Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/181

Rh orders, and the practice of a division of power among these orders, as an additional security.

The necessity of applying the principle oi' division, to power, to keep it responsible, is thus acknowledged; and the mode of this application only remains to be considered. This ought to he accommodated to the policy of the country. It is the policy of England to consider the government as invested with all political powers hence the principle of division could reach no farther, than a distribution of power among the departments of government. It is our policy to consider the people as retaining a vast share of political power, and as only investing their government with so much as they deem necessary for their own benefit. Admitting, therefore, that it may be consistent with the English policy to mould executive power, by a computation of the portion of power possessed by the Lords and Commons j it would be inconsistent with our policy to mould it by any similar computation. We do not balance power against power. It is our policy to reduce it by division, in order to preserve the political power of the people, by forbearing to excite the ambition and avarice of individuals.

This new application of division, to an allotment of political power between a nation and its government, was suggested to us, by its inefficacy if confined to an allotment among departments of government; it was seen, that omnipotent political power in a government, however theoretically divided, would become practically consolidated. The people, after this species of division of power, retain the importance and sovereignty of l^ear, after he had divided his kingdom among his three daughters.

To preserve our unexampled division of power between the nation and the government, a multitude of other divisions became necessary, and these were intended to be made, not for the purpose of a balance of power between departments, but by preventing such an accumulation as to awaken ambition^ to defend the sovereignty of the people against all,