It is also foreign from our purpose to consider what is the tendency, in a union like that of the United States, which results from the powers placed in the hands of the Presideht and Congress by the federal compact. If such power were placed in such hands by sovereign persons originally severally sovereign in their respective states, as in the case first supposed, the vigilance of these persons in their aggre gate capacity, though somewhat less than the vigilance of a single sovereign person, would probably prevent any undue as sumptions of power on the part of those to whom they had delegated certain fixed powers. But the farther the seve ral sovereigns, who in their aggregate capacity form this federation, are re moved from those to whom they dele gate certain powers, and the more nu merous are the individuals in whom this aggregate sovereignty resides, the greater are the facilities and means of fered to, and consequently the greater is the tendency in, their ministers and agents practically to increase those powers with which they may have been intrusted. In their capacity of ministers and agents, having patronage at their command and the administration of the revenue, such agents may gradually acquire the power of influencing the election of jheir suc cessors, when their own ternf of office is expired, and may thus impercepti bly, while in name servants, become in fact masters. That there is such a ten
dency to degenerate from its primitive form in all social organization, as there is in all organized bodies to be resolved into their elements, seems no sufficient reason for not forming such union and deriving from it all the advantages which under given conditions it may for an in definite time bestow on all the members of such federation.
Those who wish to examine into the nature of the North American Union and the party questions which have arisen out of the interpretation of the federal consti tution may consult the essays of Jay, Hamilton, and Madison in the Federalist, the Journal of the Philadelphia Conven tion, published in 1819, and Tucker's Life of Jefferson (London, 1836), where they will find ample reference to Other authori ties.
Federations of a kind existed in an cient times, such as that of the Ionian States of Asia, which assembled at the Panionium at certain times (Herodo tus, i. 142) • the Adman confederation dONFEDERATION] ; the .2Eto lan confederation [lBTotiebi CONFE