from the ascendancy of a sectional or party majority, by so
distributing the powers of government that each interest might hold a
check upon the other. It was believed that the compromises made with
regard to representation--securing to each State an equal vote in the
Senate, and in the House of Representatives giving the States a weight
in proportion to their respective population, estimating the negroes as
equivalent to three fifths of the same number of free whites--would have
the effect of giving at an early period a majority in the House of
Representatives to the South, while the North would retain the
ascendancy in the Senate. Thus it was supposed that the two great
sectional interests would be enabled to restrain each other within the
limits of purposes and action beneficial to both.

The failure of these expectations need not affect our reverence for the
intentions of the fathers, or our respect for the means which they
devised to carry them into effect. That they were mistaken, both as to
the maintenance of the balance of sectional power and as to the fidelity
and integrity with which the Congress was expected to conform to the
letter and spirit of its delegated authority, is perhaps to be ascribed
less to lack of prophetic foresight, than to that over-sanguine
confidence which is the weakness of honest minds, and which was
naturally strengthened by the patriotic and fraternal feelings resulting
from the great struggle through which they had then but recently passed.
They saw, in the sufficiency of the authority delegated to the Federal
Government and in the fullness of the sovereignty retained by the
States, a system the strict construction of which was so eminently
adapted to indefinite expansion of the confederacy as to embrace every
variety of production and consequent diversity of pursuit. Carried out
in the spirit in which it was devised, there was in this system no
element of disintegration, but every facility for an enlargement of the
circle of the family of States (or nations), so that it scarcely seemed
unreasonable to look forward to a fulfillment of the aspiration of Mr.
Hamilton, that it might extend over North America, perhaps over the
whole continent.

Not at all incompatible with these views and purposes was the
recognition of the right of the States to reassume, if occasion should
require it, the powers which they had delegated. On the contrary, the
maintenance of this right was the surest gu