate authority reserved
to the states, and to those who may be more inclined
to contemplate the people of America in the light of one
nation. Let the former continue to watch against every
encroachment, which might lead to a gradual consolidation
of the states into one government. Let the latter employ
their utmost zeal, by eradicating local prejudices and mistaken
rivalships, to consolidate the affairs of the states into
one harmonious interest; and let it be the patriotic study
of all, to maintain the various authorities established by
our complicated system, each in its respective constitutional

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