is, on the one hand, to make the number authorized to convict so large, as to afford a reasonable assurance that there will be no conviction without clear proof of guilt, and, on the other, to make it so small, as to afford equal assurance that the guilty will not escape. I do not pretend to suggest how large the majority. ought to be, in order to ensure this result; but it is perfectly certain that, as the matter now stands, in nine-tenths of the cases in which the power may be called into exercise, it will be found utterly unavailing for any good purpose. Indeed, it can scarcely fail to be extremely mischievous; for a charge of guilt preferred, and not sustained, will always strengthen the President, by enlisting public sympathy in his favor, and will thus indirectly sanction the very abuse for which he was subjected to trial. A President tried and acquitted will always be more powerful than he would have been, had he done nothing to bring his conduct into question.

There is a species of responsibility to which the President is subjected, in the fact that the people may refuse to re-elect him. This will certainly be felt in some degree, by those Presidents for whom a re-election possesses greater charms than any possible abuse of power. But this is, under any circumstances, a feeble security to the people; and it will be found of no value whatever, as soon as the government shall have approached a little nearer, than at present, to the confines of absolute power. Besides, the reasoning could not apply to a President in his second term, and who, according to the established usage, could not expect to be re-elected. This is the period through which he may revel in all the excesses of usurped authority, without responsibility, and almost without check or control.

The re-eligibility of the President, from term to term, is the necessary source of numberless abuses. The fact that the same President may be elected, not for a second term only, but for a third, or fourth, or twentieth, will ere long suggest to him the most corrupting uses of his powers, in order to secure that object. At present there is no danger of this. Presidents are now made, not by the free suffrages of the people, but by party management; and there are always more than one in the successful party, who are looking to their own turn in the presi

dential office. It is too early yet for a monopoly of that high honor; but the time will come, when the actual incumbent will find means to buy off opposition, and to ensure a continuance in office, by prostituting the trusts which belong to it. This is so obviously within *the natural course of things, that [*123] it may well excite our surprise that the convention should have left the public liberty wholly unguarded, at so assailable a point. It is surely a plain dictate of wisdom, and a necessary provision in every free government, that there should be some definite limit to the duration of executive power, in the same hands. We cannot hope to be free from the corruptions which result from an abuse of presidential power and patronage, until that officer shall be eligible only for one term -a long term if you please-and until he shall be rendered more easily and directly responsible to the power which appoints him.

Regarding this work of Judge Story as a whole, it is impossible not to be struck with the laborious industry which he has displayed, in the collection and preparation of his materials. He does not often indulge himself in speculations upon the general principles of government, but confines himself, with great strictness, to the particular form before him. Considering him as a mere lawyer, his work does honor to his learning and research, and will form a very useful addition to our law libraries. But it is not in this light only that we are to view it. The author is a politician, as well as a lawyer, and has taken unusual pains to justify and recommend his own peculiar opinions. This he has done, often at the expense of candor and fairness, and, almost invariably, at the expense of historical truth. We may well doubt, therefore, whether his book will not produce more evil than good, to the country; since the false views which it presents, of the nature and character of our government, are calculated to exert an influence over the public mind, too seriously mischievous to be compensated by any new lights which it sheds upon other parts of our Constitution. Indeed, it is little else than a labored panegyric upon that instrument. Having made it, by forced constructions, and strange misapprehensions of history, to conform to his own beau ideal of a perfect government, he can discern in it nothing that is

deficient, nothing that is superfluous. And it is his particular pleasure to arm it with strong powers, and surround it with imposing splendors. In his examination of the legislative department, he has displayed an extraordinary liberality of concession, in this respect. There is not a single important power ever exercised or claimed for congress, which he does not vindicate and maintain. The long contested powers to protect manufactures, to construct roads, with an endless list of similar objects to which the public money may be applied, present no serious difficulty to his mind. An examination of these several subjects, in detail, would swell this review beyond its proper limits, and is rendered *unnecessary by the great prin[*124] ciples which it has been my object to establish. I allude to them here, only as illustrating the general character of this book, and as showing the dangerous tendency of its political principles. It is, indeed, a strong argument in favor of federal power; and when we have said this, we have given it the character which the author will most proudly recognize. And it is not for the legislature alone, that these unbounded powers are claimed; the other departments come in for a full share of his favor. Even when he is forced to condemn, he does it with a censure so faint, and so softened and palliated, as to amount to positive praise.

It is too late for the people of these States to indulge themselves in these undiscriminating eulogies of their Constitution. We have, indeed, every reason to admire and to love it, and to place it far above every other system, in all the essentials of good government. Still, it is far from being perfect, and we should be careful not to suffer our admiration of what is undoubtedly good in it, to make us blind to what is as undoubtedly evil. When we consider the difficulties under which the convention labored, the great variety of interests and opinions. which it was necessary for them to reconcile, it is matter of surprise that they should have framed a government so little liable to objection. But the government which they framed is not that which our author has portrayed. Even upon the guarded principles for which I have contended in this review, the action of the whole system tends too strongly towards consolidation. Much of this tendency, it is true, might be cor

rected by ordinary legislation; but, even then, there would remain in the federal government an aggregate of powers, which nothing but an enlightened and ever-vigilant public opinion could confine within safe limits. But if our author's principles be correct, if ours be, indeed, a consolidated and not a federative system, I, at least, have no praises to bestow on it. Monarchy in form, open and acknowledged, is infinitely preferable to monarchy in disguise.

In a

The principle that ours is a consolidated government of all the people of the United States, and not a confederation of sovereign States, must necessarily render it little less than omnipotent. That principle, carried out to its legitimate results, will assuredly render the federal government the strongest in the world. The powers of such a government are supposed to reside in a majority of the people; and, as its responsibility is only to the people, that majority may make it whatever they please. To whom is that majority itself responsible? Upon the theory that it possesses all the powers of the government, *there is nothing to check, nothing to control it. population strictly homogeneous in interests, character [*125] and pursuits, there is no danger in this principle. We adopt it in all our State governments, and in them it is the true principle; because the majority can pass no law which will not affect themselves, in mode and degree, precisely as it affects others. But in a country so extensive as the United States, with great differences of character, interests and pursuits, and with these differences, too, marked by geographical lines, a fair opportunity is afforded for the exercise of an oppressive tyranny, by the majority over the minority. Large masses of mankind are not apt to be swayed, except by interest alone; and wherever that interest is distinct and clear, it presents a motive of action too strong to be controlled. Let it be supposed that a certain number of States, containing a majority of the people of all the States, should find it to their interest to pass laws oppressive to the minority, and violating their rights as secured by the Constitution. What redress is there, upon the principles of our author? Is it to be found in the federal tribunals? They are themselves a part of the oppressing government, and are, therefore, not impartial judges of the powers of that government.

Is it to be found in the virtue and intelligence of the people? This is the author's great reliance. He acknowledges that the system, as he understands it, is liable to great abuses; but he supposes that the virtue and intelligence of the people will, under all circumstances, prove a sufficient corrective. Of what people? Of that very majority who have committed the injustice complained of, and who, according to the author's theory, are the sole judges whether they have power to do it or not, and whether it be injustice or not. Under such a system as this, it is a cruel mockery to talk of the rights of the minority. If they possess rights, they have no means to vindicate them. The majority alone possess the government; they alone measure its powers, and wield them without control or responsibility. This is despotism of the worst sort, in a system like ours. More tolerable, by far, is the despotism of one man, than that of a party, ruling without control, consulting its own interests, and justifying its excesses under the name of republican liberty. Free government, so far as its protecting power is concerned, is made for minorities alone.

But the system of our author, while it invites the majority to tyrannize over the minority, and gives the minority no redress, is not safe even for that majority itself. It is a system unbalanced, unchecked, without any definite rules to prevent it from running into abuse, and becoming a victim to its own excesses. The separation and complete *independence of [ *126] the several departments of the government is usually supposed to afford a sufficient security against an undue enlargement of the powers of any one of them. This is said to be the only real discovery in politics, which can be claimed by modern times; and it is generally considered a very great discovery, and, perhaps, the only contrivance by which public liberty can be preserved. The idea is wholiy illusory. It is true, that public liberty could scarcely exist without such separation, and, for that reason, it was wisely adopted in our systems. But we should not rely on it, with too implicit a confidence, as affordng in itself, any adequate barrier against the encroachments of power, or any adequate security for the rights and liberties of the people. I have little faith in these balances of government; because there is neither knowledge nor wisdom enough in man