ent, I consider all power
flowing immediately from the people in their individual capacity, and that
the people, in their individual capacity, have, and ever ought to have the
right of choosing delegates in a state legislature, the business of which
is to make laws, regulating their concerns, as individuals, and operating
upon them as such; but in a federal government, formed over free states,
the power flows from the people, and the right of choosing delegates
belongs to them only mediately through their respective state governments
which are the members composing the federal government, and from whom all
its power immediately proceeds; to which state governments, the choice of
the federal delegates immediately belongs. I should blush indeed for my
ignorance of the first elements of government, was I to entertain
different sentiments on the subject; and if this is "political heresy," I
have no ambition to be ranked with those who are orthodox. Let me here, my
fellow citizens, by way of caution, add an observation, which will prove
to be founded in truth: those who are the most liberal in complimenting
you with powers which do not belong to you, act commonly from improper and
interested motives, and most generally have in view thereby to prepare the
way for depriving you of those rights to which you are justly entitled.
Every thing that weakens and impairs the bands of legitimate authority
smooths the road of ambition; nor can there be a surer method of
supporting and preserving the just rights of the people, than by
supporting and protecting the just rights of government. As to the
"jargon" attributed to me of maintaining that "notwithstanding each state
had an equal number of votes in the senate, yet the states were unequally
represented in the senate," the Landholder has all the merit of its
absurdity; nor can I conceive what sentiment it is that I ever have
expressed, to which he, with his usual perversion and misrepresentation,
could give such a colouring. That I ever suggested the idea of letting
loose an army indiscriminately on the innocent and guilty, in a state
refusing to comply with the requisitions of Congress, or that such an idea
ever had place in my mind, is a falsehood so groundless, so base and
malignant, that it could only have originated or been devised by a heart
which would dishonour the midnight assassin. My sentiments on this subject
are well known; it was only in the case where a state refused to c