Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v3.djvu/226

210 have heard of in modern times. Thebes was a democracy, but on different principles from modern democracies. Representation was not known then. This is the acquirement of modern times. Athens, like Thebes, was generally democratic, but sometimes changed. In these two states, the people transacted their business in person; consequently they could not be of any great extent. There was a perpetual variance between the members of this confederacy, and its ultimate dissolution was attributed to this defect. The weakest were obliged to call for foreign aid, and this precipitated the ruin of this confederacy. The Achaean league had more analogy to ours, and gives me great hopes that the apprehensions of gentlemen with respect to our confederacy are groundless. They were all democratic, and firmly united. What was the effect? The most perfect harmony and friendship subsisted between them, and they were very active in guarding their liberties. The history of that confederacy does not present us with those confusions and internal convulsions which gentlemen ascribe to all governments of a confederate kind. The most respectable historians prove this confederacy to have been exempt from those defects.

[Here Mr. Monroe read several passages in Polybius, tending to elucidate and prove the excellent structure of the Achæan league, and the consequent happy effects of this excellency.]

He then continued: This league was founded on democratical principles, and, from the wisdom of its structure, continued a far greater length of time than any other. Its members, like our states, by their confederation, retained their individual sovereignty, and enjoyed a perfect equality. What destroyed it? Not internal dissensions. They were surrounded by great and powerful nations—the Lacedemonians, Macedonians, and Ætolians. The Ætolians and Lacedemonians making war on them, they solicited the assistance of Macedon, who no sooner granted it than she became their oppressor. To free themselves from the tyranny of the Macedonians, they prayed succor from the Romans, who, after relieving them from their oppressors, soon totally enslaved them.

The Germanic body is a league of independent principalities. It has no analogy to our system. It is very injudiciously organized. Its members are kept together by the