Brooks Adams, the great-grandson of John Adams and grandson of John Quincy Adams, saw danger in the consolidation of power in a centralized State, as opposed to the dispersion of power envisioned (by many, but not all, of the founders) at the nation’s founding.  He wtote about it in The Law of Civilization and Decay.  Again from The Conservative Mind:

“Just how far the acceleration of the human movement may go it is impossible to determine; but it seems certain that, sooner or later, consolidation, having reached its limit, will necessarily stop.  There is nothing stationary in the universe.  Not to advance is to go backward, and when a highly centralized society disintegrates under the pressure of economic competition, it is because the energy of the race has been exhausted.”

I might amend Adams’ use of the word “economic” and instead use “political”, for economic power becomes subsumed to political power as that power is centralized.  Economic power is then redistributed from the central power, the State in D.C., back to its original geographic sources in the provinces, but this time to the State’s preferred hands, those who play the game and know how to feed power and what to ask in return.

This centralized State, being short-sighted and greedy, unable to plan, able only to maximize today’s gains at tomorrow’s expense, is doomed to break apart.  It may voluntarily relinquish some of its powers, but that is a sign that it is desperate, and that the relinquishing of power has only begun and will soon take on a life of its own.