nt, in the hands of the State
legislatures, would leave the existence of the Union entirely at their
mercy. They could at any moment annihilate it, by neglecting to provide
for the choice of persons to administer its affairs. It is to little
purpose to say, that a neglect or omission of this kind would not be
likely to take place. The constitutional possibility of the thing,
without an equivalent for the risk, is an unanswerable objection. Nor
has any satisfactory reason been yet assigned for incurring that
risk. The extravagant surmises of a distempered jealousy can never be
dignified with that character. If we are in a humor to presume abuses
of power, it is as fair to presume them on the part of the State
governments as on the part of the general government. And as it is more
consonant to the rules of a just theory, to trust the Union with the
care of its own existence, than to transfer that care to any other
hands, if abuses of power are to be hazarded on the one side or on
the other, it is more rational to hazard them where the power would
naturally be placed, than where it would unnaturally be placed.

Suppose an article had been introduced into the Constitution, empowering
the United States to regulate the elections for the particular States,
would any man have hesitated to condemn it, both as an unwarrantable
transposition of power, and as a premeditated engine for the destruction
of the State governments? The violation of principle, in this case,
would have required no comment; and, to an unbiased observer, it will
not be less apparent in the project of subjecting the existence of the
national government, in a similar respect, to the pleasure of the State
governments. An impartial view of the matter cannot fail to result in a
conviction, that each, as far as possible, ought to depend on itself for
its own preservation.

As an objection to this position, it may be remarked that the
constitution of the national Senate would involve, in its full extent,
the danger which it is suggested might flow from an exclusive power
in the State legislatures to regulate the federal elections. It may be
alleged, that by declining the appointment of Senators, they might
at any time give a fatal blow to the Union; and from this it may be
inferred, that as its existence would be thus rendered dependent upon
them in so essential a point, there can be no objection to intrusting
them with it in the particular case under consideratio