cessor would of course manifest a deference to public opinion by removing all the promoters and participators of the preceding delinquency.

The constitution may therefore be considered as having a still stronger hold on the president, than on the legislative body.

2dly. If, from its nature, any political or casual motives could have an effect on the judicial interposition when regularly called forth, it would seem that it would be exercised with more alacrity against a single officer, already become the subject of general suspicion or disapprobation, than against those acts which must be considered as the measures of the entire government.

But this is altogether an illegitimate view of the character of the judicial power and mode of action. On the contrary, the president, while labouring under public reprobation, would look forward to the judiciary, who are to test the validity of the acts which had excited dissatisfaction, with a certain confidence that prejudice and error would find no room in the judgments by which the legality of his conduct would be decided. This check upon him would therefore be the more complete, by being unbiassed and certain.

3dly. But, as before observed in regard to the legislature, the opportunity for this judicial intervention in its common form, may be remote, and one transgression not resisted, may lead to another, till the accumulation becomes too heavy to be borne.

Then, the power of the people arises in its majesty, and through their appropriate organs, the house of representatives, the judicial power is appealed to in another, a most imposing and conclusive form.

The dignified tribunal which the constitution has provided for the trial of impeachments, has now the

eyes of the public immoveably fixed on it. Guilt or innocence, not prejudice or party motives, form the ground of decision, and although the senate does not directly vacate or annul the illegal acts that have taken place, which are still left to the redress of the ordinary tribunals; it prevents the possibility of their being again committed by the same individual, and the probability of their being copied by another.

4thly. And so effectual are the disqualifications which the senate may pronounce, that if the people, subsequently imposed on and misled by the discarded president or his partisans, were inclined again to confide a public trust to him, it would not be in their power to do so. The sentence of the senate is immutable. No similar caution, no analogous defence of the people against their own dangerous clemency or forgetfulness, are to be found elsewhere. The ostracism of Athens, the interdictions from fire and water of Rome, the disqualifications in sentences on impeachments in England, might all be repealed, and the party, however politically dangerous, be restored to his former rank.

It may be inquired, why the power of pardoning should be absolutely excluded in such a case as this? The answer does not appear difficult. The safety of the people is the supreme law: their liberties properly regulated and secured are the cardinal objects of republican constitutions. Those who have evinced the capacity to abuse a public trust ought not to have a second opportunity to do so. If it were possible to remove the disqualification thus solemnly imposed, the state might be thrown into disorder; factions in favour of the delinquent be formed; contrary pretensions be warmly, perhaps forcibly asserted-and the bloody, civic contests of ancient Rome might be

renewed on the polluted arena of a modern and a temperate republic. It is infinitely preferable that one man should be meritedly deprived of part of the rights and privileges of citizenship, than that the peace and happiness of the whole community should be endangered.

The sentence itself is at the utmost a mild one; but the object of it is still liable to the ordinary process of justice. If his crime should be of that high class which subjects him to the forfeiture of life, the president for the time being still possesses the power to prevent its infliction. The individual with the accumulated weight of two convictions, might safely be pardoned in respect to the second. He never could again become an object of public confidence.

To these views of the checks upon this office, we may add the power of the people, when the quadrennial period of election returns, to remove him, whose conduct, although it may not have amounted to actual delinquency, has excited even their suspicion.

Referring, without repeating it, to the last chapter, we may thus recognise in every part of the constitution those cautious provisions, forming adequate checks on every power it confers, restraining all from doing wrong, yet not productive of an inconvenient interference with each other when all do right; contributing to preserve a necessary purity and vigour, and rendering the mere distribution of power the means of correcting its abuse.

CHAPTER XXXI.

Of the Union.

Quassata respublica multa perderet et ornamenta dignitatis et præsidia stabilitatis suæ. Oratio pro Marcello.

HAVING thus endeavoured to delineate the general features of this peculiar and invaluable form of government, we shall conclude with adverting to the principles of its cohesion, and to the provisions it contains for its own duration and extension.

The subject cannot perhaps be better introduced, than by presenting in its own words an emphatical clause in the constitution.

"The United States shall guarantee to every state "in the Union a republican form of government, shall 66 protect each of them against invasion, and on appli❝cation of the legislature, or of the executive when "the legislature cannot be convened, against doméstic "violence."

The Union is an association of the people of republics; its preservation is calculated to depend on the preservation of those republics. The people of each pledge themselves to preserve that form of government in all. Thus each becomes responsible to the rest, that no other form of government shall prevail in it, and all are bound to preserve it in every one. But the mere compact, without the power to enforce it, would be of little value. Now this power can be no where so properly lodged, as in the Union itself. Hence, the term guarantee, indicates that the United States are autho

rized to oppose, and if possible, prevent every state in the Union from relinquishing the republican form of government, and as auxiliary means, they are expressly authorized and required to employ their force on the application of the constituted authorities of each state, "to repress domestic violence." If a faction should attempt to subvert the government of a state for the purpose of destroying its republican form, the paternal power of the Union could thus be called forth to subdue it. Yet it is not to be understood, that its interposition would be justifiable, if the people of a state should determine to retire from the union, whether they adopted another or retained the same form of government, or if they should, with the express intention of seceding, expunge the representative system from their code, and thereby incapacitate themselves from concurring according to the mode now prescribed, in the choice of certain public officers of the United States.

The principle of representation, although certainly the wisest and best, is not essential to the being of a republic, but to continue a member of the Union, it must be preserved, and therefore the guarantee must be so construed. It depends on the state itself to retain or abolish the principle of representation, because it depends on itself whether it will continue a member of the Union. To deny this right would be inconsistent with the principle on which all our political systems are founded, which is, that the people have in all cases, a right to determine how they will be governed.

This right must be considered as an ingredient in the original composition of the general government, which, though not expressed, was mutually understood, and the doctrine heretofore presented to the reader in regard to the indefeasible nature of personal allegiance, is so far qualified in respect to allegiance to