T8

CONTENTS.

Page

ix

INTRODUCTION

.

CHAPTER I.

DIFFERENT PRINCIPLES OF GOVERNMENT IN THE DIFFE-

RENT COLONIES WHILE THEY REMAINED UNDER BRITISI

RULE

1

CHAPTER VI.

NECESSITY OF SEPARATING THE LEGISLATIVE, EXECUTIVE,

AND JUDICIAL POWERS.

58

M313671

NOTES

.

Page

Note I.—The over-predominance of any one political ele-

ment in a Constitution, destructive of freedom 300

NOTE II.—Extract of Letter from Mr. Jay to Washington,

on the Balance of Power in the new Government.

-President John Adams on the same subject

303

NOTE III.—The Tyranny of the Majority.

307

Note IV.-Growing habit of External Aggression in the

Democracy of the United States

312

NOTE V.—The independence of the Judges destroyed in

upwards of five-sixths of the States, and threatened

in the rest; consequent Danger to Freedom, and to

the security of Life and Property

314

NOTE VI.—On the same Subject

. 316

Note VII.—On the same Subject.—Abuse of the power

of Pardoning in the United States

318

NOTE VIII.—On the Transmission of Property in the

United States

321

NOTE IX.-On the same Subject

327

Note X.-On the Theory of the “Rights of Man” as the

foundation of political power.—On the true founda-

tion of Government

331

NOTE XI.-On the Slavery Question

337

NOTE XII.-Sentiments of Washington, President John

Adams, and others, on the Constitution

344

Page

NOTE XIII.—On the System of Elementary Education in

the United States

. 349

NOTE XIV.-Additions made to the Estimates for the

year

1852–3, by the Democratic Majority of Congress . 357

NOTE XV.-List of Presidents of the United States

NOTE XVI.- List of States.- Population .

361

. 360

APPENDIX.

AN ACT TO PREVENT FRAUDS UPON THE TREASURY OF THE

UNITED STATES

. 363

THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES

368

INTRODUCTION.

The state of our representation being probably about to be considered in the ensuing Session of Parliament, there will be a natural disposition in many minds to take a survey of some of the other systems of representative government which, equally with our own, have for their object the establishment of a rational freedom.

Such representative governments are indeed but few. The hopes formed during upwards of thirty years of peace were dissipated (it is to be hoped only for a time) by the events of 1848; and the civilised world has been compelled to mourn over the failure of nearly all the attempts then made to add to the number of free governments, or to widen the foundations of liberty in those that did exist.

Into the much-disputed question of the causes of those failures, it is not my present purpose to enter. Suffice it to say, that whoever has made them the subject of impartial study, must have found those latter years of continental history fertile in warnings as to the peril of delay when the season for salutary reform is fully come, and abounding in examples of the greater fault, of ruining all the hopes of temperate and reasonable ameliorations, by presumption, precipitancy, or personal ambition.