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shall become more and more democratic, and shall impart a republican character to the house of commons -if the ballot, and short parliaments, and a widely extended or universal suffrage, shall make the power of numbers paramount to the influence of property, character, and intelligence, the consequences are plainly indicated by the theory of our constitution, by the history of England and of the United States,-and by the signs of these eventful times. Men of talent would in that case be systematically excluded from parliament, and men of inferior abilities and attainments, and of republican principles, would constitute the popular branch of the legislature, and thus engross nearly the whole power of the state. The executive would retain only the shadow and semblance of authority. This has already come to pass in America, but under peculiarly favourable circumstances, and without having yet caused the full measure of evil which may be expected to ensue from it hereafter. Such a change in England would be a tremendous revolution, with our immense metropolis, our crowded mercantile cities, and manufacturing districts,-power, in the hands of the multitude, would be set in hostile array against property and rank, the artificer and labourer against their employers, the inferior minds of the community against the superior,-might against right.

Montesquieu, after his well known eulogy of the British constitution, as the most perfect of all forms of government, predicts from what quarter it will receive its fatal blow:- -"As all human things have an end, the state we are speaking of will lose its liberty-it will perish. Have not Rome, Sparta, and Carthage, perished? It will perish when the legislative power shall be more corrupted than the executive." In other words, it will perish when the legislature shall be

basely seduced or blindly impelled to abuse its great power for the overthrow of the monarchy.

May the Almighty, who has so often preserved us in the hour of danger, avert from our beloved country the doom of fallen nations. Sparta, Rome, Carthage, were heathen-England is a Christian country. Let that salt of the earth-pure preserving Christianitybe diffused throughout the mass of our population, and ours will be the righteousness which exalteth a nation, and saveth it from ruin; "but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted ?"

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The most distinguished founders of the American constitution foresaw that it was threatened with danger in the same direction. General Hamilton spoke of the almost irresistible tendency, in republican governments, of the legislative authority to absorb every other. He doubted whether the President's position, with an office of only four years' duration, or for any other limited period, would completely answer the end proposed; although the American executive was energetic, far as republican principles will admit." Jefferson informs us, that General Hamilton considered the "British constitution, with all the corruptions of its administration, to be the most perfect model of government that had ever been devised by the art of man." While of the government of the United States he said, "It is not that which will answer the ends of society, by giving stability and protection to its rights, and it will probably be found expedient to go into the British form."-JEFFERSON's Memoirs.

Quite similar was the opinion of the great Washington, for Jefferson also tells us, "I do believe that General Washington had not a firm confidence in the durability of our government. Washington was influenced by the belief, that we must at length end in something like a British constitution."—And is it pos

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sible, that while such were the opinions of the two ablest American statesmen, there are Englishmen so infatuated as to endeavour to make the British constitution END in something like an American one?— He has often declared to me, that he considered our new constitution as an experiment on the practicability of republican government, and with what dose of liberty man could be trusted for his own good." Washington, as a wise physician, knew that an over dose of that deliciously intoxicating medicine might prove noxious and even deadly. The candid confessions of a democrat would be not less instructive than those of " an opium eater."

The world did not elsewhere afford so fair and ample a field as North America, for trying that bold experiment, under the most favourable circumstances. Jefferson well knew that these advantages were peculiar to America, and sanguine as that ardent republican was, at one period, as to the success of the grand experiment in the United States, he did not commit the blunder of supposing that it could succeed in the states of Europe. "A government adapted for which (he says) would be one thing; but a very different one that for the men of these states. Here in America, every man may have land, to labour for himself, if he chooses; or preferring the exercise of any other industry, may exact for it such compensation as not only to afford a comfortable subsistence, but wherewith to provide for a cessation of labour in old age." But he sees a period to the continuance of tranquillity, after the vacant lands shall have been occupied; "when we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become corrupt, as in Europe, and go to eating one another, as they do there."

At a later period of his life, Jefferson appears to have discovered, as most men do by sad experience, that the

selfishness and passions of mankind are not to be curbed by reason and argument alone; and that to commit to the fickle multitude the task of governing themselves, is to give them up to misrule.-"I envy not the present generation the glory of throwing away the fruits of their fathers' sacrifices of life and fortune, and of rendering desperate the experiment, which was to decide ultimately whether man is capable of self-government.

... I regret that I am now to die in the belief, that the useless sacrifice of themselves, by the generation of 1776, to acquire self-government and happiness to their country, is to be thrown away by the unwise and unworthy passions of their sons; and that my only consolation is to be, that I live not to weep over it."JEFFERSON'S Memoirs, Vol. IV. pp. 331, 333.

It was, indeed, an experiment, for history does not afford a single example of a great nation having continued to flourish as a republic. The United States are a confederacy of small republics, and they remain united, not so much by the controuling power of their federal government, as by the natural cohesion of place and circumstances.

With reference to the period at which he expressed it, the following opinion of President Adams regarding the American constitution, is one in which we may safely concur. In a letter to a friend he wrote:"Our own constitution I have represented as the best for us, in our peculiar situation. I have represented the British constitution as the most perfect model that has yet been discovered or invented by human genius and experience, for the government of the great nations of Europe. It is a masterpiece. It is the only system that has preserved the shadow, the colour, or the semblance of liberty to the people, in any of the great nations of Europe." - Letter to S. PERLEY, June,

1809.

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Such is the unbiassed testimony of the most celebrated American statesmen, who, in their ardent love of liberty, striving to found the most perfect form of government in a new country, took our constitution for their pattern, and, having narrowly examined its excellencies and defects, pronounced it to be an unrivalled masterpiece.

By their verdict let us contentedly and gratefully abide; and perhaps the best advice that can be offered to those whose democratic propensities are too strong to be satisfied with liberty, in the most perfect form in which it has ever appeared upon earth, is, that they should hie them away to America, where they will find a constitution the best for them, "in their peculiar situation," and with their peculiar opinions.

From the preceding investigation, it appears that the British empire, with its colonies, cannot be governed, either as a simple or a confederated republic.—That to give a democratic character to our electoral system, and consequently to the house of commons, would weaken or annul the executive. That the subversion of the monarchy would involve the dissolution of the empire.

The Abyssinian traveller, Bruce, when he had attained the object of his toilsome and dangerous journies, by the discovery in the desert of the original fountain of the great river that fertilises Egypt, is said to have gazed on it with inexpressible emotion. In one of the most crowded thoroughfares of London, is a spot but little heeded by the busy passengers, that might suggest far more striking and useful reflections than the source of the famous Nile. On one side of the way is Whitehall palace, where a republican axe felled the discrowned head of Charles the First; on the other, are some unattractive buildings, where the officers of state of the restored British monarchy transact its great affairs, without pomp or shew, but with unexampled vigour.

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