*

I propose here to discuss the MEANS OF PERPETUATING CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. I say perpetuating, because it cannot be doubted that the citizens of the United States do actually possess civil and religious liberty in the highest degree.

Conceding that the machinery of our government may hereafter be amended, yet it is certain that the great principles of liberty are already established here. The only practical inquiry is, therefore, how are they to be perpetuated?

1. The first means of perpetuating civil and religious liberty, is to understand what it is;† for when

* It is one thing to acquire, and another to preserve liberty. All the renowned nations of the world have, in the process of revolutions, passed from anarchy to despotism; and in that progress have, at some time or other, been at what may be called the stage of national freedom. At that point they have remained a greater or less period of time, just in proportion as they possessed the fundamental principles I have endeavored here to delineate. No theory, or machinery of government has, per se, any magic to preserve its salutary functions, in spite of a diseased and corrupted people. They are the life, while the government is the form through which they act. To trace this necessary relation between the character of the people and that of the government in a condensed form is the object of this chapter; and it seems obvious, from the signs of the times, that that relation is very little understood, and still less practised upon.

One who does not understand a thing cannot practise upon it. Now, up to the year 1828, and in a great measure up to the present period, well-educated Americans studied more of the Grecian Mythology, and far more of European wars, than they did of the structure and functions of their own government. Very recently most of the colleges have ventured to place beside Hebrew and metaphysics, the study of the Constitution; and it is hoped they will not be censured

understood, strange indeed would be that being, who could prefer any form of tyranny, whether it be of the many or the few, to the beautiful system of constitutional freedom. The new principle of civil liberty, then, is that the whole people shall govern, not by instant and impulsive action, but, as gravitation holds the planets, by uniform and regulated law. It is new, because the records of all antiquity, and the constitutions of all other governments, will be searched in vain for any theory which acknowledges that government is the right of the whole people, and must be administered for their happiness. If history confirms any proposition, it is that in all the republics of the past, whether ancient or modern, the great mass of the people were disregarded by the institutions and separated from the interests of their country. Does

for so daring an undertaking! The great body of high schools and academies, however, are still, in relation to this subject, dumb. The people are, indeed, obliged to know something of popular government, for they are compelled to participate in the conflict of parties, and the discussions of the press; but what kind of knowledge is it? One which is made up of inaccuracies and exaggerations. Thousands think that liberty consists in doing just what one pleases; and recent events would lead us to conclude that this was the prevalent notion. A still larger portion think that it consists simply in the right of representation, no matter what the representative may do, or what may be his character for integrity and intelligence. But very few think that freedom is a creature of checks and restraints, rather than of license and impulse. The American government is composed wholly of the former, and is strong just in proportion to its complication: for this very reason its study should be made as general as possible among the people.

any one doubt this? Let him go to that land, whose laws more than those of any other have been the study of the statesman, whose people were the most ingenious and inquiring, as they were the most refined of the ancient nations, whose glory lives, even here, in whatever of art or genius can survive decay. Go to the fierce democracy of Athens, and who were its citizens and governors? Were they the mass of the people? Were they the cultivators of the soil? Were they the few or the many? The least numerous part of the people were those who held the rights of citizenship. A large class were metics, residents for the purpose of trade and manufactures; and the largest portion slaves. Such also was the condition of Lacedæmon, of Rome, and of all the ancient republics. In all the spirit of domination prevailed; and whilst, aided by the then existing science, by the hardihood of the rugged virtues, and by all the spirit of eloquence, they subdued from the weakness and ignorance of barbarism province after province, and nation after nation, they added nothing to the family of Grecian or of Roman citizens. The conquered were left on the vast, dead level of slavery, or in the condition of tributaries to the wealth and strength of others. Such is the picture of ancient liberty. And did Venice, or Genoa, or Florence improve upon the example?—See the terrible aristocracy of Venice, and the alternate prevalence of faction and families in Florence, the once happy seat of letters and the

arts.

But there is another differequally necessary to the This is, that now liberty

There is, then, a radical difference between the origin and object of government in our republic and those of other countries. ence equally distinct, and happiness of the people. can act only through defined and limited organs, created by the people. These are responsible to the power which created them, and are yet unchangeable, except by its deliberate action. In other free countries, it acted by the instantaneous, unrestrained impulse of the popular will. Here, however omnipotent this popular will may be in the creation of laws and constitutions, it can only act through them, while they exist. The difference between these systems is as wide as that between a meteor and a planet. Both obey a common force; but one, unre

* The Athenian democracy, for example, was, with little exception, one of impulse, without regulation. A pure democracy must always be so. In such a case the people govern by their direct action, without representation—a form of government which is only possible in small communities. In the United States it is otherwise. Here is the government of a great nation, with its powers divided among states, representatives, departments, and a great variety of checks and balances, by which the popular will is restrained till time is given for deliberation.

Among the Grecian people the majority were slaves, and the tendency of all their institutions was to increase the servile class, and diminish the citizens. When Xenophon drew up a plan of government for Athens, his sole desire was to subsist the citizens wholly by the labor of slaves, and, for this purpose, to diminish the number of the former. Hence, Mr. Mitford remarks, that to the slave war was a blessing; for it compelled the master, by the fear of desertion, to treat him with kindness.-Mitford's Greece, vol. iv. chap. 21.

strained by law, shoots its glory forth, quickly to perish; while the other, governed by the regular action of constant and balanced principles, returns from time to time to yield its steady light to the mariner, and fix the eye of a glorious faith.

To illustrate this difference by obvious examples, take the separation of departments. The power to judge was never, it is believed, wholly separated from the power to legislate, or to execute, till our republic was instituted.* How disastrous their union has been in other governments, is fearfully exhibited in the long and melancholy record of popular as well as despotic tyranny. For the union of these distinct powers of government in one department, makes, in itself, a despotism.

The definition of treason, say the most enlightened statesmen of modern times, is inseparable from liberty. This definition, without the admission of any construction, was first made, with precision, in the Constitution of the United States.† Without it, treason becomes just what the momentary passions of the people, or the monarch, make it. The patriot of to-day, becomes the traitor of to-morrow. To

* See Adams's "Defence of the American Republic,” vol. i. p. 362. + United States' Constitution, art. iii. sec. 3.

By the ancient common law of England, treason was undefined and constructive. This gave rise to a statute defining treason, entitled of the 25th of Edward III. From that statute, as far as it was applicable, the very words of the American Constitution was taken, in order that they might receive the same interpretation which had long