Most carefully were all these circumstances weighed, and the
foundations of the new Government laid upon principles of reciprocal
concession and equitable compromise. The jealousies which the smaller
States might entertain of the power of the rest were allayed by a rule
of representation confessedly unequal at the time, and designed forever
to remain so. A natural fear that the broad scope of general legislation
might bear upon and unwisely control particular interests was
counteracted by limits strictly drawn around the action of the Federal
authority, and to the people and the States was left unimpaired their
sovereign power over the innumerable subjects embraced in the internal
government of a just republic, excepting such only as necessarily
appertain to the concerns of the whole confederacy or its intercourse
as a united community with the other nations of the world.
This provident forecast has been verified by time. Half a century,
teeming with extraordinary events, and elsewhere producing astonishing
results, has passed along, but on our institutions it has left no
injurious mark.
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