stronger bias towards their local governments than towards the
government of the Union; unless the force of that principle should
be destroyed by a much better administration of the latter.
This strong propensity of the human heart would find powerful
auxiliaries in the objects of State regulation.
The variety of more minute interests, which will necessarily
fall under the superintendence of the local administrations, and
which will form so many rivulets of influence, running through every
part of the society, cannot be particularized, without involving a
detail too tedious and uninteresting to compensate for the
instruction it might afford.
There is one transcendant advantage belonging to the province of
the State governments, which alone suffices to place the matter in a
clear and satisfactory light,--I mean the ordinary administration of
criminal and civil justice. This, of all others, is the most
powerful, most universal, and most attractive source of popular
obedience and attachment. It is that which, being the immediate and
visible guardian of life and property, having its benefits and its
terrors in constant activity before the public eye, regulating all
those personal interests and familiar concerns to which the
sensibility of individuals is more immediately awake, contributes,
more than any other circumstance, to impressing upon the minds of
the people, affection, esteem, and reverence towards the government.
This great cement of society, which will diffuse itself almost
wholly through the channels of the particular governments,
independent of all other causes of influence, would insure them so
decided an empire over their respective citizens as to render them
at all times a complete counterpoise, and, not unfrequently,
dangerous rivals to the power of the Union.
The operations of the national government, on the other hand,