TRIAL OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN - American Memory

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destruction, to wit: by consolidation first, and then corrup-
tion, its necessary consequence. * * A prevalence of
the doctrines of consolidation will one day call for reform-
ation or revolution. * * I see with the deepest af-
fliction the rapid strides with which the Federal branch
of our Government is advancing toward usurpation of all
the rights reserved to the States, and the consolidation in
itself of all power, foreign and domestic, and that, too, by
constructions which, if legitimate, leave no limits to their
power.
•
GEORGE WASHINGTON.—It is important that the habit of
thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those
intrusted witlyits administration, to confine themselves with-
in their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding, in the
exercise of the powers of one department, to encroach
upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to con-
solidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus
create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism.
A just estimate of that love of power and proneness to
abuse it which predominates in the human heart is sufficient
to satisfy us of the truths of this position. The necessity of
reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by di-
viding and distributing it into different departments, and
constituting each the guardian of the public weal against
x invasion by the other, has been evinced by experiments an-
• Jeffersorrs Works, by H. A. Washington, vol vii., pp. 223, 293.