mention of it ridiculous, by representing it as the idle employment of the most infignificant part of the nation, the folly of village-ftatefmen, and coffee-house politicians: but I allow nothing to be a trifle, which minifters to the harmless gratification of multitudes; nor any order of men to be infignificant, whofe number bears a refpectable proportion to the sum of the whole community.

We have been accustomed to an opinion, that a REPUBLICAN form of government fuits only with the affairs of a small state; which opinion is founded in the confideration, that unless the people, in every district of the empire, be admitted to a fhare in the national reprefentation, the government is not, as to them, a republic; that elections, where the conftituents are numerous, and difperfed through a wide extent of country, are conducted with difficulty, or rather, indeed, managed by the intrigues, and combination of a few, who are fituated near the place of election, each voter confidering his fingle fuffrage as too minute a portion of the general intereft to deserve his care or attendance, much lefs to be worth any oppofition to influence and application; that whilst we contract the reprefentation within a compafs fmall enough to admit of orderly debate, the intereft of the conftituent becomes too fmall, of the reprefentative too great. It is difficult alfo to maintain any connection between them. He who represents two hundred thoufand, is neceffarily a ftranger to the greatest part of thofe who elect him: and when his interest amongst them ceases to depend upon an acquaintance with their perfons and character, or a care or knowledge of their affairs; when fuch a reprefentative finds the treafures and honours of a great empire at the difpofal of a few, and himself one of the few, there is little reafon to hope that

he

he will not prefer to his public duty, thofe temptations of perfonal aggrandizement which his fituation offers, and which the price of his vote will always purchase. All appeal to the people is precluded by the impoffibility of collecting a fufficient proportion of their force and numbers. The factions, and the unanimity of the fenate are equally dangerous. Add to thefe confiderations, that in a democratic conftitution the mechanifm is too complicated, and the motions are too flow for the operations of a great empire; whose defence and government require execution and dispatch, in proportion to the magnitude, extent, and variety of its concerns. There is weight, no doubt, in these reasons; but much of the objection feems to be done away by the contrivance of a federal republic, which, diftributing the country into districts of a commodious extent, and leaving to each diftrict its internal legiflation, referves to a convention of the ftates, the adjustment of their relative claims; the levying, direction and government of the common force of the confederacy; the requifition of subfidies for the fupport of this force; the making of peace and war; the entering into treaties; the regulation of foreign commerce; the equalization of duties upon imports, fo as to prevent the defrauding of the revenue of one province by fmug. gling articles of taxation from the borders of another; and likewife, fo as to guard against undue partialities in the encouragement of trade. To what limits fuch a republic might, without inconveniency, enlarge its dominions, by affuming neighbouring provinces into the confederation, or how far it is capable of uniting the liberty of a finall commonwealth, with the fafety of a powerful empire; or whether, amongst co-ordinate powers, diffenfions

diffenfions and jealoufies would not be likely to arife, which, for want of a common fuperior, might proceed to fatal extremities, are questions, upon which the records of mankind do not authorize us to decide with tolerable certainty. The experiment is about to be tried in America upon a large fcale.

CHAP.

B

Y the CONSTITUTION of a country is meant fo much of its law as relates to the defignation and form of the legislature; the rights and functions of the feveral parts of the legislative body; the conftruction, office, and jurifdiction of courts of juftice. The conftitution is one principal divifion, fection, or title of the code of public laws; diftinguished from the reft only by the fuperior importance of the fubject of which it treats. Therefore the terms conftitutional and unconftitutional, mean legal and illegal, The distinction and the ideas, which these terms denote, are founded in the fame authority with the law of the land upon any other fubject; and to be aftertained by the fame inquiries. In England the fyftem of public jurisprudence is made up of acts of parliament, of decifions of courts of law, and of immemorial ufages: confequently, these are the principles of which the Englifh conftitution itself confifts; the fources from which all cur knowledge of its nature and limitations is to be deduced, and the authorities to which all appeal ought to be made, and by which every conftitutional doubt and question can alone be decided. This plain and intelligible definition is the more neceffary to be preferved in our thoughts, as fome writers upon the fubject abfurdly confound

what

what is conftitutional, with what is expedient; pronouncing forthwith a measure to be unconftitutional, which they adjudge in any respect to be detrimental or dangerous: whilft others again, afcribe a kind of tranfcendent authority, or myfterious fanctity, to the conftitution, as if it were founded in fome higher original than that which gives force and obligation to the ordinary laws and ftatutes of the realm, or were inviolable on any other account than its intrinfic utility. An act of parliament, in England, can never be unconftitutional, in the flrict and proper acceptation of the term; in a lower fenfe it may, viz. when it militates with the fpirit, contradicts the analogy, or defeats the provifion of other laws, made to regulate the form of government. Even that flagitious abufe of their truft, by which a parliament of Henry the Eighth conferred upon the king's proclamation the authority of law, was unconftitutional only in this latter fenfe.

Moft of thofe who treat of the British conftitution, confider it as a fcheme of government formally planned and contrived by our ancestors, in fome certain æra of our national hiftory, and as fet up in pursuance of fuch regular plan and defign. Something of this fort is fecretly fuppofed, or referred to, in the expreffions of those who speak of the principles of the conftitution," of bringing back the conftitution to its "firft principles," of reftoring it to its "original purity," or "primi"tive model." Now this appears to me an erroneous conception of the fubject. No fuch plan was ever formed, confequently no fuch first principles, original model, or standard exist. I mean there never was a date, or point of time in our hiftory, when the government of England was to be fet up anew, and when it was referred to any fingle perfon, or affembly, or committee, to frame a charter for