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be made the instrument, if not the victim, of foreign powers. Now, frequent elections cannot fail of rendering a government too dilatory in its resolves; because, under such circumstances, no prudent administration would ever venture upon any important national measure, until it had felt the pulse, not only of the legislature, but of the people also.

The experience of history equally proves, that the great body of the people, in every country, are prone to be too much elated by temporary success, and too much dejected by occasional misfortune. This disposition alone renders them perpetually wavering in their opinions about affairs of state, and prevents the possibility of their ever long continuing steadily fixed to any one point. And as the House of Representatives is chosen by the voice of the general people, a choice sa often renewed, almost ensures the legislature to be as wavering and unsteady in their councils, as the people themselves are in their sentiments. And it being impossible to carry on the public affairs of the executive government, without the concurrence of the lower house, the administration is always obliged to comply with the notions of the leading members of that house; and, consequently, obliged to change its measures as often as the populace change their minds. Whence, it is impossible to lay down, and steadily prosecute, any plan for the gradual developement of the national resources, and the gradual growth of the country, in prosperity, wealth, power, and influence.

Besides, in all democratic governments, faction is continually springing up from the delusions perpetually played off upon the collective wisdom of the multitude, While the essential principles of human nature remain the same, as they ever have been, there always will be, in every country, and under every possible form of government, many unquiet, turbulent, and unprincipled spirits, who can never be at rest, whether in or out of power. When in possession of the government, they require every one to submit entirely to their direction and control; in words, they profess to be the exclusive

champions of liberty; in action, they are the veriest tyrants imaginable. When out of power, they are always working and intriguing against the government, without any regard to truth, justice, or common honesty, or the welfare of their country. In popular governments, where the election of representatives too frequently recurs, such pernicious men have too many opportunities of mischief, in working upon, deceiving, and corrupting the minds of the people, in order to inflame them against those who have the management of public affairs for the time being; and thus, eventually, are enabled to ripen the discontents of the deluded multitude into violent and seditious movements. Such are some of the evil consequences invariably resulting from the too frequent recurrence of elections, which also (it may be remarked) necessarily incapacitates the representative from acquiring an adequate acquaintance with the public business and real interests of his country, owing to the short duration of his term of service.

There are likewise some other imperfections grafted into the system of election throughout the States, which deserve notice. The voting by ballot, instead of vivá voce, is accounted a wonderful improvement; whereas, it excludes the open, wholesome influence of talent and property at the elections; and encourages a perpetual course of intrigue and fraud, by enabling the cunning demagogue to impose upon the credulity of the weak and ignorant. Indeed, the frauds practised by the substitution of one set of ballots for another, in every electioneering campaign throughout the country, are in themselves innumerable and shameless; and the success of elections, generally, depends on the adroitness of intrigue exhibited by the more active political partisans.

Universal suffrage, also, is a favourite feature in our republican system, except in the State of Virginia, where a respectable property in land is the prescribed qualification of a voter: in some of the states, no proprietary qualification, either in personal or real estate, is required, and in the rest (save Virginia) much too

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small a possession of property, whether real or personal, is suffered to qualify the electors. Now, universal suffrage is full of evil, without any alloy of good; for it gives efficiency and perpetuity to the anti-social conspiracy of poverty against wealth, of cunning against wisdom, of knavery against integrity, and of confusion against order; the necessary tendencies of which are, to exclude the great talents, high character, and large property of the community, from the administration of government; which, under such circumstances, is too apt to exhibit a scene of folly and oppression at home, and to become an object of contempt and scorn abroad. The only stable government, which can at once secure prosperity to its own people, and command the respect of foreign nations, must lay its foundations in the preservation and ascendency of property. No man ought to be allowed to vote, who is not possessed of a freehold in land, that those who have the deepest stake in the soil may have the most influence in the country..

The states, however, generally require a qualification, both of property and of age, in the elected; which seems to be quite useless; since it is fair to presume that a man must have already acquired some considerable standing in the community before his fellow-citizens will hold him up as a candidate for election, in either branch of the legislature, whether state or federal, more especially if the electors are required to possess a proprietary qualification. Still less should there be any limitation as to age; for as soon as a man fairly distinguishes himself by his talents and character, demonstrating in him a capacity for public service, so soon has he the passport of God and nature to the trust and confidence of the community. How much of zeal and talent, displayed in her service, would England have lost, if Charles Fox and William Pitt had been denied admittance into the House of Commons until they had reached their thirtieth year, instead of obtaining an entrance into parliament as soon as they had passed the age of twenty-one!

It is somewhat singular, that a republic professing to establish full toleration, and give equal political rights to every religious sect, should in so many instances exclude the clergy from a seat in the legislature. This • exclusion occurs in the constitutions of New-York, Maryland, Kentucky, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Louisiana.

Mr. Smith, in his Comparative View of the Constitutions, makes some very sensible and spirited observations on the exclusion of the clergy from all official and legislative privileges, as well as on all the prominent features of the federal and state constitutions, which existed in the year 1796.

The disqualification of the clergy in so many states seems either a remnant of the old Gothic policy, transmitted from times when ecclesiastics were immured in monasteries; though even then ecclesiastics did greatly guide the political movements of nations; or, perhaps it is copied from the practice of the British government, (some years since, backed by a statute passed in order to keep Horne Tooke out of Parliament) which excludes them from a seat in the House of Commons, under pretence of their being represented in convocation, although both the upper and lower Houses of Convocation have been abolished for more than a century, and the bishops are allowed to sit in the House of Lords: wherefore, according to the well-known maxim, cessante ratione, cessat et ipsa lex, as the English clergy are not now represented in convocation, they ought to be represented in parliament; or, lastly, their disqualification in the states is the offspring of a misguided jealousy towards the clerical order, on the part of the laity.

The expediency of admitting into the legislature the clergy ought to be left to their own sense of propriety, to the feelings and wishes of their congregations, to the rules and ordinances of the religious body to which they belong, and to the good sense, discretion, and opinion of the electors. When the laity undertake to exclude the clergy by constitutional regulations, the exclusion

savours strongly of political intolerance; it is, in fact, disfranchising the whole of a very respectable and important class of the community. The constitution of the United States contains no such exclusion; and the experience of nearly thirty years has not demonstrated either its necessity or its use. After all, perhaps the exercise of the religious duties of ecclesiastical life are not quite compatible with the incessant agitations of active politics; and, doubtless, the Saviour of the world himself delivered an awful lesson of denunciation against earthly avarice and ambition, when he emphatically declared, that his kingdom is not of this world. Nevertheless, the admission into the legislative councils of their Country ought to be left to the individual discretion of the clergy themselves, and of those with whom they are connected: they ought not to be disfranchised of a great political right, to which they are justly entitled, in common with all the rest of their fellow-citizens, by any municipal regulations of a free and popular government.

The Senate of the United States is composed of two senators from each state, chosen by its legislature for six years: each senator has one vote. They are divided into three classes. The seats of the senators of the first class are vacated at the expiration of the second; of the second class, at the expiration of the fourth; of the third class at the expiration of the sixth year; so that one-third of the senate is chosen every second year. If any vacancy happen, during the recess of a state legislature, the state executive may make a temporary appointment, until the next meeting of the legislature, which then fills up the vacancy, either by a new appointment, or by sanctioning that of the executive. A senator must be thirty years old, have been nine years a citizen of the United States, and be an inhabitant of the state for which he is chosen. The Vice-President of the United States is president of the senate, but has no vote, unless the House is equally divided. The senate chooses its other officers, and a president pro tempore, in the absence of the Vice-President; or when he exereises the office of President of the United States.

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