Then, in the thought of nationality especially for the United States,
and making them original, and different from all other countries,
another point ever remains to be considered. There are two distinct
principles--aye, paradoxes--at the life-fountain and life-continuation
of the States; one, the sacred principle of the Union, the right of
ensemble, at whatever sacrifice--and yet another, an equally sacred
principle, the right of each State, consider'd as a separate sovereign
individual, in its own sphere. Some go zealously for one set of these
rights, and some as zealously for the other set. We must have both; or
rather, bred out of them, as out of mother and father, a third set,
the perennial result and combination of both, and neither jeopardized.
I say the loss or abdication of one set, in the future, will be ruin
to democracy just as much as the loss of the other set. The problem
is, to harmoniously adjust the two, and the play of the two. [Observe
the lesson of the divinity of Nature, ever checking the excess of one
law, by an opposite, or seemingly opposite law--generally the other
side of the same law.] For the theory of this Republic is, not
that the General government is the fountain of all life and power,
dispensing it forth, around, and to the remotest portions of our
territory, but that THE PEOPLE are, represented in both, underlying
both the General and State governments, and consider'd just as well in
their individualities and in their separate aggregates, or States, as
consider'd in one vast aggregate, the Union.
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