LITMIR.BIZ

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by Solon, was in some measure representative; there was a senate, consisting of five hundred deputies who were annually elected; so were the archons, and other magistrates of the republic. But the whole body of the people likewise assembled, both ordinarily, on stated days, and also on extraordinary occasions. By the constitution it proved that the people should ratify or reject all the decrees of the senate; but should make no decree which had not first passed the senate. This regulation in process of time was so far disregarded, as, the amendments to the decrees of the senate were at first proposed; which being acquiesced in, other decrees, afterwards, were substituted in stead of those of the senate. This innovation in the constitution changed the nature of the government entirely, and introduced all the mischiefs of faction, corruption, and anarchy; the people delivered themselves over to the influence of their vicious and corrupt orators, and intriguing demagogues; and the event finally proved that the smallest innovations are capable of subverting the constitution of a state.

      Thus while a democracy may be pronounced to be the only legitimate government, and that form of government, alone which is compatible with the freedom of the nation, and the happiness of the individual, we may perceive that it is on every side surrounded by enemies, ready to sap the foundation, convulse the frame, and totally destroy the fabric. In such a government a sacred veneration for the principles of the constitution, a perfect obedience to the laws, an unremitting vigilance on the part of the people over the conduct of their agents, and the strictest attention to the morals and principles of such as they elect into every office, legislative, executive, or judiciary, seem indispensably necessary to constitute, and to preserve a sufficient barrier against its numerous foes.

      The enemies of a democratic government fail not on all occasions to magnify, and to multiply, at the same time, all the disadvantages of this species of government, just as some curious opticians have contrived lenses, which represent the same object, magnified, in an hundred different places, at once. They are ready to mention on all occasions the tumults at Athens, and at Rome (which last was in no sense whatever a democracy,) and they repeat the banishment of Aristides, the imprisonment and fine of Miltiades, and the death of Socrates, with so much indignation, that one might almost suppose they were the only examples to be found in history, where virtuous men had ever been oppressed by a government; or where cruelty had ever been exercised towards the innocent. But cruelty and even violence in a republic, are very different in their effects from cruelty, or violence in a monarch. In a republic ten thousand people, or the whole state, combine to oppress one man: in the other case, one individual inflicts torture upon a whole nation, or the whole human race. Not to mention the tyrants who have deluged their territories with the blood of their own subjects, and whose names are held in detestation by the whole human race. Alexander of Macedon, the favorite of historians, both ancient and modern, crucified two thousand Tyrians round the walls of their city, because they would not submit to him as a conqueror, but offered to receive him as a friend, and ally; and the same abominable tragedy was afterwards repeated by him at Gaza.¹¹ In the scale of good and evil, is it better that a whole nation should be sometimes unjust, and even cruel, to a Socrates, or a Miltiades, or that one man should possess the power of tyrannizing over the whole human race?

      But in America, such scenes of violence, tumult, and commotion, as convulsed and finally destroyed the republics of Athens and Rome, can never be apprehended, whilst we remain, as at present, an agricultural people, dispersed over an immense territory, equal to the support of more than ten times our present population. Nothing can be more inconsistent with the habits and interest of the farmer and the husbandman, than frequent and numerous assemblies of the people. In a country, whose population does not amount to one able bodied militia man for each mile square, would it not be absurdity in the extreme, to pretend, that the same dangers are to be apprehended, as in those ancient cities; or in the modern capitals of France, or England, whose inhabitants, respectively, may be estimated as equal to the population of the largest state in the American confederacy? Or can we expect the same readiness in an independent yeomanry to excite, or to favor popular commotions, as in the Athenian populace, hired by their demagogues to attend the public meetings; or bribed, like the degenerate citizens of Rome, when they contented themselves with demanding from their rulers, bread, and the exhibition of public games, as all they required? Those who pretend to draw any parallel between those ancient republics, and the American states, must either be totally ignorant, or guilty of wilful misrepresentation. Attica was a small but an immensely populous state: the people had arrived at the summit of luxurious refinement, indolence, and corruption. The public orators were often secretly in the pay of the factious demagogues contending for preeminence within the state; or, of its enemies without. The delusions of eloquence were constantly, and successfully employed to beguile an enervated and infatuated people to their destruction. The multitude were on all occasions agitated by the breath of their orators as the waves of the sea by the wind. The Roman metropolis, on the other hand, was a military city in which every citizen was a soldier, and a sovereign, for Rome was not the head of the republic, but the mistress of the empire, and of the globe. Her citizens may be regarded as the lords of the human race, in the forum they tyrannized over the rest of the world, and in the campus martius, over each other. A Martius, a Scylla, an Anthony, and an Octavius, were by turns their idols, and their scourges. Who can perceive the most distant resemblance between either of these republics; and, the states of New England, of Pennsylvania, of the Carolina’s, or Virginia? Who will venture to compare those of Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, or Tennessee, to them. But the improvements which the representative system has received in America, will I trust prove an effectual guard against those scenes of violence, which have stained the annals of the ancient republics, without weakening, or in any degree impairing the public, force, and energy, on the one hand, or endangering the liberties of the people, on the other; this leads us to a short digression concerning:

      SECTION VII.

      The analysis and separation of the several powers of government, which if not a discovery reserved for the eighteenth century, bids fair to be practically understood, more perfectly than in earlier times. It consists in the just distribution, of the several distinct functions, and duties, of the public agents, according to their respective natures.

      The essential parts of civil power may not improperly be divided into the internal, or such as are to be exercised among the citizens of a state, within the state itself; and the external, or such as may be exercised towards foreign nations, or different and independent states: the design of civil government being, both to promote peace and happiness with an undisturbed enjoyment of all their rights, to the citizens of the state, by good order at home, and to defend the whole body, and all its members from any foreign injuries; and to procure them any advantages that may be obtained by a prudent conduct towards foreigners. These powers, which in all great empires, and monarchies, and even in smaller states, are generally united in one and the same man, or body of men, according to the system adopted by the states of the American confederacy, are, as was before observed, separated from each other; the former branch, being with some exceptions, confided to the state-governments; the latter to the federal government.

      The former branch of these powers, or that which is to be exercised within the state, are, shortly, these. First, the power of directing the actions of the citizens by laws requiring whatever is requisite for this end, and prohibiting the contrary by penalties: determining and limiting more precisely the several rights of men, appointing the proper methods for securing, transferring, or conveying them, as the general interest may require, and even limiting their use of them, in certain cases, for the same general purpose. Secondly, another power of the same class is that of appointing in what manner, and what proportion each one shall contribute towards the public expenses out of his private fortune, or private gains, by paying taxes, as the state of the people will admit. These two branches of power are commonly called legislative; and in this state, and I believe in every other in the union, they are confided to two distinct bodies of men chosen at stated periods by the people themselves, one of which is called the house of delegates, or representatives, the other the senate; the first being generally vested with the initiative authority, or right of commencing all laws; the other, that of amending, ratifying, or rejecting. Both bodies being absolutely independent of each other.

      The power of jurisdiction in all cases of controversy between the citizens of the state about their rights, by applying the general laws to them; and

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