as a general rule, that their confidence in, and obedience to a Government, will commonly be proportioned to the goodness or badness of its administration. It must be admitted, that there are exceptions to this rule; but these exceptions depend so entirely on accidental causes, that they cannot be considered as having any relation to the intrinsic merits or demerits of a Constitution. These can only be judged of by general principles and maxims.
Various reasons have been suggested, in the course of these papers, to induce a probability, that the general Government will be better administered than the particular Governments; the principal of which reasons are, that the extension of the spheres of election will present a greater option, or latitude of choice, to the People; that through the medium of the State Legislatures—which are select bodies of men, and who are to appoint the members of the National Senate—there is reason to expect that this branch will generally be composed with peculiar care and judgment; that these circumstances promise greater knowledge, and more extensive information, in the National councils; and that they will be less apt to be tainted by the spirit of faction, and more out of the reach of those occasional ill-humors, or temporary prejudices and propensities, which, in smaller societies, frequently contaminate the public councils, beget injustice and oppression of a part of the community, and engender schemes, which, though they gratify a momentary inclination or desire, terminate in general distress, dissatisfaction, and disgust. Several additional reasons of considerable force, to fortify that probability, will occur, when we come to survey, with a more critic eye, the interior structure of the edifice which we are invited to erect. It will be sufficient here to remark, that until satisfactory reasons can be assigned to justify an opinion, that the Fœderal Government is likely to be
