The subject follows naturally in the train of commerce, for
bankruptcies, as understood at the time, were confined to the
mercantile class, bankers, and brokers; and since the regulation
of commerce, foreign and inter-state, was to be placed under the
sole charge of the General government, it was necessary that
bankruptcy should be included. The subject of patents is placed
under the General government, though the patent is a private
right, because it was the will of the convention that the patent
should be good in all the States, as affording more encouragement
to science and the useful arts than if good only within a single
State, or if the power were left to each State to recognize or
not patents granted by another. The right created, though
private in its nature, is Yet general or common to all the States
in its enjoyment or exercise.
The division of the powers of government between a General
government and particular governments, rendered possible and
practicable by the original constitution of the people
themselves, as one people existing and acting through State
organizations, is the American method of guarding against the
undue centralism to which Roman imperialism inevitably tends;
and it is far simpler and more effective than any of the
European systems of mixed governments, which seek their end by
organizing an antagonism of interests or classes.
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