t calculated to secure the end for
which a nation is at the expense of supporting it.

Various forms of government have affected to style themselves a
republic. Poland calls itself a republic, which is an hereditary
aristocracy, with what is called an elective monarchy. Holland calls
itself a republic, which is chiefly aristocratical, with an hereditary
stadtholdership. But the government of America, which is wholly on the
system of representation, is the only real Republic, in character and in
practice, that now exists. Its government has no other object than the
public business of the nation, and therefore it is properly a republic;
and the Americans have taken care that This, and no other, shall
always be the object of their government, by their rejecting everything
hereditary, and establishing governments on the system of representation
only. Those who have said that a republic is not a form of government
calculated for countries of great extent, mistook, in the first
place, the business of a government, for a form of government; for
the res-publica equally appertains to every extent of territory and
population. And, in the second place, if they meant anything with
respect to form, it was the simple democratical form, such as was the
mode of government in the ancient democracies, in which there was no
representation. The case, therefore, is not, that a republic cannot be
extensive, but that it cannot be extensive on the simple democratical
form; and the question naturally presents itself, What is the best form
of government for conducting the Res-Publica, or the Public Business
of a nation, after it becomes too extensive and populous for the simple
democratical form? It cannot be monarchy, because monarchy is subject
to an objection of the same amount to which the simple democratical form
was subject.

It is possible that an individual may lay down a system of principles,
on which government shall be constitutionally established to any extent
of territory. This is no more than an operation of the mind, acting by
its own powers. But the practice upon those principles, as applying to
the various and numerous circumstances of a nation, its agriculture,
manufacture, trade, commerce, etc., etc., a knowledge of a different
kind, and which can be had only from the various parts of society. It is
an assemblage of practical knowledge, which no individual can possess;
and therefore the monarchical form is as much limited, in