Having now pointed out the principal illegalities and oppressions which are the necessary results of a principle so evil as that which is embodied in the Acts to which we object, I shall point out two great evils, which are not yet fully appreciated, even by the most earnest opponents of the Acts.

It may be stated generally, that the very existence of these laws in any portion of the country gradually educates the nation to political incapacity and to moral obliquity, evils so vast and so insidious, as, by spreading like a plague-spot through the whole nation, to involve it eventually in national downfall.

I. It is already plainly perceived by many that the educational influence of these Acts is subversive of individual purity and private morality. It has not been so plainly perceived, however, that that influence is equally subversive of the balance of the social system, of the power of self-government, and of the due relations to each other of the different parts of the body politic, which hitherto have so largely contributed to the manliness of our national character.

II. Sir Edward Creasy says, “It has been our happiness in England to combine the system of local distribution of power in matters of local importance with the system of centralization of power in matters of imperial policy. The practice of our nation for centuries establishes the rule that except for matters clearly of direct, general, and imperial interest, centralization is unconstitutional.