d in their service, and kings do not consent to be their
ministers and to do their bidding. A political aristocracy has at
heart only the interests of its order, and pursues no line of policy
but the extension or preservation of its privileges. Having little to
gain and much to lose, it opposes every political change that would
either strengthen the crown or elevate the people. The nobility in the
French Revolution were the first to desert both the king and the
kingdom, and kings have always found their readiest and firmest allies
in the people. The people in Europe have no such bitter feelings
towards royalty as they have towards the feudal nobility--for kings
have never so grievously oppressed them. In Rome the patrician order
opposed alike the emperor and the people, except when they, as
chivalric nobles sometimes will do, turned courtiers or demagogues.
They were the people of Rome and the provinces that sustained the
emperors, and they were the emperors who sustained the people, and gave
to the provincials the privileges of Roman citizens.

Guaranties against excessive centralism are certainly needed, but the
statesman will not seek them in the feudal organization of society--in
a political aristocracy, whether founded on birth or private wealth,
nor in a privileged class of any sort. Better trust Caesar than
Brutus, or even Cato. Nor will he seek them in the antagonism of
interests intended to neutralize or balance each other, as in the
English constitution. This was the great error of Mr. Calhoun. No man
saw more clearly than Mr. Calhoun the utter worthlessness of simple
paper constitutions, on which Mr. Jefferson placed such implicit
reliance, or that the real constitution is in the state itself, in the
manner in which the people themselves are organized; but his reliance
was in constituting, as powers in the state, the several popular
interests that exist, and pitting them against each other--the famous
system of checks and balances of English states men. He was led to
this, because he distrusted power, and was more intention guarding
against its abuses than on providing for its free, vigorous, and
healthy action, going on the principle that "that is the best
government which governs least." But, if the opposing interests could
be made to balance one another perfectly, the result would be an
equilibrium, in which power would be brought to a stand-still; and if
not, the stronger would succeed and swall