ly invest any number of my fellow creatures with that unlimited
authority which I should refuse to any one of them.

I do not think that it is possible to combine several principles in
the same government so as at the same time to maintain freedom and
really to oppose them to one another. The form of government which is
usually termed mixt has always appeared to me to be a mere chimera.
Accurately speaking, there is no such thing as a mixt government, with
the meaning usually given to that word; because in all communities
some one principle of action may be discovered which preponderates
over the others. England in the last century--which has been more
especially cited as an example of this form of government--was in
point of fact an essentially aristocratic state, altho it comprized
very powerful elements of democracy; for the laws and customs of the
country were such that the aristocracy could not but preponderate in
the end, and subject the direction of public affairs to its own will.
The error arose from too much attention being paid to the actual
struggle that was going on between the nobles and the people, without
considering the probable issue of the contest, which was really the
important point. When a community actually has a mixt government--that
is to say, when it is equally divided between two adverse
principles--it must either pass through a revolution or fall into
complete dissolution.

I am therefore of opinion that some one social power must always be
made to predominate over the others; but I think that liberty is
endangered when this power finds no obstacle which can retard its
course, and force it to moderate its own vehemence.

Unlimited power is in itself a bad and dangerous thing. Human beings
are not competent to exercise it with discretion. God only can be
omnipotent, because His wisdom and His justice are always equal to His
power. But no power on earth is so worthy of honor for itself that I
would consent to admit its uncontrolled and all-predominant authority.
When I see that the right and the means of absolute command or of
reverential obedience to the right which it represents are conferred
on a people or upon a king, upon an aristocracy or a democracy, a
monarchy or a republic, I recognize the germ of tyranny; and I journey
onward to a land of more hopeful institutions.

In my opinion, the main evil of the present democratic institutions of
the United States does not arise, as is often