of all the governments, which can be considered as having had a permanent existence in the world, before. the Revolution in this country. There are certainly shades of difference between the oriental despotisms, ancient and modern-the military empire of Romethe feudal sovereignties of the middle ages-and the legitimate monarchies of the present day. Some were and are more, and some less, susceptible of melioration in practice; and of all of them it might perhaps be said-being all in ce bad, one da

In no one of these govern, nor in any government, was the truth admitted that the only just foundation of all government is the will of the people. If it ever occurred to the practical or theoretical politician, that such an idea deserved examination, the experiment was thought to have been made in the republics of Greece, and to have failed, as fail it certainly did, from the physical impossibility of conducting the business of the state by the actual intervention of every citizen. Such a plan of government must of course fail, if for no other reason, at least for this, that it would prevent the citizen from pursuing his own business, which it is the object of all government to enable him to do. It was considered then as settled, that the citizens, each and all, could not be the government; some one or more must discharge its duties for them. Who shall do this;-how shall they be designated?doma

The first king was a fortunate soldier, and the first nobleman was one of his generals; and government has passed by descent to their posterity, with no other interruption, than has taken place, when some new soldier of fortune has broken in upon this line of succession, in favor of himself and of his generals. The people have passed for nothing in the plan; and whenever it has occurred to a busy genius to put the question, By what right government is thus exercised and

transmitted? the common answer has been, By Divine right; while, in times of rare illumination, men have been consoled with the assurance, that such was the original contract.

But a brighter day and a better dispensation were in reserve. The founders of the feudal system, barbarous, arbitrary, and despotic as they were, and profoundly ignorant of political science, were animated themselves with a spirit of personal liberty; out of which, after ages of flict, grew up a species of popular representatio the eye of the feudal system, the king was the faron, and standing within his own sphere, each other baron was as good as the first. From this important ration, in which the feudal lords of England claimed to stand to their prince, arose the practice of their being consulted by him, in great and difficult conjunctures of affairs; and hence the co-operation of a grand council, (subsequently convened in two houses under the name of parliament,) in making the laws and administering the government. The formation of this body has proved a great step in the progress of popular rights; its influence has been decisive in breaking the charm of absolute monarchy, and giving to a body, partially eligible by the people, a share in the government. It has also operated most auspiciously on liberty, by exhibiting to the world, on the theatre of a conspicuous nation, a living example, that in proportion as the rights and interests of a people are represented in a government, in that degree the state becomes strong and prosperous. Thus far the science and the practice of government had gone in England, and here it had come to a stand. An equal representation, even in the House of Commons, was unthought of; or thought of only as one of the exploded abominations of Cromwell. It is asserted by Mr. Hume, writing about the middle of the last century, and weighing this subject with equal moderation and sagacity, that "the tide has run long and with some rapidity to the side of popular government, and is just beginning to turn toward monarchy." And he

maintains that the British constitution is, though slowly, yet gradually verging toward an absolute government.*

Such was the state of political science, when the independence of our country was declared, and its constitutions organized on the basis of that declaration. The precedents in favor of a popular system were substantially these, the short-lived prosperity of the republics of Greece, where each citizen took part in the conduct of affairs; and the admission into the British government, of one branch of the legislature nominally elective, and operating, rather by opinion than power, as a partial check on the other branches. What lights these precedents gave them, our fathers had; beyond this, they owed every thing to their own wisdom and courage, in daring to carry out and apply to the executive branch of the government that system of delegated power, of which the elements existed in their own provincial assemblies. They assumed, at once, not as a matter to be reached by argumentation, but as the dictate of unaided reason-as an axiom too obvious to be discussed, though never in practice applied that where the state is too large to be governed by an actual assembly of all the citizens, the people shall elect those, who will act for them, in making the laws and administering the government. They, therefore, laid the basis of their constitutions in a proportionate delegation of power, from every part of the community; and regarding the declaration of our Independence as the true era of our institutions, we are authorized to assert, that from that era dates the establishment of the only perfect organization of government, that of a Representative Republic, administered by persons freely chosen by the people.

This plan of government is therefore, in its theory, perfect; and in its operation it is perfect also;-that is to say, no measure of policy, public or private, domestic or foreign, can long be pursued, against the

Hume's Essays, vol. I.

will of a majority of the people. Farther than this the wisdom of government cannot go. The majority of the people may err. Man collectively as well as individually, is man still; but whom can you more safely trust than the majority of the people; who is so likely to be right, always right, and altogether right, as the collective majority of a great nation, represented in all its interests and pursuits, and in all its communities?

Thus has been solved the great problem in human affairs; and a frame of government, perfect in its principles, has been brought down from the airy regions of Utopia, and has found a local habitation and a name' in our country. Henceforward we have only to strive that the practical operation of our systems may be true to their spirit and theory. Henceforth it may be said of us, what never could have been said of any people, since the world began,-be our sufferings what they will, no one can attribute them to our frame of government; no one can point out a principle in our political systems, of which he has had reason to complain; no one can sigh for a change in his country's institutions, as a boon to be desired for himself or for his children. There is not an apparent defect in our constitutions which could be removed without introducing a greater one; nor a real evil, whose removal would not be rather a nearer approach to the principles on which they are founded, than a departure from them.

And what, fellow citizens, are to be the fruits to us and to the world, of the establishment of this perfect system of government? I might partly answer the inquiry, by reminding you what have been the fruits to us and to the world; by inviting you to compare our beloved country, as it is, in extent of settlement, in numbers and resources, in the useful and ornamental arts, in the abundance of the common blessings of life, in the general standard of character, in the means of education, in the institutions for social objects, in the various great industrious interests, in public strength

and national respectability, with what it was in all these respects fifty years ago. But the limits of this occasion will not allow us to engage in such an enumeration; and it will be amply sufficient for us to contemplate, in its principle, the beneficial operation on society, of the form of government bequeathed to us by our fathers. This principle is Equality; the equal enjoyment by every citizen of the rights and privileges of the social union.

The principle of all other governments is monopoly, exclusion, favor. They secure great privileges to a small number, and necessarily at the expense of all the rest of the citizens.

In the keen conflict of minds, which preceded and accompanied the political convulsions of the last generation, the first principles of society were canvassedwith a boldness and power before unknown in Europe, and, from the great principle that all men are equal, it was for the first time triumphantly inferred, as a necessary consequence, that the will of a majority of the people is the rule of government. To meet these doctrines, so appalling in their tendency to the existing institutions of Europe, new ground was also taken by the champions of those institutions, and particularly by a man, whose genius, eloquence, and integrity gave a currency, which nothing else could have given, to his splendid paradoxes and servile doctrines. In one of his renowned productions,* this great man, for great, even in his errors, most assuredly he was, in order to meet the inferences drawn from the equality of man, that the will of the majority must be the rule of government, has undertaken, as he says, "to fix, with some degree of distinctness, an idea of what it is we mean when we say the PEOPLE ;" and in fulfilment of this design, he lays it down," that in a state of rude nature, there is no such thing as a people. A number of men, in themselves, can have no collective capacity. The idea of a people is the idea of a corporation, it is

*The appeal from the New to the Old Whigs.