is little reason to hope that 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 mechanism is too complicated, and the motions too flow for the operations of a great empire; whose defence and government require execution and difpatch, in proportion to the magnitude, extent, and variety of its interefts and 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 diftricts of a commodious extent, and leaving to each its internal legislation, referves only 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 fubfidies for the support of this force; the making of peace and war; the entering into

treaties;

treaties; the regulation of foreign commerce; the equalization of duties upon imports, so as to prevent the defrauding of the revenue of one province by fmuggling 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 inconvenience, enlarge its dominions, by affuming into the confederacy neighbouring provinces; or how far it would unite the liberty of a small commonwealth, with the fafety of a powerful empire; or whether, amongst co-ordinate powers, 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 a large scale.

upon

CHAP.

CHA P. VII.

Of the British Conftitution.

Y the constitution of a country is meant

BY

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 justice. The conftitution is one principal divifion, head, section or title of the code of public laws; diftinguished from the reft only by the particular nature, or fuperior importance of the fubject of which it treats.Therefore the terms conftitutional and unconftitutional, mean legal and illegal. diftinction and the ideas, which thefe terms denote, are founded in the fame authority with the law of the land upon any other fubject; and to be afcertained by the fame inquiries. The fyftem of English jurifprudence is made up of acts of parliament, of decifions of courts of law, and of immemorial ufages: confequently thefe are the principles of which the conftitution itself confifts; the fources from which all our

The

knowledge

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 queftion can alone be decided. This plain and intelligible definition is the more necessary to be preserved in our thoughts, as fome writers upon the subject abfurdly confound 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: whilst others again, ascribe a kind of transcendent authority, or myfterious fanctity, to the constitution, 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 unconstitutional, in the ftrict 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 abuse of their truft, by which a parliament of Henry the Eighth conferred upon the king's pro

clamation

clamation the authority of law, was unconftitutional only in this latter sense.

6

Most of those who treat of the British conftitution, confider it as a scheme of government formally planned and contrived by our ancestors, in fome certain æra of our national history, and as fet up in purfuance of such regular plan and design. Something of this fort is fecretly supposed, or referred to, in the expreffions of those who speak of the principles of the conftitution,' of bringing back the conftitution to its first principles,' of restoring it to its original purity,' or primitive model. Now this appears to me an erroneous conception of the subject. No fuch plan was ever formed, confequently no such first principles, original model, or ftandard, exift. 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 the future government of the country; or when a conftitution, so prepared and digefted, was by common confent received and established. In the time of the civil wars, or rather between the

death