the extent of its full value. So can the government of each State. From the nature of the case, no positive constitutional limits can well be put to these powers; and even were it attempted, the limits must be so wide as to leave room for great oppression. When a mere majority have the entire control of the Legislature, and of the Executive, they can oppress the minority in many ways without violating any practical Constitution that can possibly be made.

We have had some examples in this State-enough to show calm observers how the theory would work. By many of the acts of our State Legislature propositions to levý special taxes for some particular objects are often submitted to the vote of the inhabitants of the municipality, and they are nearly always sustained by large majorities. The reason is that many, if not quite a majority of those who support them, will pay no portion of the taxes they vote to impose, while they enjoy their share of the benefits of the proposed improvements, and obtain employment for themselves or their friends. A few taxpayers, whose local or special interests overbalance the taxes imposed, combined with those who pay nothing, make up so great a majority as to render opposition hopeless. Another case in point may be found in the relief measures of Kentucky. It so happened, as it often does elsewhere, that the many were debtors and the few creditors. The Constitution of the State and that of the United States protected the rights of the creditors; but the debtors obtained the complete control of the State Legislature and of the Executive, and passed bills requiring the creditors either to take depreciated bank paper at par for their debts, or submit to a stay of execution for two years. The Supreme Court of the State declared those measures unconstitutional; and though the State Constitution itself created the Court, designated the number of the Judges, declared the mode of their appointment, and fixed the tenure of their office, the Legislature assumed the ground that, though they could not abolish, they could reorganize the Court. The result was that there were soon two tribunals in session at the same time, each claiming to be the Court of last resort, and each demanding possession of the records and the obedience of the people. So intense was the excitement that the State barely escaped the horrors of

civil war. It is true, that in a few years, a majority of the people returned to a sense of their duty; but it was too late, the evil had been done, the creditors ruined, and the debtors had accomplished their object. If, in this case, there had been a Senate for life, and a Governor for a longer term, they would have stood firm against this flood of injustice, as did the Supreme Court; but that tribunal was too weak to withstand for the time the Legislative and Executive departments combined. Any one who will carefully examine the decisions upon the subject, both State and Federal, will find how often, how perseveringly, and in what varied forms the Legislatures of the States, with the approbation of their Governors, have violated that constitutional provision which prohibits the several States from passing bills impairing the obligation of contracts. Nothing will more clearly show the danger of oppression on the part of interested majorities than the history of these attempts. Now, if interested and suffering majorities have so often violated the plainest constitutional provisions, what would they not do to accomplish their purposes when it required only the abuse of a conceded power? When men are left to judge in their own case, whether many or few, they are very apt to make their wants the measure of their rights. The sober settled convictions of a people may well be trusted, and no legislative body could long withstand them, except when a majority of the people are excluded from all participation in the government, as in England. But a conservative body like the Senate proposed, is required to give time for calm, cool, and honest reflection.

Our country is rapidly approaching the condition of the old world, and we may estimate, with approximate certainty, our population for fifty years to come. The elder Adams, at the age of twenty, and while a poor school-teacher at a yearly salary of sixty dollars, substantially predicted our present state of population. All nations will soon enter upon a new state of things. It has been estimated by good writers, from reliable data, that the world itself will be well populated in the space of the next three hundred years, and will then contain from three to four thousand, instead of one thousand millions of inhabitants. The relative capacity of some favored countries to sustain population has been wonderfully increased by the invention of the steam

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engine. If I remember correctly, the steam power of Great Britain has been estimated as equal to the labor of some six hundred millions of men. We can well estimate the capacity to sustain population of those countries possessed of certain agricultural advantages, and which are capable of successfully competing in those classes of manufactures which are not materially aided by steam power; but the ultimate capacity to sustain population of those countries not invadable by land, and possessed of ample supplies of coal and iron, with cheap access to the ocean, cannot be estimated by man. Take, for example, our own country. We have unlimited supplies of coal and iron, and ample supplies of most other raw material, or the natural capacity to produce them. No civil or external war in Europe, and no foreign war against us could cut off our supplies of cotton, as the existing civil war does the main supply of that article from Europe. A foreign war would partially but not materially suspend our works. Who, then, can estimate, with even approximate certainty, the ultimate capacity of our country to sustain population? When the whole world becomes densely populated, there will be no outlet for the surplus. Long before that time arrives, our population will be immense, as our country is the favorite destination of the European immigrant. Our people will, by force of circumstances, be divided into two very distinct classes-property holders and those that have none. And when the latter class becomes the majority, or nearly so, there is but one of three possible ways to protect the rights of property, namely: a despotism, a property qualification, or an independent branch of the Legislature. I prefer the last.

§ 11. There is no aristocracy in the theory proposed. There is no aristocracy in the theory proposed, as an aristocracy is where the whole supreme power is vested in the few. When it is proposed that certain officers shall be elected by the people, the word people is used in the sense commonly understood in our country, and means the whole people and not a part. It was said, on page 83 of the first edition, that "every class can be heard" in the councils of the nation under the theory proposed—which could not be true if a large portion

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were excluded by a property qualification. To impose on men all the duties and burdens of government, and at the same time exclude them from office and from voting, is a principle so unjust in itself that it should never receive the hearty support of a free people. If there be any plain and obvious principle in the science of government, it is the one that burdens and privileges must go together; and this great principle should never be sacrificed to any plea of necessity or expediency, so long as any plausible theory of government, which proposes to preserve it, has not been fully tested, by actual experiment, under fair circumstances.

The principle of making all citizens equal before the law is not only just but expedient. Napoleon permitted his soldiers from the ranks to rise to command. Louis Napoleon made dukes of his generals, not generals of his dukes. The same principle operates in civil life with the same effect. Hope is a great element in our happiness, and the great stimulus to exertion. It is almost the only thing left the poor man, and should never be taken from him. It consoles him in poverty, and points him to better days. He loves, and has reason to love his country, because she is as just to him as to others. His rise depends upon himself, and his country throws no obstacles in his way. He has no reason to despair. But if you give him, or the class to which he belongs, unchecked power, you stimulate, not his generous emulation, but his mercenary passions.

As to judicial and executive officers, the theory proposes to make them, while in office, independent of everything but the law. The reason for this arises from the very nature of these powers. The judicial power simply declares what the law is as already made by another and superior power, and the executive, power simply executes the existing law. A wide discretion is given legislative agents, while none at all is allowed the judicial, and very little to the executive power. The legislative. agent is only sworn to support the Constitution, not the statutes which he can repeal; whereas the judicial and executive officer is sworn both to support the Constitution and obey the statutes as construed by the proper authority created by the fundamental law itself. The Constitution, and the statutes passed in pursuance of it (so long as the one remains unamended and the

other unrepealed), are in the nature of a compact entered into by every citizen with all the others, and each and all are equally entitled, by virtue of this compact, to an impartial construction and administration of both, by officers not under the influence of either for the time. When, therefore, it is sought by popular opinion to practically control these officers, to whom the Constitution has itself confided the exclusive right to expound and administer the law, the engagements of all, and the rights of a part are violated; a new and contradictory element is introduced, and a conflict brought about between the conscientious oath and judgment of the officer and his interests and ambition. It is very true that the theory of electing judicial and executive officers for short terms proceeds upon the idea that no one has any claim to office, and should, therefore, have no ardent thirst for it, but should most cheerfully retire at the expiration of his term, unless spontaneously reëlected by the people. But this political theory is in conflict with the law of human nature; and though the latter may not always be successful, it often is so; and, whether successful or not, will always keep up a most distressing contest in the bosom of most officers, and thus practically defeat the just intentions of government. While the good citizen should never desire that either he or his posterity should exercise any control over judicial and executive officers, he should be very careful that others should not do so. The equal and exact rights of all can best be protected by the exclusion of all from such influence.

§ 12. The proposed more conservative than the existing theory.

The theory proposed is far more conservative than the existing theory, and the dearest rights of human nature receive from it much stronger guarantees; for example, that dearest of all rights, the right to religious freedom, depends, under the existing theory, upon the will of each State, and not upon that of the whole. Upon the continent of Europe, the opinion that there should be a State religion is so prevalent that some one form of religion is established in nearly every European State. In the course of time, should the existing theory continue, one denomination may succeed in gaining a decisive majority in one