Tocqueville's description, twenty years afterwards, is as follows, and it accords with the statements of still more recent travellers. "A few paces from the house of representatives is the hall of the senate which, in a small space, contains a great part of what is most celebrated in America. You scarcely see a member who is unknown to fame. There are eloquent barristers, distinguished generals, able magistrates, eminent statesmen. The speeches in this assembly would do honour to the first parliamentary debates in Europe."

What then is the fair inference to be drawn from the decided superiority of the senate of the federal government to all other legislative bodies in the United States? That even in America, where property is far more generally distributed than in the states of the old world, and the conditions and qualifications for government are also more nearly on a level, universal suffrage is a rude and clumsy electoral machine, producing an inferior result. But when elected bodies become the electors of another assembly, by this second process a finer and a better product is obtained, rendering the failure of the former mode of election so much the more evident. Still less would universal suffrage harmonize with our institutions; and to those who imagine it would, the following remark of M. De Tocqueville, a writer avowedly partial to democratic governments, although acute in discovering their defects, and singularly candid in exposing them, may serve as a useful warning. "It is easy," he says,

to descry in the future, a period when the American republics will be forced to multiply election by two degrees in their electoral system, under the penalty of being miserably entangled amid the rocks and shoals of democracy.'

The senate of congress is, doubtless, the most

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illustrious assembly in the United States, and their wisdom and firmness have hitherto done much to preserve their country from being wrecked on those rocks and shoals of democracy, which M. De Tocqueville perceives in the distance. President Adams, Washington's immediate successor, relied on the senate for restraining the people. "No republic," said Mr. Adams, can ever be of any duration without a senate, and a senate deeply and strongly rooted-strong enough to bear up against all popular storms and passions. Hitherto the senate have done well, but probably they will be forced to give way in time."-JEFFERSON'S Memoirs, Vol. III. p. 383.

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If the senators had been elected for life, and with a considerable property qualification, as General Hamilton is understood to have proposed, the stability and independence of the senate would have been greater; but, according to its present constitution, it too nearly resembles the house of representatives, and is almost as much influenced by the popular will. M. De Tocqueville says that in America, the wealthier classes are not united by any common tie: and that the bench and the bar form the only aristocracy. Lawyers are generally well educated, trained to severe study, to reasoning and debate. Then the law of England, which forms the basis of American jurisprudence, is founded on precedents, and the lawyers must be guided by statutes and decisions. It will be afterwards explained how every question of constitutional law comes under the review of the American judges, who consequently have a degree of political influence, which is denied to the English judges. For these and other reasons, M. De Tocqueville considers the American bench and bar to be the only aristocracy of the country. And, he says, "without this admixture of lawyer-like sobriety with the democratic principle, I question whether democratic

institutions could long be maintained; and I cannot believe that a republic could subsist at the present time, if the influence of lawyers, in public business, did not increase in proportion to the power of the people:"—a slender hope for republican institutions.

The position which the senate occupies in the American constitution corresponds to that of the upper house of the British parliament, and in some respects they are analogous. The house of lords contains the Marlboroughs and the Wellingtons of history, victorious in the field and wise in council; great and successful naval heroes; judges, formerly eminent at the bar, who have attained the highest dignities of their profession-acute to discover in the bills which originate in either house, whatever is objectionable in principle or in detail, able to comprehend how far they are consistent with constitutional law, and the whole range of our jurisprudence.

Prejudiced and uninformed persons may be unable or unwilling to perceive the great value of a revision of the measures of the house of commons by the house of lords. But innumerable are the instances in which the alteration of bills by the peers, the sending of them back for reconsideration with strong reasons for amendment, and the total rejection of them when radically bad, have guarded the constitution from innovation, and the statute book from absurdity. Distinguished statesmen, already trained to business and debate in the house of commons and in various public offices, are elevated to the house of lords, after the first fervours of their early political opinions have abated, and their views have been matured by years and experience. And it is of great advantage to themselves and to the country, that the sons of peers undergo that valuable training in the lower house; and are often eminently distinguished there, before succeeding to the rank which entitles them to a seat in the house of lords.

Since human nature and human institutions are imperfect, it cannot be affirmed that there are among the peers none unworthy of their dignity, uninjured by the temptations of rank, wealth, and luxury,no "tenth transmitters of a foolish face." It is from occasional instances of unworthiness and dishonour, that the scoffers at hereditary honours derive their most successful arguments; and the very zeal with which such cases are censured and stigmatized shews how strongly the influence of public opinion is brought to bear on the whole aristocratic body.

But if high birth does open a path in which there is many a snare and pitfall for heedless youth and profligate manhood, it is, nevertheless, the way to honour and renown. While most men must wait for opportunities of distinction that may never arrive, the nobleman is born, in some measure, a public character, and the natural course of his life flows on to fortune. If endowed with good talents and dispositions, and educated as becomes his station, he is destined from his boyhood to occupy situations of great influence and usefulness. Others must slowly climb and toil up the steep ascent, which he gained in youth's freshness or in manhood's prime.

Is it no benefit to be the lineal descendant of ancestors whose names and actions are celebrated in history, to be nurtured among those to whom ease and dignity are almost second nature, and the elegance that fashion copies is an inborn grace; to stand upon an eminence seen and observed by all men, where vice and folly are exposed to greater shame, and from which wisdom and virtue shed their lustre afar? Will not such elevation, motives, education, ennoble and advantage many,though some few are degenerate? Whether do we expect the courser, known by his pedigree, or the sluggish ignoble dray to be foremost in the race?

A body like the British peerage, limited in number, and distinguished by peculiar honours, has a character and special privileges to maintain. Were it elected by the people most of its advantages would be lost. If it could not be increased by new creations, it would become an object of jealousy to the country and would degenerate. But the sovereign having the prerogative of introducing commoners into the ranks of the nobility as a reward for public services, their order attracts to itself, from age to age, whatever is most illustrious in the state. Beyond the difficulties and dangers which they encountered in their country's service, and through the clouds of battle, how many a lofty spirit, like Nelson, has seen a peerage and Westminster abbey in the vista of fame!

The peers being associated together, with such high privileges and responsibilities, form an admirable counterpoise to the fickleness of the irresponsible multitude; tempering the zeal and regulating the eccentricities of popular opinion. They oppose a compact barrier to encroachments of the sovereign, and to the usurpation of powerful individuals. When the barons obtained magna charta, they secured privileges not for their own order only but also for the people.

When some great general gains victory after victory, at the head of the national armies, he receives the successive steps of aristocratic dignity, and ample is his reward. Greater he could not be were he to usurp the throne; nay, at that attempt his glory would vanish, and the rest of the nobility would instantly rally round their hereditary monarch, to defeat and punish the traitor. Never did one thought of treason to his sovereign and his country enter the mind of that truly great man, who has passed through every degree of military and civil dignity, with unequalled glory, and with the native integrity, sincerity, and simplicity of his noble