Page:Memoir upon the negotiations between Spain and the United States of America which led to the treaty of 1819.djvu/120

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��ed to hear these declamations, and even the most vigorous and authentick accusations, but nothing makes an impression upon them. The liberty and well being of the state, then, are in the hands of congress, for the Constitution has clothed them with great power, and has entrusted to them the direc- tion and the destinies of the Republick: but intrigue and factions have prevailed in it for years past. The Executive power began to enslave it, if I may so speak, from the iirst years of the presidency of Madison; and if this influence continues to increase, the meetings of congress must necessarily become a mere formality. The Executive will seize the sceptre, and the confederation will go to ruin: some States will submit to the person who has the great- est influence, and others will separate from the Union, and constitute themselves under a different system. Such are the effects which, in the natural or- der of things, the conflict, or badly organized union, of these two powers, will one day produce. The judiciary enjoys an entire independence; but it has not, nor can it have, any influence upon the publick destinies of the confederation. Limited to the administration of civil and criminal justice, it decides according to the laws and established forms of the country; and often by the dictum of the judges, for the Anglo-American legislation is the most informal, the most vague, and the most vici- ous, of which I liave any knowledge. It consists of all the old farrago of the English laws, and the

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