stone upon which our American political architects have reared the
fabric of our Government. The cement which was to bind it and
perpetuate its existence was the affectionate attachment between all
its members. To insure the continuance of this feeling, produced at
first by a community of dangers, of sufferings, and of interests, the
advantages of each were made accessible to all. No participation in any
good possessed by any member of our extensive Confederacy, except in
domestic government, was withheld from the citizen of any other member.
By a process attended with no difficulty, no delay, no expense but that
of removal, the citizen of one might become the citizen of any other,
and successively of the whole. The lines, too, separating powers to be
exercised by the citizens of one State from those of another seem to be
so distinctly drawn as to leave no room for misunderstanding. The
citizens of each State unite in their persons all the privileges which
that character confers and all that they may claim as citizens of the
United States, but in no case can the same persons at the same time act
as the citizen of two separate States, and he is therefore positively
precluded from any interference with the reserved powers of any State
but that of which he is for the time being a citizen. He may, indeed,
offer to the citizens of other States his advice as to their
management, and the form in which it is tendered is left to his own
discretion and sense of propriety. It may be observed, however, that
organized associations of citizens requiring compliance with their
wishes too much resemble the recommendations of Athens to her allies,
supported by an armed and powerful fleet. It was, indeed, to the
ambition of the leading States of Greece to control the domestic
concerns of the others that the destruction of that celebrated
Confederacy, and subsequently of all its members, is mainly to be
attributed, and it is owing to the absence of that spirit that the
Helvetic Confederacy has for so many years been preserved. Never has