defects. The constitution of the continental governments of Europe is far more simple, and follows far more strictly the law of unity, than that of Great Britain, and hence, while a cultivated Englishman readily comprehends a continental government, a Frenchman or a German cannot, without a long and special study, speak for five minutes of the English constitution without committing some egregious blunder. Foreigners always blunder, for the same reason, when they speak of our complicated government, and so do the great body of our own people, whenever they attempt to go beyond the mere routine of practice to which they are accustomed from childhood. They do not take in the government as a complex whole, but seize it merely in one of its elements, and seek to understand and explain the whole by virtue of that as its exclusive principle. Whatever does not proceed from that as its principle, or is not logically reconcilable with it, they regard as an anomaly to be cleared away. The single element seized upon is regarded as the norma of the government, and whatever would oppose, limit, restrain, or modify its practical operation, as repugnant to the government itself, and therefore not to be suffered to remain. Consequently, the tendency is always to reduce the government as far as possible to a simple and absolute form of government, and therefore to pave the way for tyranny, since every simple and absolute form of government, untempered by some admixture of the elements of the other forms, is always tyrannical.

The monarchical and aristocratic elements, though essential to our constitution, do not hold in it the most prominent place. They are there, but they are there without éclat and without development, and their real character and importance in our system are the very last that strike the student of our peculiar civil polity. The democratic element has apparently a much larger sphere than either of them, is the most prominent, and that which first strikes the attention. It accordingly is the element first apprehended, and the one the majority take to be the exclusive principle, the norma of the government. Hence the government is generally taken to be in its principle and intention a purely democratic government, to be interpreted and administered on the democratic principle alone. This is a great mistake, and involves the gravest consequences,-consequences, perhaps, no less grave, in the long run, than the total destruction of our government as a mixed government.

This mistake is perfectly natural. The democratic element has in our institutions too large a sphere, as Washington and the more eminent statesmen of his time contended. Let us not be misunderstood. When we say that the democratic element has too large a sphere, we do not mean that the sphere actually assigned it in the constitution is too large, providing it practically remains within that sphere. It is too large in the sense that it has the power to make itself larger, and to gain the absolute ascendency over the other elements intended to restrain or temper it. If democracy would be contented to remain and operate only within the bounds prescribed, it would not have too large a sphere; but as these bounds are to a great extent prescribed only on the parchment constitution, and as they are not suf ficiently defended by the power given to the other elements, it is able to transcend them, and to operate beyond its constitutional sphere. The original defect of the American constitutions was not so much in the too great power given to the democratic element as in the weakness of the defences provided against its usurpation. The framers of those constitutions gave a just proportion to the several elements so long as each remained within its constitutional limits, and in the exercise of its legitimate power; but they did not guard sufficiently against democratic ascendency. They were familiar with the abuses of monarchy and aristocracy, and effectually guarded against them; but they were not so familiar with the abuses of democracy, and did not fully anticipate and guard against them. They did not take into the account the fact that every people, by a sort of instinctive logic, labors incessantly to simplify its institutions, and that in the process of simplification the stronger element gains the ascendency, and tends to render itself exclusive by eliminating or absorbing the others. They did not take sufficiently into the account the influence of popular theories, or foresee the consequences which would be drawn from certain maxims which passed current with them, and certain principles which they laid down as the basis of their own proceedings. They had had no experience of the Jacobinical revolutions which followed the establishment of our republic, and consequently could not anticipate the facility with which their own principles could be perverted to serve as the basis of a system with which they had no affinity. They did not see that the Contrat Social was already in Locke's Essays on Government, and that the French revolution and

all its horrors were in the Contrat Social, and that all modern red-republicanism, socialism, and communism were in the French revolution. They had no suspicion of the poison concealed in the phrase sovereignty of the people,―a phrase in their sense so innocent and so just. Hence they did not take all the precautions which were requisite against the perversion of the institutions they founded to a pure democracy, or which they would have taken if they had had our experience.

The whole history of the formation of our governments, and the maxims we adopted, when seen in the light of Jacobinical interpretation, were well calculated to induce the half-learned, the semidotti, as are always the majority where education is general, whose little learning is more dangerous than none, to regard our institutions as purely democratic in theory. The sovereignty of the people was loudly and unequivocally asserted. This meant at the time, save in the minds of a few speculators, whose designs were not suspected, simply the right of the people in any given locality, when finding themselves without legitimate government, and thrown back into a state of nature, to assemble in convention and institute government for themselves, and in such form as they believed, under the circumstances, best adapted to the public good. This was all that was really meant by this phrase. But when Jacobinism arose, the phrase assumed a new and a terrible meaning. It then came to mean that the sovereignty resides permanently in the people regarded as prior to government,-after the institution of government, and during its existence, as before its institution, and where there is no civil polity. The people were thus, instead of being in certain exceptional cases the medial origin, or rightful institutors of the government, the persisting ground of its authority. They were then the real persisting sovereign, and the so-called government was nothing but an agency created by them, holding to them the relation of an agent to his principal, and bound to obey its instructions, which they could alter or revoke at will. This is pure democracy. As our institutions plainly recognize the sovereignty of the people, the conclusion that they are purely democratic becaine inevitable as soon as the sovereignty of the people came to be understood in this sense. The fallacy arises from the ambiguity, as the logician would say, of the middle term, that is, the sovereignty of the people. Where there is no government the people have the right to in

stitute government. This is all the sovereignty our institutions recognize in the people; for as soon as the government is instituted, their sovereignty or right to institute government no longer exists.

Precisely here lies the difference between the theory of our institutions and Jacobinism. The theory of our institutions is, that as soon as the government was instituted, it became vested with the sovereignty, with full authority, according to its constitution, to govern,-an authority derived, not from the people, save as they were the medium of its institution, but from the divine law under which all legitimate governments hold; the Jacobinical theory agrees with ours as to the origin of the government, but goes further, and maintains that the popular sovereignty does not cease with the institution of government, but survives it, and persists through all its acts as the permanent and indestructible ground of its authority, that the government is not only indebted to the intervention of the people as its medial origin, or instrument of its institution, but actually holds its powers from them, and is in all respects simply their agent, bound by their instructions, alterable or revocable at their will. This Jacobinical theory of popular sovereignty is much the most natural and simple, and is far the most easily apprehended; it demands very little practical wisdom or strength and acuteness of thought to be understood and applied, and places the wise and simple, the learned and unlearned, on the same level. It is, therefore, the very theory that the multitude, washed or unwashed, must find the best adapted to their powers and attainments, and the one we may be sure they will accept and insist on.

Having once entertained the Jacobinical doctrine of the sovereignty of the people, it was easy to find it confirmed by our own institutions, both state and national. As a matter of fact, our political constitutions had been framed by conventions of the people, and most of these constitutions contain provisions for convening the people anew to alter or amend them. These facts, rightly interpreted, afford no countenance to Jacobinism. The rule for interpreting facts is to draw from them no principle broader than is requisite to account for them, and to interpret them as strictly as possible in accordance with the principles generally received on the subject to which they relate. The first of these two facts merely implies the right of the people, when destitute of government, and thrown back into a state of

nature, to institute government, a right derived from the necessity of the case. The second fact does not necessarily warrant any thing more; for the people can come together in convention, and alter or amend the constitution, only by virtue of a legal provision, and as legally convened. Some of the constitutions provide for their amendment through ordinary legislative bodies, without an extraordinary convention, and all might have done so, if it had been deemed expedient by the framers of the law. Conventions called for amending the constitution are, then, only a part of the legal machinery of the government, and rest for their authority, not on the will of the people regarded as antecedent to government, not on a supposed reservation of popular sovereignty, but on the law, as do the several other parts of the governmental machinery. But hardly had our government been instituted before the Jacobinical doctrine was broached. Contemplated in its light, the convention was no longer a part of the machinery of government, brought into play only on extraordinary occasions, but a resumption by the people of the power they had previously delegated. It was an appeal of the agent to his principal for additional instructions, or it was the principal calling his agent to an account of his agency, and modifying or revoking his instructions. This interpretation is more easy and less complicated than the other; it demands no acquaintance with law or political science to be understood; and therefore was held to be the true theory of the convention in our political system, making that system pure Jacobinism.

The frequency of elections and constant recurrence to the people in the practical operations of the government tend to produce the general impression, that our government is theoretically a pure democracy. The people are constantly called upon, in consequence of general suffrage, and the short term of all elective offices, to give their votes in reference to all important measures, and are seen everywhere acting, and deciding by their votes the most important questions of the country. The fact is, that the part they act is solely by virtue of positive law, which intrusts them with a share in the administration of government, for suffrage is a trust conferred by law on whom the will of the legislator chooses, not a natural right. But the people and their action are visible, while the law by virtue of which they act, and to which they are responsible, is invisible, save to the lawyer and statesman. Demagogues do not