re discovered it naturally provokes
resentments which can not always be easily allayed. Justice--full and
ample justice--to every portion of the United States should be the
ruling principle of every freeman, and should guide the deliberations
of every public body, whether it be State or national.

It is well known that there have always been those amongst us who wish
to enlarge the powers of the General Government, and experience would
seem to indicate that there is a tendency on the part of this Government
to overstep the boundaries marked out for it by the Constitution. Its
legitimate authority is abundantly sufficient for all the purposes for
which it was created and its powers being expressly enumerated, there
can be no justification for claiming anything beyond them. Every attempt
to exercise power beyond these limits should be promptly and firmly
opposed, for one evil example will lead to other measures still more
mischievous; and if the principle of constructive powers or supposed
advantages or temporary circumstances shall ever be permitted to justify
the assumption of a power not given by the Constitution, the General
Government will before long absorb all the powers of legislation, and
you will have in effect but one consolidated government. From the
extent of our country, its diversified interests, different pursuits,
and different habits, it is too obvious for argument that a single
consolidated government would be wholly inadequate to watch over and
protect its interests; and every friend of our free institutions should
be always prepared to maintain unimpaired and in full vigor the rights
and sovereignty of the States and to confine the action of the General
Government strictly to the sphere of its appropriate duties.

There is, perhaps, no one of the powers conferred on the Federal
Government so liable to abuse as the taxing power. The most productive
and convenient sources of revenue were necessarily given to it, that it
might be able to perform the important duties imposed upon it; and the
taxes which it lays upon commerce being concealed from the real payer in
the price of the article, they do not so readily attract the attention
of the people as smaller sums demanded from them directly by the
taxgatherer. But the tax imposed on goods enhances by so much the price
of the commodity to the consumer, and as many of these duties are
imposed on articles of necessity which are daily used by the great body
o