Time has decided this first point in favor of the Unionists.  None of the evils prophesied by their opponents have as yet appeared.  The independence of the individual States remains inviolate, and, although the central executive has grown yearly more powerful, a monarchy seems as remote as ever.  Local distinctions are now little prized in comparison with federal rank.  It is not every man who can recollect the name of the governor of his own State; very few can tell that of the chief of the neighboring Commonwealth.  The old boundaries have grown more and more indistinct; and when we look at the present map of the Union, we see only that broad black line known as Mason and Dixon’s, on one side of which are neatness, thrift, enterprise, and education,—­and on the other, whatever the natives of that region may please to call it.

After 1789, the old Egypt faction ceased to exist, except as grumblers; but the States-Rights men, though obliged to acquiesce in the Constitution, endeavored, by every means of “construction” their ingenuity could furnish, to weaken and restrict the exercise and the range of its power.  The Federalists, on the other hand, held that want of strength was the principal defect of the system, and were for adding new buttresses to the Constitutional edifice.  It is curious to remark that neither party believed in the permanency of the Union.  Then came into use the mighty adjectives “constitutional” and “unconstitutional,”—­words of vast import, doing equally good service to both parties in furnishing a word to express their opinion of the measures they urged and of those they objected to.  And then began to be strained and frayed that much-abused piece of parchment which Thomas Paine called the political Bible of the American people, and foolishly thought indispensable to liberty in a representative government.  “Ask an American if a certain act be constitutional,” says Paine, “he pulls out his pocket volume, turns to page and verse, and gives you a correct answer in a moment.”  Poor Mr. Paine! if you had lived fifty years longer, you would have seen that paper constitutions, like the paper money you despised so justly, depend upon honesty and confidence for their value, and are at a sad discount in hard times of fraud and corruption.  Unprincipled men find means of evading the written agreement upon their face by ingenious subterfuges or downright repudiation.  An arbitrary majority will construe the partnership articles to suit their own interests, and stat pro constitutione voluntas.  It is true that the litera scripta remains, but the meaning is found to vary with the interpreter.