The fictitious idea of _one_ people of the United States, contradicted
in the last paragraph, has been so impressed upon the popular mind by
false teaching, by careless and vicious phraseology, and by the
ever-present spectacle of a great Government, with its army and navy,
its custom-houses and post-offices, its multitude of office-holders, and
the splendid prizes which it offers to political ambition, that the
tearing away of these illusions and presentation of the original fabric,
which they have overgrown and hidden from view, have no doubt been
unwelcome, distasteful, and even repellent to some of my readers. The
artificial splendor which makes the deception attractive is even
employed as an argument to prove its reality.
The glitter of the powers delegated to the agent serves to obscure the
perception of the sovereign power of the principal by whom they are
conferred, as, by the unpracticed eye, the showy costume and conspicuous
functions of the drum-major are mistaken for emblems of
chieftaincy--while the misuse or ambiguous use of the term "Union" and
its congeners contributes to increase the confusion.
So much the more need for insisting upon the elementary truths which
have been obscured by these specious sophistries. The reader really
desirous of ascertaining truth is, therefore, again cautioned against
confounding two ideas so essentially distinct as that of _government_,
which is derivative, dependent, and subordinate, with that of the
_people_, as an organized political community, which is sovereign,
without any other than self-imposed limitations, and such as proceed
from the general principles of the personal rights of man.
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