te men at once bold in war, and timid in peace, is to
look for an impossibility. It may be assumed as a fixed
principle, that wherever you see every one tranquil in a state
which bears the name of a republic, liberty there has been long
since extinct."--C. 9.

The representative system has saved Great Britain and America from
these terrible popular _comitia_, in which, as Montesquieu has truly
said, the mobs of the people became the convulsions of an empire; and
which tore in pieces Poland in modern, as it had done Rome in ancient
times. But does not the real evil exist, despite this liberation from
the actual tumult, in the representative government of a great empire,
as much as in the stormy _comitia_ of an overgrown republic? It is
not the mere strife in the streets, and shedding of blood in civil
warfare, bad as it is, and truly as the "bellum plusquam civile"
exceeds all others in horror, which is the only evil. The separation
of interests, the disregard of common objects in the struggle for
individual elevation, the tyranny of one class by another class, is
the thing which really dissolves the national bonds in every
wide-spread and free community. We see this source of discord
operating with as much force in the divided representation of great
popular states, as in the bloody contests of the Roman forum or the
plain of Volo in Poland. The nullification of South Carolina, the
obnoxious tariff of America, the fierce demands for the repeal of the
union in Ireland, the sacrifice of agricultural and producing, to
commercial and monied interests in Great Britain, prove that these
evils are in full operation among ourselves, as well as our
descendants on the other side of the Atlantic. There is a confusion of
tongues, and separation of mankind from the undue amalgamation of
interests, as well as individuals. Providence has a sure way to punish
the selfishness and presumption of men who seek to build up a Babel of
human construction; and that is to leave them to the consequences of
their own extravagance.

The style of Montesquieu may be judged from the extracts, few and
imperfect as they are, given in the preceding pages. It is not
vehement, eloquent, or forcible; but condensed, nervous, and
epigrammatic. No writer has furnished to succeeding times so many
brilliant passages to quote; but there are many who can be read _en
suite_ with more satisfaction. This is not unfrequently the case with
wri