REPORTS AND PUBLIC LETTERS.

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truth, you may be perfectly satisfied,—that you have ar-rived at a period, which must practically settle the question,as to the real character of the General Government ; andthat, on your determined and unyielding efforts, the result,whether it is to prove an instrument of oppression, or ofliberty, mainly depends. From the beginning, two oppositeviews were taken of our Constitution . While the questionof its adoption was yet pending, its enemies every wherepronounced it to be, in reality, though artfully disguised,—a consolidated Government; and, as a necessary consequenceof extending a government of that form over a country ofsuch vast extent of territory, and diversity of interest,—itwould end in corruption, tyranny and monarchy. On theother hand, its friends, while they conceded that such wouldbe the consequence of consolidation, asserted that it was aFederal, and not a consolidated Government; and that theStates, as the guardians of the peculiar and local interestsof the country, would oppose effectual barriers against anysupposed tendency it might have to consolidation. TheStates, after a doubtful struggle, adopted the Constitution ,with great distrust and powerful minorities ; and rather froma fear of anarchy, through the feebleness of the Confedera­ tion , than confidence in the arguments of its supporters.To allay the apprehensions of the States, the 10th amend-ment to the Constitution was adopted, with the view ofmore effectually protecting the rights reserved to them, byconfining the General Government more strictly to its limitedand proper sphere of action. Yet what has been the result ?But little more than forty years have elapsed, and the pre-dictions of its opponents are almost fully realized. Scarcelya restraint, in fact, is left on the will of the General Govern-ment ; and doctrines are openly and boldly avowed, which,if not successfully resisted, will give it unlimited power, andreduce the States to mere corporations. Already the painfulconsequences of consolidation,—discord, corruption and op-