The ultimate end of all government is the good of the people-now, the greatest good of a people is their liberty -liberty is to the collective body what health is to every individual body. Without health no pleasure can be tasted by man; without liberty no happiness can be enjoyed by society.-Bolingbroke.

When the science of government shall be known, all its measures will be to prevent the existence of evil, and thereby render it unnecessary to waste its powers in unavailing attempts to cure the evil, after unwisely allowing the evil to arrive at maturity. The governing powers will clearly understand, that it will be for their own best interest, and for the permanent good of all society, carefully to watch the growth of every evil, and to destroy it in the bud; for assuredly, in whatever country artificial evils exist, that country is not well governed. In the present advanced state of the sciences, ignorance and poverty, or even the fear of poverty, are artificial evils; and whenever these evils afflict and oppress the great body of the people, it is most evident that a change in the principle of the government of the country, in which they prevail, is necessary, and will be highly beneficial to all parties.-Owen.

What is government more than the management of the affairs of a nation? It is not, and from its nature cannot be, the property of any particular man or family, but of the whole community, at whose expense it is supported; and though by force or contrivance it has been usurped into an inheritance, the usurpation cannot alter the right of things. Sovereignty, as a matter of right, appertains to the nation only, and not to any individual; and a nation has at all times an inherent and indefeasible right to abolish any form of government it finds inconvenient, and establish such as accords with its interest, disposition, and happiness.-Robert Hall.

SECTION II.

THE FOUNDATION OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT.

As no man can have any natural or inherent right to rule, any more than another, it necessarily follows, that a

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claim to dominion, wherever it is lodged, must be ultimately referred back to the explicit or implied consent of the people. Whatever source of civil authority is assigned different from this, will be found to resolve itself into mere force.-Robert Hall.

In spite of the attempts of sophistry to conceal the origin of political right, it must inevitably rest at length on the acquiescence of the people. In the case of individuals it is extremely plain. If one man should overwhelm another with superior force, and after completely subduing him, under the name of government, transmit him in this condition to his heirs, every one would exclaim against such an act of injustice. But whether the object of his oppression be one or a million, can make no difference in its nature, the idea of equity having no relation to that of numbers.-Robert Hall.

No man has power over his own life, or to dispose of his own religion, and cannot, consequently, transfer the power of either to any body else; much less can he give away the lives, liberties, religion, of his posterity, who will be born as free as himself, and can never be bound by his wicked and ridiculous bargain.-Trenchard.

There never did, there never will, and there never can exist a parliament, or any description of men, in any country, possessed of the right or the power of binding and controlling posterity to the end of time, or of commanding for ever how the world shall be governed, or who shall govern it; and therefore all such clauses, acts, or declarations, by which the makers of them attempt to do what they have neither the right nor the power to do, nor the power to execute, are in themselves null and void. Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself, in all cases, as the ages and generations which preceded it. The vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave, is the most ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies. Man has no property in man; neither has any generation a 'property in the generations which are to follow....... Every generation is, and must be, competent to all the purposes which its occasions require. It is the living, and not the dead, that are to be accommodated. When man

ceases to be, his power and his wants cease with him; and having no longer any participation in the concerns of this world, he has no longer any authority in directing who

OF FORMS OF GOVERNMENT.

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shall be its governors, or how its government shall be organized, or how administered.-Paine.

As we are not to live for ever ourselves, and other generations are to follow us, we have neither the power nor the right to govern them, nor to say how they shall govern themselves. It is the summit of human vanity, and shows a covetousness of power beyond the grave, to be dictating to the world to come. It is sufficient that we do that which is right in our own day, and leave them with the advantage of good examples.... If it was made an article in the constitution, that all laws and acts should cease of themselves in thirty years, and have no legal force beyond that time, it would prevent their becoming too numerous and voluminous, and serve to keep them within view, and in a compact compass. Such as were proper to be continued, would be enacted again, and those which were not, would go into oblivion. There is the same propriety that a nation should fix a time for a full settlement of its affairs, and begin again from a new date, as that an individual should; and to keep within the distance of thirty years would be a convenient period.—Idem.

As the natural equality of one generation is the same as that of another, the people have always the same right to new-model their government, and set aside their rulers. This right, like others, may be exerted capriciously and absurdly; but no human power can have any pretensions to intercept its exercise.-Robert Hall.

CHAPTER IV.

OF FORMS OF GOVERNMENT.

THE greatest amount of happiness being the end, the best form of Government must be that in which the smallest number of chances, or at least probability, exists of the enforcement of such laws or acts as are contrary to the general interest; and the greatest number of chances, or greatest probability, exists of the adoption of such as are favourable to it. These chances, then, are to be estimated, and as we find them to be in favour of democracy -an aristocracy—or despotism-so shall we do right in

trying to persuade men to be of the same mind with us, that such a system may be ultimately declared for by the majority. Anon.

Security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows, that whatever form thereof appears most likely to insure it to us with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others.-Paine.

On a comparison of free with arbitrary governments, we perceive the former are distinguished from the latter, by imparting a much greater share of happiness to those who live under them; and this in a manner too uniform to be imputed to chance or secret causes. He who wills the end, must will the means which ascertain it.—Robert Hall.

[We shall not be careful to ascertain with strict philosophical accuracy the several forms of government distinguished in ancient times by various denominations. It is enough that we employ these denominations in their modern and current acceptation. The several species of government to be noticed are, democracy-aristocracy—monarchy-mixed governments—and despotism.]

SECTION I.

DEMOCRACY OR REPUBLICANISM.

A DEMOCRACY is a form of government, in which the people at large, either collectively or by representation, constitute the legislature.—Paley.

What is called a Republic, is not any particular form of government; it is wholly characteristical of the purport, matter, or object for which government ought to be instituted, and on which it is to be employed,-RES-PUBLICA, the public affairs, or the public good; or literally translated, the public thing. It is a word of a good original, referring to what ought to be the character and business of government; and in this sense it is naturally opposed to the word monarchy, which has a base original signification. It means arbitrary power in an individual person; in the exercise of which, himself, and not the res-publica, is the object.-Paine.

In republics, such as those established in America, the sovereign power, or the power over which there is no control, and which controls all others, remains where nature placed it,—in the people; for the people in America are the fountain of power. It remains there as a matter of right, recognised in the constitutions of the country, and the exercise of it is constitutional and legal. This sovereignty is exercised in electing and deputing a certain number of persons to represent and act for the whole, and who, if they do not act right, may be displaced by the same power that placed them there, and others elected and deputed in their stead, and the wrong measures of former representatives corrected and brought right by this means. Therefore, the republican form and principle leaves no room for insurrection, because it provides and establishes a rightful means in its stead.-Idem.

The repository where the sovereign power is placed is the first criterion of distinction between a country under a despotic form of government and a free country. In a country under a despotic government, the Sovereign is the only free man in it. In a republic, the people retaining the sovereignty themselves, naturally and necessarily retain freedom with it: for, wherever the sovereignty is, there must the freedom be; the one cannot be in one place, and the other in another.-Idem.

The administration of a republic is supposed to be directed by certain fundamental principles of right and justice, from which there cannot, because there ought not, to be any deviation; and whenever any deviation appears, there is a kind of stepping out of the republican principle, and an approach towards the despotic one. This administration is executed by a select number of persons, periodi cally chosen by the people, and act as representatives and in behalf of the whole, and who are supposed to enact the same laws, and pursue the same line of administration, as the whole of the people would do were they assembled together. The public good is to be their object. It is therefore necessary to understand what Public Good is. Public Good is not a term opposed to the good of individuals; on the contrary, it is the good of every individual collected. It is the good of all, because it is the good of every one: for as the public body is every individual collected, so the public good is the collected good of those