as a means of administration. This is not evident at
first sight; for those in power are apt to look upon the institution
of elective functionaries as one concession, and the subjection of
the elected magistrate to the judges of the land as another. They
are equally averse to both these innovations; and as they are more
pressingly solicited to grant the former than the latter, they accede
to the election of the magistrate, and leave him independent of the
judicial power. Nevertheless, the second of these measures is the only
thing that can possibly counterbalance the first; and it will be found
that an elective authority which is not subject to judicial power will,
sooner or later, either elude all control or be destroyed. The courts of
justice are the only possible medium between the central power and the
administrative bodies; they alone can compel the elected functionary
to obey, without violating the rights of the elector. The extension of
judicial power in the political world ought therefore to be in the exact
ratio of the extension of elective offices: if these two institutions
do not go hand in hand, the State must fall into anarchy or into
subjection.

It has always been remarked that habits of legal business do not render
men apt to the exercise of administrative authority. The Americans have
borrowed from the English, their fathers, the idea of an institution
which is unknown upon the continent of Europe: I allude to that of
the Justices of the Peace. The Justice of the Peace is a sort of mezzo
termine between the magistrate and the man of the world, between the
civil officer and the judge. A justice of the peace is a well-informed
citizen, though he is not necessarily versed in the knowledge of the
laws. His office simply obliges him to execute the police regulations of
society; a task in which good sense and integrity are of more avail than
legal science. The justice introduces into the administration a certain
taste for established forms and publicity, which renders him a most
unserviceable instrument of despotism; and, on the other hand, he is not
blinded by those superstitions which render legal officers unfit members
of a government. The Americans have adopted the system of the English
justices of the peace, but they have deprived it of that aristocratic
character which is discernible in the mother-country. The Governor of
Massachusetts *p appoints a certain number of justices of the peace in
every count