To expose the
fallacy of this objection it is only necessary to consider the frame and
true character of our system. Ours is not a consolidated empire, but a
confederated union. The States before the adoption of the Constitution
were coordinate, coequal, and separate independent sovereignties, and by
its adoption they did not lose that character. They clothed the Federal
Government with certain powers and reserved all others, including their
own sovereignty, to themselves. They guarded their own rights as States
and the rights of the people by the very limitations which they
incorporated into the Federal Constitution, whereby the different
departments of the General Government were checks upon each other. That
the majority should govern is a general principle controverted by none,
but they must govern according to the Constitution, and not according to
an undefined and unrestrained discretion, whereby they may oppress the
minority.
The people of the United States are not blind to the fact that they may
be temporarily misled, and that their representatives, legislative and
executive, may be mistaken or influenced in their action by improper
motives.
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