We do not find that they ever employed the power of the people in things really beneficial to the people. We do not find that they ever set bounds to the terrible power of its magistrates, that they ever repressed that class of citizens who knew how to make their crimes pass uncensured,—in a word, that they ever endeavoured, on the one hand to regulate, and on the other to strengthen, the judicial power; precautions these, without which men might struggle to the end of time, and never attain true liberty.*

And indeed the judicial power, that sure criterion of the goodness of a government, was always, at Rome, a mere instrument of tyranny. The consuls were at all times invested with an absolute power over the lives of the citizens. The dictators possessed the same right; so did the prætors, the tribunes of the people, the judicial commissioners named by the senate, and so, of course, did the senate itself: and the fact of the three hundred and seventy deserters whom it commanded to be thrown at one time, as Livy relates, from the Tarpeian rock, sufficiently shows that it well knew how to exert its power upon occasion.

It even may be said, that, at Rome, the power of life and death, or rather the right of killing, was annexed to every kind of authority whatever, even to that which results from mere influence, or wealth; and the only consequence of the murder of the Gracchi, which was accompanied by the slaughter of three hundred, and afterwards of four thousand unarmed citizens, whom the nobles knocked on the head, was to engage the senate to erect a temple to Concord. The Lex Porcia de tergo civium, which has been so much celebrated, was attended with no other effect than that of more completely securing, against the danger of a retaliation, such consuls, prætors, quæstors, &c., as, like Verres, caused the inferior citizens of Rome to be scourged with rods, and put to death upon crosses, through mere caprice and cruelty.†

*Without such precautions, laws must always be, as Pope expresses it,

"Still for the strong too weak, the weak too strong."

If we turn our eyes to Lacedæmon, we shall see, from several instances of the justice of the ephori, that matters were little better ordered there, in regard to the administration of public justice. And in Athens itself, the only one of the ancient commonwealths in which

In fine, nothing can more completely show to what degree the tribunes had forsaken the interests of the people, whom they were appointed to defend, than the fact of their having allowed the senate to invest itself with the power of taxation: they even suffered it to assume to itself the power, not only of dispensing with the laws, but also of abrogating them.*

In a word, as the necessary consequence of the communicability of power, a circumstance essentially inherent in the republican form of government, it is impossible for it ever to be restrained within certain rules. Those who are in a condition to control it, from that very circumstance become its defenders. Though they may have risen, as we may suppose, from the humblest stations, and such as seemed totally to preclude them from all ambitious views, they have no sooner reached a certain degree of eminence, than they begin to aim higher. Their endeavours had at first no other object, as they professed, and perhaps with sincerity, than to see the laws impartially executed: their only view now is to set themselves above them; and seeing themselves raised to the level of a class of men who possess all the power and

the people seem to have enjoyed any degree of real liberty, we see the magistrates proceed nearly in the same manner as they now do among the Turks and I think no other proof needs to be given than the story of that barber in the Piræus, who having spread about the town the news of the overthrow of the Athenians in Sicily, which he had heard from a stranger who had stopped at his shop, was put to the torture, by the command of the archons, because he could not tell the name of his author.-See Plut. Life of Nicias.

*There are frequent instances of the consuls taking away from the Capitol the tables of the laws passed under their predecessors. Nor was this, as we might at first be tempted to believe, an act of violence which success alone could justify; it was a consequence of the acknowledged power enjoyed by the senate, cujus erat gravissimum judicium de jure legum, as we may see in several places in Tully. Nay, the augurs themselves, as this author informs us, enjoyed the same privilege. "If laws had not been laid before the people in the legal form, they (the augurs) may set them aside; as was done with respect to the Lex Tatia, by the decree of the college, and to the Leges Livia, by the advice of Phillip, who was consul and augur." Legem, si non jure rogata est, tollere possunt; ut Tatiam, decreto collegii, ut Livias, consilio Philippi, consulis et auguris.-See De Legib. lib. ii. § 12.

enjoy all the advantages of the state, they make haste to associate themselves with them.*

Personal power and independence on the laws, being in such states the immediate consequence of the favour of the people, they are under an unavoidable necessity of being betrayed. Corrupting, as it were, everything they touch, they cannot show a preference to a man, but they thereby attack his virtue; they cannot raise him, without immediately losing him and weakening their own cause; nay, they inspire him with views directly opposite to their own, and send him to join and increase the number of their enemies.

Thus, at Rome, after the feeble barrier which excluded the people from offices of power and dignity had been thrown down, the great plebeians, whom the votes of the people began to raise to those offices, were immediately received into the senate, as has been just now observed. From that period, their families began to form, in conjunction with the ancient patrician families, a new combination, or political association of persons; and as this combination was formed of no particular class of citizens, but of all those who had influence enough to gain admittance into it, a single overgrown head was now to be seen in the republic, which, consisting of all who had either wealth or power of any kind, and disposing at will of the laws and the power of the people,‡ soon lost all regard to moderation and decency.

* Which always proves an easy thing. It is in commonwealths the particular care of that class of men who are at the head of the state, to keep a watchful eye over the people, in order to draw over to their own party any man who happens to acquire a considerable influence among them; and this they are (and indeed must be) the more attentive to do, in proportion as the nature of the government is more democratical.

The constitution of Rome had even made express provisions on that subject. Not only the censors could at once remove any citizen into what tribe they pleased, and even into the senate (and we may easily believe that they made a political use of this privilege); but it was moreover a settled rule, that all persons who had been promoted to any public office by the people, such as the consulship, the ædileship, or tribuneship, became, ipso facto, members of the senate.-See Middleton's Dissertation on the Roman Senate.

+ Called nobiles and nobilitas.

It was, in several respects, a misfortune for the people of Rome, whatever may have been said to the contrary by the writers on this

ANCIENT DEMOCRACIES.

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Every constitution, therefore, whatever may be its form, which does not provide for inconveniences of the kind here mentioned, is a constitution essentially imperfect. It is in man himself that the source of the evils to be remedied lies; general precautions therefore can only prevent them. If it be a fatal error entirely to rely on the justice and equity of those who govern, it is an error no less dangerous to imagine, that, while virtue and moderation are the constant companions of those who oppose the abuses of power, all ambition, all thirst after dominion, have retired to the other party.

Though wise men, led astray by the power of names, and the heat of political contentions, may sometimes lose sight of what ought to be their real aim, they nevertheless know that it is not against the Appii, the Coruncanii, the Cethegi, but against all those who can influence the execution of the laws, that precautions ought to be taken;-that it is not the consul, the prætor, the archon, the minister, the king, whom we ought to dread, nor the tribune, or the representative of the people, on whom we ought implicitly to rely: but that all those persons, without distinction, ought to be the objects of our jealousy, who, by any methods, and under any names whatsoever, have acquired the means of turning against each individual the collective strength of all, and have so ordered things around themselves, that whoever attempts to resist them, is sure to find himself engaged alone against a thousand.*

subject, that the distinction between the patricians and the plebeians was ever abolished; though, to say the truth, this was an event which could not be prevented.

* The reflections of De Lolme on democracies, are just, as far as respects democratical governments in Europe, and in a great degree as regards all the Spanish American republics. Not so with respect to the United States of America. It is fortunate for the latter, that instead of the inhabitants having been entangled with the disadvantages of ignorance, hereditary bigotry, and superstition, they at once carried with them to America political intelligence, and a determination to maintain civil and religious liberty. The Anglo-American colonies advanced in prosperity, free institutions, wealth, and happiness, until their oppression by the British Government drove them to rebellion and independence. When they achieved their liberty the people were generally intelligent,-their habits frugal and industrious,— their character virtuous. None were really poor;-none possessed

CHAPTER X.

FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE ENGLISH GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNMENTS JUST DESCRIBED-IN ENGLAND ALL EXECUTIVE AUTHORITY IS PLACED OUT OF THE HANDS OF THOSE IN WHOM THE PEOPLE TRUST-USEFULNESS OF THE POWER OF THE CROWN.

IN what manner, then, has the English constitution contrived to find a remedy for evils which, from the very nature of men and things, seem to be irremediable? How has it found means to oblige those persons to whom the people have given up their power, to make them effectual and lasting returns of gratitude?-those who enjoy an exclusive authority, to seek the advantage of all ?-those who make the laws, to make only equitable ones? It has been by subjecting themselves to those laws, and for that purpose excluding them from all share in the execution of them.

Thus, the Parliament can establish as numerous a standing army as it will; but immediately another power comes forward, which takes the absolute command of it, fills all the

great wealth; their ideas and their institutions were free from the thraldom of priestly and hierarchical tyranny. The leaders who conducted their assemblies were men whose abilities were more solid than brilliant, more practical than theoretical. Notwithstanding their separation from the British government, they had the good sense and discrimination to adopt as the ground-work of their constitution and laws the principles, legislation, and civil institutions of the then most free government in the world; making a national church establishment, a titled hereditary nobility, and a royal hereditary chief magistrate, the only remarkable exceptions. They possessed all the advantages of an immense territory, with every variety of climate, and a soil yielding every kind of useful production, including every useful raw material; and their rivers, lakes, and harbours, afforded every convenience for navigation, trade, and fisheries. The language, history, laws, and literature of England, were familiar to, and regarded as their own by inheritance; and they had the peculiar good fortune of being governed at that critical period by honest men. Their democratical form of govern ment arose from necessity as well as choice; the constitutional laws of the new government were as nearly as possible accommodated to the ideas of the people; and although their chief magistrate is not hereditary, his power, while in authority, is in most respects at least equal to that of the royal sovereign of the British empire.-Ed.