nment. As those democracies increased in population, and the
territory extended, the simple democratical form became unwieldy and
impracticable; and as the system of representation was not known, the
consequence was, they either degenerated convulsively into monarchies,
or became absorbed into such as then existed. Had the system of
representation been then understood, as it now is, there is no reason
to believe that those forms of government, now called monarchical or
aristocratical, would ever have taken place. It was the want of
some method to consolidate the parts of society, after it became too
populous, and too extensive for the simple democratical form, and also
the lax and solitary condition of shepherds and herdsmen in other parts
of the world, that afforded opportunities to those unnatural modes of
government to begin.

As it is necessary to clear away the rubbish of errors, into which the
subject of government has been thrown, I will proceed to remark on some
others.

It has always been the political craft of courtiers and
court-governments, to abuse something which they called republicanism;
but what republicanism was, or is, they never attempt to explain. Let us
examine a little into this case.

The only forms of government are the democratical, the aristocratical,
the monarchical, and what is now called the representative.

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.

Every government that does not act on the principle of a Republic, or
in other words, that does not make the res-publica its whole and sole
object, is not a good government. Republican government is no other than
government established and conducted for the interest of the public, as
well individually as collectively. It is not necessarily connected
with any particular form, but it most naturally associates with the
representative form, as being bes