prepared to deliver their opinion about, greatly promote, and, I think, improve converfation. They render it more rational and more innocent. They supply a fubftitute for drinking, gaming, fcandal, and obfcenity. Now the fecrefy, the jealousy, the folitude, and precipitation of defpotic governments, exclude all this. But the lofs, you fay, is trifling. I know that it is poffible to render even the mention of it ridiculous, by representing it as the idle employment of the most infignificant part of the nation, the folly of village-ftatefmen and coffee-house politicians but I allow nothing to be a trifle, which minifters to the harmless gratification of multitudes; nor any order of men to be infignificant, whofe number bears à refpectable proportion to the fum of the whole community.

We have been accuftomed to an opinion, that a REPUBLICAN form of government fuits only with the affairs of a small state: which opinion is founded in the confideration, that unless the people, in every diftrict of the empire, be admitted to a share in the national reprefentation, the government is not, as to them, a republic: that elections, where the conftituents are numerous, and difperfed through a wide extent of country, are conducted with difficulty, or rather, indeed,

indeed, managed by the intrigues and combina-
tion of a few, who are fituated near the place
of election, each voter confidering his fingle fuf-
frage as too minute a portion of the general in-
terest to deserve his care or attendance, much
lefs to be worth any oppofition to influence and
application; that whilft we contract the repre-
sentation within a compass small enough to ad-
mit of orderly debate, the intereft of the confti-
tuent becomes too small, of the representative
too great.
It is difficult alfo to maintain any
connection between them. He who reprefents
two hundred thousands, is neceffarily a stranger
to the greatest part of those who elect him ;
and when his interest amongst them ceases to
depend upon an acquaintance with their persons
and character, or a care or knowledge of their
affairs; when fuch a reprefentative finds the
treasures and honours of a great empire at the
difpofal of a few, and himself one of the few,
there is little reafon to hope that he will not
prefer to his public duty, thofe temptations of
perfonal aggrandizement which his fituation of-
fers, and which the price of his vote will al-
ways purchase. All appeal to the people is pre-
cluded by the impoffibility of collecting a fuffi-
cient proportion of their force and numbers.

The

The factions, and the unanimity of the fenate are equally dangerous. Add to thefe confiderations, that in a democratic conftitution the mechanism is too complicated, and the motions too flow for the operations of a great empire; whose defence and government require execution and difpatch, in proportion to the magnitude, extent, and variety of its concerns. There is weight, no doubt, in these reafons; but much of the objection feems to be done away by the contrivance of a federal republic, which, distributing the country into diftricts of a commodious extent, and leaving to each district its internal legislation, referves to a convention of the ftates, the adjustment of their relative claims ; the levying, direction, and government of the common force of the confederacy; the requifition of fubfidies for the fupport of this force the making of peace and war; the entering into treaties; the regulation of foreign commerce; the equilization of duties upon imports, fo as to prevent the defrauding of the revenue of one province by fmuggling articles of taxation from the borders of another; and likewise fo as to guard against undue partialitie, in the encouragement of trade. To what limits fuch a republic might, without inconveniency, enlarge its

dominions, by affuming neighbouring provinces into the confederation; or how far it is capable of uniting the liberty of a small commonwealth, with the safety of a powerful empire; or whether, amongst co-ordinate powers, diffentions and jealousies would not be likely to arise, which, for want of a common fuperior, might proceed to fatal extremities, are questions, upon which the records of mankind do not authorize us to decide with tolerable certainty. The experiment is about to be tried in America upon a large fcale.

CHAP.

1

CHAP. VII.

OF THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION.

B

Y the CONSTITUTION of a country is

meant fo much of its law, as relates to the defignation and form of the legislature; the rights and functions of the feveral parts of the legislative body; the conftruction, office, and jurifdiction of courts of juftice. The conftitution is one principal division, section, or title, of the code of public laws; diftinguished from the rest only by the fuperior importance of the fubject of which it treats. Therefore the terms conftitutional and unconftitutional, mean legal and illegal. The diftinction and the ideas, which these terms denote, are founded in the fame authority with the law of the land upon any other subject; and to be ascertained by the fame inquiries. In England the fyftem of public jurifprudence is made up of acts of parliament, of decifions of courts of law, and of immemorial ufages: confequently, these are the principles of