Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/161

Rh the organization of legislative bodies, of which it is probable, a very beneficial use will at some future period be made. Conventions are creatures of election; of election, made upon the widest scale; they have been so successfully practised in America, as to awaken Mr. Adams's piety ; they have probably prevented, and have never excited civil war; they have justified none of the charges exhibited against election, and have begotten all the political happiness enjoyed in the United States, for nearly the last thirty years. This is an operation of election, through the organ of a single chamber.

Why has this operation been so completely consistent, both in war and peace, in danger and safety, in producing order and happiness? On the contrary, why has the same principle, election, as Mr. Adams proves by a multitude of examples, produced in most cases (excepting the United States} confusion, civil war, riot and crimes? Mr. Adams in commemorating the discovery of conventions, ought to have remarked and explained the reason of these different effects from the same principle.

The solution of the difficulty justifies one ground taken in defence of our elective system. Election, as heretofore practised, was of spurious birth, and corrupted by rivals. Here, privileged orders and hierarchies did not exist to corrupt it, and it drew its origin from a society composed of people, and not of orders. Heretofore election was the martyr of arts and obloquies invented and practised by its enemies; and it only remains for us to determine, whether we will become the bubbles of examples, produced by frauds, of which the ancients were the victims.

The wonderful virtue and chastity of election and representation in the case of conventions, may be owing in a degree, to something different in the constitution of that species of power, from the constitution of an ordinary legislature. The chief differences usually existing are, that members of conventions arc chosen by a greater number of elec-