yond the passions of the moment, and judge of the merits of an institution by its average results, are, always and everywhere, comparatively few; the great majority look neither before nor after; they fix their eyes on the present; what favors that is for them good, good in all times and places, and under all circumstances; what here and now impedes or thwarts them is bad, can never be of service to them, must always work against them, and should nowhere, and under no circumstances, be tolerated for a moment. Constitutions are designed to maintain a fixed and permanent rule, and, if they answer their purpose, must not unfrequently control popular wishes and tendencies, and often restrain the majority, and prevent them, for a time at least, from adopting measures which they may be persuaded are for the interests of the country. Hence we must always expect under popular governments a party that will be dissatisfied with the constitution, now with this provision and now with that, and ready to agitate for its amendment, alteration, or total suppression.

It can hardly, as yet, have been forgotten, that, under the administration of General Jackson, the constitution of the Senate of the United States was the object of virulent attacks from the Democratic party of the time. That party denounced the Senate, as the aristocratic branch of the government, as repugnant to the genius of free institutions, and demanded its essential modification, because, just then, it happened not to be in their favor. Yet that party to-day find the Senate a purely democratic institution, and their chief reliance to prevent the administration from adopting a policy to which they are opposed; for they happen to have just now a majority of Senators on their side. They no longer denounce it as aristocratic, and no longer demand that its constitution be modified. On the other hand, it is remembered, that, in consequence of the use or abuse of the executive veto by General Jackson and Mr. Tyler, to defeat important measures which had received the sanction of a majority of Congress, many in the Whig party who were strongly in favor of those measures, believing them really demanded by the industry and business of the country, took up the notion that the veto power is antirepublican, exceedingly liable to be abused, and in its abuse throwing such undue influence into the hands of the executive as to endanger our free institutions, and therefore a constitutional provision that should be either abolished or essentially modified. Yet who is prepared to say that the time may not

even soon come when these same politicians will find the executive veto their best, perhaps their only, safeguard against measures which in their judgment would be ruinous to the country?

The tendency, when we are disappointed or defeated by some constitutional provision, to complain of the constitution itself, and to propose its amendment to suit our wishes for the moment, is strengthened and apparently justified by certain false notions as to the origin of constitutions and as to the rights of majorities, which have become, or are becoming, quite prevalent in our country, as well as in some others. It was pretended by some men in the last century, who then passed for philosophers, that to make a constitution is the easiest thing in the world; that nothing is simpler or more feasible than for a people, without government, or irrespective of it, acting as if in a state of nature, to come together in person or by their delegates in convention, and give themselves any constitution they please, and provide for its wise and beneficent practical operation. They put forth the most extravagant follies on the excellence and perfectibility of human nature, and virtually deified the people. They disdained, indeed, to believe in God, blasphemously alleging that they "had never seen him at the end of their telescopes "; but they did not hesitate to transfer to the people all the essential attributes of the Deity, and to fall down and worship them as a divinity. The people could remedy all evils; the people could make no mistake; the people could do no wrong; and we had only to clear the way for the free, full, and immediate expression of the popular will, in order to have a perfect civil constitution, and a wise and just administration. Hence there need be no hesitancy to overthrow existing institutions, to break up established order, or to trust to the unchecked will of the people for a wise remodelling of the state, or the reconstruction of society. In consequence of the prevalence of such a pleasant theory, all fear of change was removed, all prudence in experimenting or in introducing innovations rendered superfluous, and all attachment to old institutions or to a long-existing established order foolish, if not wicked. Nothing in heaven or on earth was to be henceforth sacred or inviolable, but the will of the people, that is, the will of the demagogues who could contrive to speak for the people, — and we were to surrender ourselves to that will with as much confidence, and with as little reserve, as the Saint surrenders himself to the will of God.

Into this silly and impious doctrine the fathers of our repub

lic did not fall. They were no vague theorizers, no mad visionaries; they were plain, practical men, who looked at realities, and dealt with things as they found them. But this doctrine, which has for the last sixty years convulsed all Europe, overturned thrones, displaced dynasties, and left few things standing, except despotism on the one side, and the mob on the other, has finally found its way amongst us, and spread far and wide its subtile poison through our community. Our people, in large numbers, forget that constitutions are generated, not made, and that no convention can draw up and impose a constitution, which shall be really a constitution, unless its essential principles are already, through Providence, established in the wants, the habits, the usages, the manners and customs of the people for whom it is intended; that the constitution can never be arbitrarily imposed, but must always grow out of the preëxisting elements of the national life; and that when once formed, it is to be henceforth modified only according to its own internal law, through the most urgent necessity, and with the greatest delicacy and the most consummate wisdom and prudence. Hence they cease to regard the constitution as sacred, and look upon it as a thing that may be changed with as much facility, and almost for as slight reasons, as a gentleman changes the fashion of his coat, or a lady the make of her bonnet. To change it

is not only the easiest, but the safest, thing in the world. Consequently, the thought of submitting to a present inconvenience, of suffering a constitutional provision which restrains their will or thwarts their present wishes, rarely occurs to them; and whenever things do not go to their mind, they clamor for a change of the constitution. The danger of this state of the public mind hardly needs to be pointed out to the statesman. It is incompatible with every thing like established order, with every thing permanent or stable in government, and keeps every thing unsettled and fluctuating.

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From the fact, that under our political order the greater number of questions are determined by the will of the majority, a large class of our politicians seldom accustomed to look beneath the surface, or to trace facts to their principles conclude that the majority have a natural right to govern, and that whatever tends to hinder the free and full expression of their will is contrary to natural law, and smells of usurpation and tyranny. They are exceedingly scandalized. when they find the constitution opposing a barrier to the will of the majority, and call out with all their force, from the

very top of their lungs, for its amendment. Is it not the essential principle of all republicanism, say they, that the majority must govern? What, then, can be more anti-republican, more really undemocratic, than to uphold a constitution that hinders the majority from doing whatever they please? But these sage politicians would do well to remember that the right of the majority to rule is a civil, not a natural, right, and exists only by virtue of positive law. Anterior to civil society, or under the law of nature, all men are equal, respectively independent, and no one has any authority over another. Each is independent of all, and all of each; and both majorities and minorities are inconceivable. Civil society must be constituted before you can even conceive the existence of a political majority or a political minority, and when it is constituted, neither has any rights but those the particular civil constitution confers. Deriving their existence and their rights from the civil constitution, it is absurd to pretend that the majority are, or can be, deprived of any of their rights by any constitutional provision whatever. If, then, a given constitutional provision should restrain the majority, or prevent them from making their will prevail, that is no just cause of complaint; for no law is broken, no right is violated; and where no law is broken, no right violated, no injustice is done.

Setting aside these false notions or pretensions of modern radicals and socialists, which are revolutionary in principle, and incompatible, not only with all stable government, but with the very existence of the state (status), of legal order itself, we must always approach every established constitution with the presumption, as the lawyers say, in its favor, and as bound to accept and sustain it as it is, unless good and sufficient reasons are forthcoming for its alteration or amendment. On no other condition can we be distinguished, in principle, from radicals and destructives, and consistently profess to be conservatives, or friends of liberty, because friends of order. The presumption is universally in favor of authority; that the constitution, as it is, is right; that the law is just; and before we can have the right even to entertain a proposition to alter it, we must be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that it is wrong, that it is unjust. The fact that the veto power is in the constitution is to us, therefore, a presumption that it ought to be there, and a sufficient motive for retaining it until a valid and sufficient reason is shown for abolishing it. We insist on this view of the case, because we are anxious that the principle we indicate

should be regarded. The opposite principle is rapidly gaining ground amongst us, if, indeed, it has not already become predominant. The fashion is now to presume every man guilty till proved innocent; to hold every charge true till it is proved to be false; all government, all law, all authority, in the wrong, till the contrary is established. The popular tendency is to arraign government before the bar of anarchy, and compel it to vindicate its own innocence; thus reversing all the maxims of law, of justice, and of logic hitherto recognized and held in respect by the common sense of mankind. It is well, therefore, to remind the public, occasionally, that the presumption is always on the side of the constitution and the authorities hold ing under it.

The value of the veto power is not, however, left to be merely presumed. It is a vital element in our general system of government, which is not so much an original system, as an original and peculiar modification of the English system, well known to be a government of ESTATES, as distinguished from what has received the name of CENTRALISM. The characteristic feature of the English Constitution is the separation, on the one hand, of the bodies represented in the government, and, on the other, of the powers of government itself, each with a veto on the others. It is solely in this separation of the constituent bodies, and of the several departments of government, each with its veto, that consist the beauty and excellence of the English system; and it is this alone that constitutes the safeguard of English liberty. These divisions and veto power attaching to each are not in themselves, it is true, favorable to the efficiency of administration, nor are they intended to be so; they are intended to serve as checks or restraints on power, and to prevent it from becoming despotic, or hostile to the liberty of the subject; and the peculiar merit of the English system is, that they serve this purpose without impairing, in too great a degree, the unity and force of authority.

This system we inherited with the Common Law from our English ancestors, and have retained with simply such modifications as the circumstances of our country and the elements of our society rendered necessary or expedient. In interpreting our institutions, we are always to seek our principle of interpretation in this system, and are never to resort to any of the ancient republican, or to any of the modern democratic theories. Our government is republican in the sense that it is not monarchical; it is democratic in the sense that it recognizes

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