an form of American institutions,
for the same facts present themselves in England. These two nations
do not regard the impeachment of the principal officers of State as a
sufficient guarantee of their independence. But they hold that the
right of minor prosecutions, which are within the reach of the whole
community, is a better pledge of freedom than those great judicial
actions which are rarely employed until it is too late.

In the Middle Ages, when it was very difficult to overtake offenders,
the judges inflicted the most dreadful tortures on the few who were
arrested, which by no means diminished the number of crimes. It has
since been discovered that when justice is more certain and more mild,
it is at the same time more efficacious. The English and the Americans
hold that tyranny and oppression are to be treated like any other crime,
by lessening the penalty and facilitating conviction.

In the year VIII of the French Republic a constitution was drawn up in
which the following clause was introduced: "Art. 75. All the agents of
the government below the rank of ministers can only be prosecuted for
offences relating to their several functions by virtue of a decree of
the Conseil d'Etat; in which the case the prosecution takes place before
the ordinary tribunals." This clause survived the "Constitution de l'An
VIII," and it is still maintained in spite of the just complaints of
the nation. I have always found the utmost difficulty in explaining its
meaning to Englishmen or Americans. They were at once led to conclude
that the Conseil d'Etat in France was a great tribunal, established in
the centre of the kingdom, which exercised a preliminary and somewhat
tyrannical jurisdiction in all political causes. But when I told them
that the Conseil d'Etat was not a judicial body, in the common sense of
the term, but an administrative council composed of men dependent on
the Crown, so that the king, after having ordered one of his servants,
called a Prefect, to commit an injustice, has the power of commanding
another of his servants, called a Councillor of State, to prevent the
former from being punished; when I demonstrated to them that the citizen
who has been injured by the order of the sovereign is obliged to solicit
from the sovereign permission to obtain redress, they refused to credit
so flagrant an abuse, and were tempted to accuse me of falsehood or
of ignorance. It frequently happened before the Revolution that a
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