actual existence, whose cordial union was essential to the welfare
and happiness of all. Between many of them there was, at least to
some extent, a real diversity of interests, liable to be
exaggerated through sinister designs; they differed in size, in
population, in wealth, and in actual and prospective resources and
power; they varied in the character of their industry and staple
productions, and [in some] existed domestic institutions which,
unwisely disturbed, might endanger the harmony of the whole. Most
carefully were all these circumstances weighed, and the
foundations of the new Government laid upon principles of
reciprocal concession and equitable compromise. The jealousies
which the smaller States might entertain of the power of the rest
were allayed by a rule of representation confessedly unequal at
the time, and designed forever to remain so. A natural fear that
the broad scope of general legislation might bear upon and
unwisely control particular interests was counteracted by limits
strictly drawn around the action of the Federal authority, and to
the people and the States was left unimpaired their sovereign
power over the innumerable subjects embraced in the internal
government of a just republic, excepting such only as necessarily
appertain to the concerns of the whole confederacy or its
intercourse as a united community with the other nations of the
world.

This provident forecast has been verified by time. Half a century,
teeming with extraordinary events, and elsewhere producing
astonishing results, has passed along, but on our institutions it
has left no injurious mark. From a small community we have risen
to a people powerful in numbers and in strength; but with our
increase has gone hand in hand the progress of just principles.