s
example to the principle in question, to show by what steps this
tribunal, long useful and efficient, gradually absorbed the power of
the government, and became itself, first oppressive, and then an
instrument in the overthrow of the constitution, would be to write a
history of Rome. Niebuhr is accessible to the public, and Niebuhr knew
more of the _Tribunus Plebis_ than Mr. Calhoun. We cannot find in
Niebuhr anything to justify the author's aim to constitute patrician
Carolina the _Tribunus Plebis_ of the United States.

Lastly, England. England, too, has that safeguard of liberty, "an
organism by which the voice of each order or class is taken through
its appropriate organ, and which requires the concurring voice of all
to constitute that of the whole community." These orders are King,
Lords, and Commons. They must all concur in every law, each having a
veto upon the action of the two others. The government of the United
States is also so arranged that the President and the two Houses of
Congress must concur in every enactment; but then they all represent
the _same_ order or interest, the people of the United States. The
English government, says Mr. Calhoun, is so exquisitely constituted,
that the greater the revenues of the government, the more stable it
is; because those revenues, being chiefly expended upon the lords and
gentlemen, render them exceedingly averse to any radical change. Mr.
Calhoun does not mention that the majority of the people of England
are not represented in the government at all. Perhaps, however, the
following passage, in a previous part of the work, was designed to
meet their case:--

"It is a great and dangerous error to suppose that all
people are equally entitled to liberty. It is a reward to be
earned, not a blessing to be gratuitously lavished on all
alike;--a reward reserved for the intelligent, the
patriotic, the virtuous, and deserving; and not a boon to be
bestowed on a people too ignorant, degraded, and vicious to
be capable either of appreciating or of enjoying it."

Mr. Calhoun does not tell us who is to _bestow_ this precious boon. He
afterwards remarks, that the progress of a people "rising" to the
point of civilization which entitles them to freedom, is "necessarily
slow." How very slow, then, it must be, when the means of civilization
are forbidden to them by law!

With his remarks upon England, Mr. Calhoun terminates his discussion
o