far short even of this standard. For while at the seat of the supreme government, and also in New England, where "Education and liberty are the daughters of morality and religion, and the people are most civilized, democracy makes a better choice than elsewhere; in the more southernly states, on the contrary, talent, education, and virtue in the legislators are more rare; and in the new states (continues the same author) one is amazed to see in what hands power is placed, and is led to wonder by what independent force of legislation and of society the state can prosper."

But even in the federal legislature, three-fourths of the members are lawyers. There is not that variety of professions, and that representation of classes and interests, which characterise the British house of commons.

The following description is from the pen of a still more recent traveller:-" Where sat the many legislators of coarse threats; of words and blows, such as coalheavers deal upon each other, when they forget their breeding? On every side. Every session had its anecdotes of that kind, and the actors were all there. Did I see among them the intelligence and refinement; the true, honest, patriotic heart of America? Here and there were drops of its blood and life, but they scarcely coloured the stream of desperate adventurers, which sets that way for profit and for pay.”— DICKENS'S American Notes.

......

America formerly had, and has still, some highly gifted sons. Clay, Webster, Calhoun, Everett, are distinguished names that would do honour to any country. But these gentlemen are all lawyers, and, except the last mentioned, either are or have been senators. It is on the bench, at the bar, in the senate, but not in the house of representatives at Washington, or in other public bodies which are directly elected by the votes of the great mass of the people, that the chief

ornaments of their country are to be found; and the character and proceedings of legislative assemblies must depend on their general composition rather than on a few distinguished members.

In this country, at the present moment, specious but futile arguments regarding what are termed the rights of the people are addressed to them, and are circulated in cheap publications, far more industriously and extensively than is generally imagined; and as antidotes to the poison are not provided with the same assiduity, it produces much political delusion and discontent. One of the principal topics of these appeals is the alleged right of the people to universal suffrage, which is sometimes urged with a solemn earnestness that would lead one to suppose the deceivers were themselves deceived by their own false reasoning. Universal suffrage being treated by them as a right, it is concluded, of course, that those who have no votes are "wholly unrepresented." They are said to be "white slaves," "for degradation is degradation still, whatever may be the outward form of it-it works in the same way-produces the same effects. It matters not whether we affix a stigma by means of the branding iron, or political exclusion!" According to this kind of sophistry, the myriads of British subjects in the towns and counties, who were without votes before the reform bill, were in as degraded a condition as are the negroes, now working in gangs in the plantations of Virginia and the Carolinas!

In his "Reflections on the French Revolution," Mr. Burke has some admirable remarks on similar speculations concerning the "rights of men," from which I quote a few sentences, both on account of their excellent wisdom, and to shew that there is no novelty in the modern fallacies by which the people are now misled. "The pretended rights of these theorists are all

extremes; and in proportion as they are metaphysically true, they are morally and politically false. The rights of men are in a sort of middle, incapable of definition, but not impossible to be discerned. The rights of men in governments are their advantages; and these are often in balances between differences of good; in compromises, sometimes between good and evil, and sometimes between evil and evil." And again, "When I hear the simplicity of contrivance aimed at and boasted of in any new political constitutions, I am at no loss to decide that the artificers are grossly ignorant of their trade, or totally negligent of their duty. The simple governments are totally defective, to say no worse of them."

The abstract right of all British subjects to choose the members of the house of commons being once admitted, why should the application of the principle stop there? Why should not the people, as in America, proceed to elect the other branch of the legislature, and likewise a President instead of their hereditary monarch? In that small community a ship,-if the carpenter or the cook were to urge upon the crew their abstract right to choose their captain, a post of honour and responsibility to which the carpenter or cook, as ringleader of the mutiny, himself aspired,—the necessity of instantly checking an ambition so injurious to the welfare and safety of the ship's company would be Similar illustrations might be drawn from the military, and medical, and legal professions. In all such cases it is obvious to common sense that men have no abstract right to alter their position in society, irrespective of positive and relative duties, of law, order, personal qualifications, and the public good. And what is true of these sectional parts of society is not less true of the whole.

manifest.

On the highest authority of the supreme Lawgiver,

we learn that the powers that be are ordained of Him -that to resist them is to resist His ordinance-that rebellion, discontent, the restless desire of change, are all more or less blameable; and we may be assured that neither individuals nor nations may disregard these sacred precepts with impunity. "My son, fear thou the LORD and the King; and meddle not with them that are given to change: for their calamity shall rise suddenly, and who knoweth the ruin of them both ?"* How many of our deluded countrymen have lately had cause to repent their neglect of this lesson of Divine wisdom. And one of the wisest of uninspired men has observed, "It is good also not to try experiments in states, except the necessity be urgent, or the utility evident, and well to beware that it be the reformation that draweth on the change, and not the desire of change that pretendeth the reformation. And lastly, that the novelty, though it be not rejected, yet be held for a suspect, and, as the scripture saith, that we make a stand upon the ancient way, and then look about us, and discover what is the straight and right way, and so to walk in it."-LORD BACON.

Let us then take our stand upon the ancient way of our own constitution; and before we forsake it, examine with care and suspicion (as Lord Bacon advises) the new paths which the adventurous descendants of our common ancestors have struck out for themselves in America, and which some in England invite us to follow. Let us beware of abandoning our real advantages in the wild pursuit of fancied rights, but rather look before we leap. The important practical question is not whether the legislature be chosen by many or by comparatively few, but what kind of legislature is the result of that choice.

* Prov. xxiv. 21. 1 Sam. xv. 23. Rom. xiii. Heb. xiii. 5.

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The advocates of universal suffrage express their horror of what they call "class legislation;" and yet they propose to do with the constitutional representation of various classes, and to give us in exchange the representation of one class only. For the effect of universal suffrage in England would be to give to the class that have the majority in number, and comparatively a small stake in the country, the whole political power. It would separate power from property; and so far from making property a qualification for voting, as it ought to be, would have the contrary effect, by making numbers every thing, and property of no weight whatever in deciding elections. So unnatural a separation of power from property could not long continue. Either the former order of things would be restored, or those that had the power would seize upon the property, and anarchy, plunder, and ruin would ensue.

A parliament chosen by universal suffrage, as it would represent only one class, would consequently misrepresent the nation.

It is a sound constitutional maxim, that security of property is essential to civilization and the national welfare; and that consequently not those who have no possessions of their own to lose, and may be reckless in the management of public income and expenditure, but that those who, by industry or other lawful means have acquired property, and accordingly contribute most towards the revenue of their country, have the best practical qualification and general test of their fitness to elect the managers of the national wealth and affairs.

We shall see whether or not universal suffrage has prevented bribery and corruption in America, and may judge how far it would be likely to do so in England, when we come to consider the election of the President of the United States. How far are these views illus

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