Time has decided this first point in favor of the Unionists. None of
the evils prophesied by their opponents have as yet appeared. The
independence of the individual States remains inviolate, and, although
the central executive has grown yearly more powerful, a monarchy
seems as remote as ever. Local distinctions are now little prized in
comparison with federal rank. It is not every man who can recollect the
name of the governor of his own State; very few can tell that of the
chief of the neighboring Commonwealth. The old boundaries have grown
more and more indistinct; and when we look at the present map of the
Union, we see only that broad black line known as Mason and Dixon's, on
one side of which are neatness, thrift, enterprise, and education,--and
on the other, whatever the natives of that region may please to call it.

After 1789, the old Egypt faction ceased to exist, except as grumblers;
but the States-Rights men, though obliged to acquiesce in the
Constitution, endeavored, by every means of "construction" their
ingenuity could furnish, to weaken and restrict the exercise and the
range of its power. The Federalists, on the other hand, held that want
of strength was the principal defect of the system, and were for adding
new buttresses to the Constitutional edifice. It is curious to remark
that neither party believed in the permanency of the Union. Then
came into use the mighty adjectives "constitutional" and
"unconstitutional,"--words of vast import, doing equally good service
to both parties in furnishing a word to express their opinion of the
measures they urged and of those they objected to. And then began to be
strained and frayed that much-abused piece of parchment which Thomas
Paine called the political Bible of the American people, and foolishly
thought indispensable to liberty in a representative government. "Ask an
American if a certain act be constitutional," says Paine, "he pulls out