Upward of half a century has elapsed since the adoption of the present
form of government. It would be an object more highly desirable than the
gratification of the curiosity of speculative statesmen if its precise
situation could be ascertained, a fair exhibit made of the operations of
each of its departments, of the powers which they respectively claim and
exercise, of the collisions which have occurred between them or between
the whole Government and those of the States or either of them. We could
then compare our actual condition after fifty years' trial of our system
with what it was in the commencement of its operations and ascertain
whether the predictions of the patriots who opposed its adoption or the
confident hopes of its advocates have been best realized. The great
dread of the former seems to have been that the reserved powers of the
States would be absorbed by those of the Federal Government and a
consolidated power established, leaving to the States the shadow only of
that independent action for which they had so zealously contended and on
the preservation of which they relied as the last hope of liberty.
Without denying that the result to which they looked with so much
apprehension is in the way of being realized, it is obvious that they
did not clearly see the mode of its accomplishment. The General
Government has seized upon none of the reserved rights of the States. As
far as any open warfare may have gone, the State authorities have amply
maintained their rights.
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