of resuming its original power. Sensible that at the moment of election
an interest distinct from that of the general body is created, an
enlightened legislator will endeavour by every possible method to
diminish the operation of such interest. The first and most natural mode
that presents itself is that of shortening the regular duration of this
trust, in order that the man who has betrayed it may soon be superseded
by a more worthy successor. But this is not enough; aware of the
possibility of imposition, and of the natural tendency of power to
corrupt the heart of man, a sensible Republican will think it essential
that the office of legislator be not intrusted to the same man for a
succession of years. He will also be induced to this wise restraint by
the grand principle of identification; he will be more sure of the
virtue of the legislator by knowing that, in the capacity of private
citizen, to-morrow he must either smart under the oppression or bless
the justice of the law which he has enacted to-day.

Perhaps in the very outset of this inquiry the principle on which I
proceed will be questioned, and I shall be told that the people are not
the proper judges of their own welfare. But because under every
government of modern times, till the foundation of the American
Republic, the bulk of mankind have appeared incapable of discerning
their true interests, no conclusion can be drawn against my principle.
At this moment have we not daily the strongest proofs of the success
with which, in what you call the best of all monarchical governments,
the popular mind may be debauched? Left to the quiet exercise of their
own judgment, do you think that the people would have thought it
necessary to set fire to the house of the philosophic Priestley, and to
hunt down his life like that of a traitor or a parricide? that, deprived
almost of the necessaries of existence by the burden of their taxes,
they would cry out, as with one voice, for a war from which not a single
ray of consolation can visit them to compensate for the additional
keenness with which they are about to smart under the scourge of labour,
of cold, and of hunger?

Appearing, as I do, the advocate of Republicanism, let me not be
misunderstood. I am well aware, from the abuse of the executive power
in States, that there is not a single European nation but what affords a
melancholy proof that if, at this moment, the original authority of the
people should be restor