Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/433

Rh How fortunate it is, that the two systems are so visibly marked by distinct principles, that wilfulness only will be able to view encomiums on one, in any other light than as censures of the other.

It must however be admitted, that in our constitutions and political disquisitions, a struggle between the light of our revolution, and the clouds of previous habits, is also discernible. The numerical analysis, a balance of orders or of powers, and a social compact between nations and their governments, often bewilder us, so as to exhibit reason and prejudice, striving for a reconciliation. Our policy, says one, abhors and rejects orders of men; but, replies the other, it loves and creates orders of power; as if power could exist abstractedly of men. The didactick, dependent, subservient judicial power, is blown up to occupy a niche, in imitation of the English balance, as children imitate cannon, by the help of bladders; and Lepidus is associated with Augustus and Anthony, for the sake of a triumvirate of orders of power, though he never can become a candidate for empire. Thus judicial power may be debauched without tasting the pleasure of sin; and the nation is seduced into a reliance upon one balance against oppression, as heavy as the thunder of the Vatican and the terrors of excommunication, opposed to the power of Bonaparte. And for the imaginary social compact between the king and the people, one as imaginary, is also conjured up, to shoot other old errours into our new system of policy, by the shuttles of old phrases.

The balancing system arose out of the ancient opinion, that the power of a government was unlimited. The American revolution, in exploding that opinion, subverted its consequences. The discovery of limitations upon the power of government then made, was improved to great extent in the establishment of the general government, and demonstrates, that the two modes for preserving a free government, are distinct and incompatible. Unlimited power could never be estimated or balanced, because the human