A State may well say to the nation, "If you will do nothing for me, I
will do nothing for you." Thus it is seen that if this argument of
"inequality" is sufficient anywhere, it is sufficient everywhere, and
puts an end to improvements altogether. I hope and believe that if both
the nation and the States would, in good faith, in their respective
spheres do what they could in the way of improvements, what of inequality
might be produced in one place might be compensated in another, and the
sum of the whole might not be very unequal.
But suppose, after all, there should be some degree of inequality.
Inequality is certainly never to be embraced for its own sake; but is
every good thing to be discarded which may be inseparably connected with
some degree of it? If so, we must discard all government. This Capitol is
built at the public expense, for the public benefit; but does any one
doubt that it is of some peculiar local advantage to the property-holders
and business people of Washington? Shall we remove it for this reason?
And if so, where shall we set it down, and be free from the difficulty?
To make sure of our object, shall we locate it nowhere, and have Congress
hereafter to hold its sessions, as the loafer lodged, "in spots about"? I
make no allusion to the present President when I say there are few
stronger cases in this world of "burden to the many and benefit to the
few," of "inequality," than the Presidency itself is by some thought to
be.
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