Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/511

§ 489. The next clause in the preamble is "to ensure domestic tranquillity." The illustrations appropriate to this head have been in a great measure anticipated in our previous observations. The security of the states against foreign influence, domestic dissensions, commercial rivalries, legislative retaliations, territorial disputes, and the petty irritations of a border warfare for privileges, exemptions, and smuggling, have been already noticed.^[1] The very habits of intercourse, to which the states were accustomed with each other during their colonial state, would, as has been justly remarked, give a keener edge to every discontent excited by any inequalities, preferences, or exclusions, growing out of the public policy of any of them.^[2] These, however, are not the only evils. In small communities domestic factions may well be expected to arise, which, when honest, may lead to the most pernicious public measures; and when corrupt, to domestic insurrections, and even to an overthrow of the government. The dangers to a republican government from this source have been dwelt upon by the advocates of arbitrary government with much exultation; and it must be confessed, that the history of free governments has furnished but too many examples to apologize for, though not to justify their arguments, drawn not only against the forms of republican government, but against the principles of civil liberty. They have pointed out the brief duration of republics, the factions, by which they have been rent, and the miseries, which they have suffered from distracted councils, and time-serving policy,

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each, and the citizens of each; but also to cause justice to be done by each, and the citizens of each; and that, not by violence and force, but in a stable, sedate, and regular course of judicial procedure."

1. The Federalist, No. 6, 7, 12.
2. Id. No. 7.