embrace any two of those principles, as that of ancient Rome and those of some of the Grecian States, and, in more modern times, those of Genoa and some of the smaller communities of Italy; or a constitution may, like that of England, unite the three simple forms a government of which description, although antiquity afforded no example of it, was pronounced by Cicero to be, if rightly organized and justly balanced, the most perfect. Modern times and our own country have shown that all the power conceded to an hereditary monarch may be safely vested in the elective head of a Democratic Republic, and that all the advantages arising from the unity of the executive power may be secured, without necessarily incurring the evils of an hereditary succession. These ends are effected by the application of that great discovery of modern politics, the principle of representation. By the proper distribution of the powers of government among several distinct branches, according to this fundamental principle, each of them becomes, in its respective sphere, the immediate and equal representative of the people, as the direct source of its authority, and sole ultimate depositary of the sovereign power.

By the powers of government, I mean those distinguished from each other, as appertaining to the legislative, executive, and judicial departments; which division, founded as it is on moral order, cannot be too carefully preserved. In the wise distribution of these powers, and the application of proper aids and checks to each, consists the optima constituta Respublica, contemplated by the Roman orator as an object of desire and admiration rather than of hope.

Should these three powers be injudiciously blended-for instance, should the legislative and execu

tive, or the legislative, and judicial branches be united in the same hands, the combination would be dangerous to public liberty, and the evils to be apprehended would be the same, whether the powers in question were devolved on a single magistrate, or vested in a numerous body. If, moreover, the principle of representation be applied only to a part of the government, where other parts exist independently of that principle, with an equal or superior weight to that constituted in conformity to it, the benefits of the one must obviously be partial, and the danger to be apprehended from the others, in proportion to their predominance.

As representation may thus be partial in respect to the powers of the government, so it may be confined to a portion only of the governed; and in this case, the restriction is objectionable in exact proportion to the number of those excluded from representation, or from the exercise of a fee and intelligent voice in the choice of their rulers. In some countries possessing constitutions, the right or power of election is variously limited. In Venice, it was formerly, and in some of the aristocratical republics of Switzerland, it still is, the exclusive privilege of a few families. In the limited or mixed monarchies of England, France, Holland, and Belgium, it is confined to persons possessing property of a certain description or amount. With us, the rights of representation and suffrage are, according to the theory of the Constitution, universal; but in practice they are both qualified-without, however, impairing the general principle.

It is in defining the limits of the three great departments of government, and, by proper checks and securities, preserving the principle of representation in regard both to the exercise of the power, and the enjoyment of the right, that a written constitution

possesses great and manifest advantages over those which rest on traditionary information, or which are to be collected from the acts of the government itself. If the people can refer only to the ordinances and decrees of their rulers to ascertain their rights, it is obvious that, as every such act may introduce a new principle, there can be no stability in the Constitution. The powers of the representative and of the constituent are inverted; and the Legislature is, from its omnipotence, enabled to alter the Constitution at its pleasure. Nor can such laws be questioned by individuals, or declared void by the courts of justice, as they may with us, where the power of the Legislature itself, is controlled by the Constitution.

A written constitution, therefore, which may thus be appealed to by the people, and construed and enforced by the judicial power, is most conducive to the happiness of the citizen, and the safety of the commonwealth; and it was reserved for the present age, and the citizens of this country, fully to appreciate and soundly to apply the great principle of popular representation, and to afford the first practical example of a "SOCIAL CONTRACT." In England, one only of the co-ordinate branches of government is supposed, by the Constitution, to represent the people; and the provincial constitutions of the American Colonies (with but few exceptions) had, at the period of our Revolution, been modelled in conformity with the same theory. Their charters were originally framed, or subsequently modified, so as to exclude the principle of representation from the executive department, of which, as in England, the judicial was considered as a subordinate branch. The solid foundations of popular government had, nevertheless, been laid; and the institutions received from the mother-country were admirably adapted to prepare

the way for a temperate and rational Democratical Republic.

As the discoveries which had been made in America by European navigators were deemed to confer the exclusive right of occupancy upon their respective sovereigns, those parts of the Continent which had been claimed as the reward of English enterprise, were appropriated as British colonies, either by extensive grants of territory and jurisdiction to favoured individuals, or by encouraging settlers at large by limited territorial grants, reserving the general domain of the province to the crown, and providing for the exercise of the whole jurisdiction, under its authority. Hence two sorts of provincial governments had arisen: first, those denominated royal governments, in which the general domain continued in the crown; and, secondly, proprietary governments, in which both the territory and jurisdiction were granted by the king to one or more of his subjects. In the former case, the chief executive magistrate was appointed by the crown: in the latter, by the proprietaries in both, the legislative power was vested, wholly or partially, in the people; subject, in the one case, to the control of the king in council, and in the other, to that of the proprietary. In some few of the colonies, indeed, the power of legislation was uncontrolled, as we have seen, by the parent-state; so that, previously to the Revolution, the colonists had long been accustomed to elect representatives to compose the more numerous branch of their Legislature, and in some instances the second, or less numerous branch, and even their chief executive magistrate. No hereditary powers had ever existed in the colonial governments, and all political power ex ercised in them was derived either from the people or from the king.

The powers of the crown being abrogated by the successful assertion of our independence, the people remained the only source of legitimate authority and when the citizens of the several states proceeded to form their respective constitutions, the materials in their possession, as well as their former habits, and modes of thinking and acting on political subjects, were peculiarly favourable to governments representative in all the three departments; and, accordingly, such governments were universally adopted. Under various modifications and forms, produced in a great degree by ancient habits, the same general principles were established in every state. In general, the legislative, executive, and judicial powers were kept distinct, with the manifest intention of rendering them essentially independent of each other. The Legislature was, for the most part, divided into two branches, and all persons holding offices of trust or profit were excluded from it. The supreme executive magistrate was also rendered elective, and a strong jealousy of his power was everywhere apparent. The superior judges received their appointments from the Legislature or the executive, and in most instances the tenure of their offices was during good behaviour.

These principles formed the common and original basis of the American Republics, and were adhered to in the Federal Constitution, which, while it unites them as one nation, guaranties their separate and residuary sovereignty. The same fundamental principles have also been recognised and adopted in the new states since erected from the territory ceded by individual states for the common benefit, or acquired by negotiation or purchase, and subsequently admitted into the Union. There were, however, several departures from this general outline,