most of the State Legislatures, so long it must maintain a correspondent superiority in the National Senate, which will generally be a faithful copy of the majorities of those Assemblies. It cannot therefore be presumed, that a sacrifice of the landed to the mercantile class will ever be a favorite object of this branch of the Fœderal Legislature. In applying thus particularly to the Senate a general observation suggested by the situation of the country, I am governed by the consideration, that the credulous votaries of State power cannot, upon their own principles, suspect, that the State Legislatures would be warped from their duty by any external influence. But in reality the same situation must have the same effect, in the primitive composition at least of the Fœderal House of Representatives, an improper bias towards the mercantile class, is as little to be expected from this quarter as from the other.
In order, perhaps, to give countenance to the objection at any rate, it may be asked, is there not danger of an opposite bias in the National Government, which may dispose it to endeavor to secure a monopoly of the Fœderal administration to the landed class? As there is little likelihood, that the supposition of such a bias will have any terrors for those who would be immediately injured by it, a labored answer to this question will be dispensed with. It will be sufficient to remark, first, that for the reasons elsewhere assigned, it is less likely that any decided partiality should prevail in the Councils of the Union than in those of any of its members. Secondly, that there would be no temptation to violate the Constitution in favor of the landed class, because that class would, in the natural course of things, enjoy as great a preponderancy as itself could desire. And, thirdly, that men accustomed to investigate the sources of public prosperity, upon a large scale, must be too well convinced of the utility of commerce to be inclined
