I did not doubt
the aid it would bring to the remains of our old school in Congress, in
which your early labors had been so useful. You will find, I suppose,
on revisiting our maritime States, the names of things more changed than
the things themselves; that though our old opponents have given up their
appellation, they have not, in assuming ours, abandoned their views, and
that they are as strong nearly as they ever were. These cares, however,
are no longer mine. I resign myself cheerfully to the managers of the
ship, and the more contentedly, as I am near the end of my voyage. I
have learned to be less confident in the conclusions of human reason,
and give more credit to the honesty of contrary opinions. The radical
idea of the character of the constitution of our government, which I
have adopted as a key in cases of doubtful construction, is, that the
whole field of government is divided into two departments, domestic and
foreign, (the States in their mutual relations being of the latter) that
the former department is reserved exclusively to the respective States
within their own limits, and the latter assigned to a separate set of
functionaries, constituting what may be called the, foreign branch,
which, instead of a federal basis, is established as a distinct
government _quo ad hoc_, acting as the domestic branch does on the
citizens directly and coercively; that these departments have distinct
directories, co-ordinate, and equally independent and supreme, each
within its own sphere of action.
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