tutional, forms one of the most powerful barriers which has ever been devised against the tyranny of political as semblies.

OTHER POWERS GRANTED TO AMERICAN JUDGES.

In the United States, all the Citizens have the Right of indicting the Public Functionaries before the ordinary Tribunals. — How they use this Right. - Art. 75 of the French Constitution of the Year VIII. The Americans and the English cannot understand the Purport of this Article.

Ir is hardly necessary to say that, in a free country like America, all the citizens have the right of indicting public functionaries before the ordinary tribunals, and that all the judges have the power of convicting public officers. The right granted to the courts of justice of punishing the agents of the executive government, when they violate the laws, is so natural a one, that it cannot be looked upon as an extraordinary privilege. Nor do the springs of government appear to me to be weakened in the United States, by rendering all public officers responsible to the tribunals. The Americans seem, on the contrary, to have increased by this means that respect which is due to the authorities, and at the same time, to have made these authorities more careful not to offend. I was struck by the small number of political trials which occur in the United States; but I had no difficulty in accounting for this circumstance. A prosecution, of whatever nature it may be, is always a difficult and expensive undertaking. It is easy to attack a public man in the journals, but the motives for bringing him before the tribunals must be serious. A solid ground of complaint must exist, before any one thinks of prosecut ing a public officer, and these officers are careful not to furnish such grounds of complaint, when they are afraid of being prosecuted.

This does not depend upon the republican form of American institutions, for the same thing happens in England. These two nations do not regard the impeachment of the principal officers of state as the guaranty of their independence. But they hold that it is rather by minor prosecutions, which the humblest citizen can institute at any time, that liberty is protected, and not by those great judicial procedures, which are rarely employed until it is too late.

In the Middle Ages, when it was very difficult to reach offenders, the judges inflicted frightful punishments on the few who were arrested; but this did not diminish the number of crimes. It has since been discovered that, when justice is more certain and more mild, it is more efficacious. The English and the Americans hold that tyranny and oppression are to be treated like any other crime, by lessening the penalty and facilitating conviction.

In the year VIII. of the French Republic, a constitution was drawn up in which the following clause was introduced: "Art. 75. All the agents of the government below the rank of ministers can be prosecuted for offences relating to their several functions only by virtue of a decree of the Council of State; in which case, the prosecution takes place before the ordinary tribunals." This clause survived the "Constitution of the year VIII.," and is still maintained, in spite of the just complaints of the nation. I have always found a difficulty in explaining its meaning to Englishmen or Americans, and have hardly understood it myself. They at once perceived that, the Council of State in France being a great tribunal established in the centre of the kingdom, it was a sort of tyranny to send all complainants before it as a preliminary step. But when I told them that the Council of State was not a judicial body, in the common sense of the term, but an administrative council composed of men dependent on the Crown,-so that the king, after having ordered one of his servants, called a

Prefect, to commit an injustice, has the power of commanding another of his servants, called a Councillor of State, to prevent the former from being punished, — when I showed them, that the citizen who has been injured by an order of the sovereign is obliged to ask the sovereign's permission to obtain redress, they refused to credit so flagrant an abuse, and were tempted to accuse me of falsehood or ignorance. It frequently happened, before the Revolution, that a Parliament * issued a warrant against a public officer who had committed an offence. Sometimes the royal authority intervened, and quashed the proceedings. Despotism then showed itself openly, and men obeyed it only by submitting to superior force. It is painful to perceive how much lower we are sunk than our forefathers; since we allow things to pass, under the color of justice and the sanction of law, which violence alone imposed upon them.

A French "Parliament was a judicial body. - AM. ED.

CHAPTER VII.

POLITICAL JURISDICTION IN THE UNITED STATES.

Definition of Political Jurisdiction. What is understood by Political Jurisdiction in France, in England, and in the United States. In America, the Political Judge has to do only with Public Officers. - He more frequently decrees Removal from Office than an ordinary, Penalty. — Political Jurisdiction as it exists in the United States is, notwithstanding its Mildness, and perhaps in Consequence of that Mildness, a most Powerful Instrument in the Hands of the Majority.

I

UNDERSTAND by political jurisdiction, that temporary right of pronouncing a legal decision with which a political body may be invested.

In absolute governments, it is useless to introduce any extraordinary forms of procedure; the prince, in whose name an offender is prosecuted, is as much the sovereign of the courts of justice as of everything else, and the idea which is entertained of his power is of itself a sufficient security. The only thing he has to fear is, that the external formalities of justice should be neglected, and that his authority should be dishonored, from a wish to strengthen it. But in most free countries, in which the majority can never have the same influence over the tribunals as an absolute monarch, the judicial power has occasionally been vested for a time in the representatives of the people. It has been thought better to introduce a temporary confusion between the functions of the different authorities, than to violate the necessary principle of the unity of government.

England, France, and the United States have established

this political jurisdiction by law; and it is curious to see the different use which these three great nations have made of it. In England and in France, the House of Lords and the Chamber of Peers constitute the highest criminal court of their respective nations; and although they do not habitually try all political offences, they are competent to try them all. Another political body has the right of bringing the accusation before the Peers: the only difference which exists between the two countries in this respect is, that in England the Commons may impeach whomsoever they please before the Lords, whilst in France, the Deputies can only employ this mode of prosecution against the ministers of the Crown. In both countries, the Upper House may make use of all the existing penal laws of the nation to punish the delinquents.

In the United States, as well as in Europe, one branch of the legislature is authorized to impeach, and the other to judge: the House of Representatives arraigns the offender, and the Senate punishes him. But the Senate can only try such persons as are brought before it by the House of Representatives, and those persons must belong to the class of public functionaries. Thus the jurisdiction of the Senate is less extensive than that of the Peers of France, whilst the right of impeachment by the Representatives is more general than that of the Deputies. But the great difference which exists between Europe and America is, that, in Europe, the political tribunals can apply all the enactments of the penal code, whilst in America, when they have deprived the offender of his official rank, and have declared him incapable of filling any political office for the future, their jurisdiction terminates, and that of the ordinary tribunals begins.

Suppose, for instance, that the President of the United States has committed the crime of high-treason; the House of Representatives impeaches him, and the Senate de