nate system, it is full proof against it. The course of passions and events, in this case, were precisely the same as will take place in every simple government of the people, by a succession of their representatives, in a single assembly; and whether that assembly consists of ten members, or five hundred, it will make no difference. In the morning, the decemviri all went to their tribunal, where they took cognizance of all causes and affairs, public and private; justice was administered with all possible equity; and everybody departed with perfect satisfaction. Nothing could be so charming as the regard they professed for the interests of the people, and the protection which the meanest found against the oppression of the great. It was now generally affirmed that there was no occasion for tribunes, consuls, prætors, or any other magistrates. The wisdom, equity, moderation, and humanity of the new government, was admired and extolled. What peace, what tranquillity, what happiness were enjoyed by the public and by individuals! what a consolation! what glory to the decemvirs! Appius Claudius, especially, engrossed the whole glory of the administration in the minds of the people. He acquired so decided an ascendency over his colleagues, and so irresistible an influence with the people, that the whole authority seemed centred in him. He had the art to distinguish himself, peculiarly, in whatever he transacted, in concert with his colleagues. His mildness and affability, his kind condescension to the meanest and weakest of the citizens, and his polite attention in saluting them all by their names, gained him all hearts. Let it be remembered he had, till this year, been the open enemy of the plebeians. As his temper was naturally violent and cruel, his hatred to the people had arisen to ferocity. On a sudden he was become another man; humane, popular, obliging, wholly devoted to please the multitude and acquire their affections. Everybody delighted in the government of the decemvirs, and a perfect union prevailed among themselves. They completed their body of laws, and caused it to be engraved on ten tables. They were ratified by the senate, confirmed by the people in the comitia centuriala, engraven on pillars of brass, and placed in the forum.

The year was upon the point of expiring; and as the consuls and senators found themselves delivered by the new government from the persecutions of the tribunes, and the people from what

they equally hated, the authority of the consuls, both parties agreed in the propriety of choosing ten successors. It was pretended that some further laws might be still wanting; that a year was too short to complete so great a work; and that to carry the whole into full effect, the independent authority of the same magistracy would be necessary. That which must happen upon all annual elections of such a government in one centre, happened in this case. The city was in a greater and more universal ferment than had ever been known. Senators, the most distinguished by age and merit, demanded the office; no doubt to prevent factious and turbulent spirits from obtaining it. Appius, who secretly intended to have himself continued, seeing those great persons, who had passed through all dignities, so eager in pursuit of this, was alarmed. The people, charmed with his past conduct while decemvir, openly clamored to continue him in preference to all others. He affected at first a reluctance, and even a repugnance, at the thought of accepting a second time an employment so laborious, and so capable of exciting jealousy and envy against him. To get rid of his colleagues, and to stimulate them to refuse the office, he declared upon all occasions that, as they had discharged their duty with fidelity, by their assiduity and anxious care for a whole year, it was but just to allow them repose and appoint them successors. The more aversion he discovered, the more he was solicited. The desires and wishes of the whole city, the unanimous and earnest solicitations of the multitude, were at length, with pain and reluctance, complied with. He exceeded all his competitors in artifice. He embraced one, took another by the hand, and walked publicly in the forum, in company with the Duilii and Icilii, the two families who were the principals of the people and the pillars of the tribunate. His colleagues, who had been hitherto his dupes, knowing these popular condescensions to be contrary to his character, which was naturally arrogant, began to open their eyes; but not daring to oppose him openly, they opposed their own address to his management. As he was the youngest among them, they chose him president, whose office it was to nominate the candidates to offices, relying upon his modesty not to name himself; a thing without example, except among the tribunes. But modesty and decency were found in him but feeble barriers against ambition. He not only caused himself to be elected, but excluded all his

colleagues of the last year, and filled up the nine other places with his own tools, three of whom were plebeians. The senate and whole patrician body were astonished at this, as it was thought by them contrary to his own glory and that of his ancestors, as well as to his haughty character. This popular trait entirely gained him the multitude. It would be tedious to relate the manner in which they continued their power from year to year, with the most hardened impudence on their part, the most silly acquiescence of the people, and the fears of the senate and patricians. Their tyranny and cruelty became at length intolerable; and the blood of Virginia, on a father's dagger, was alone sufficient to arouse a stupid people from their lethargy.

Is it not absurd in Nedham to adduce this example, in support of the government of the people by their successive representatives annually chosen? Were not the decemvirs the people's representatives? and were not their elections annual? and would not the same consequences have happened, if the number had been one hundred, or five hundred, or a thousand, instead of ten? "O, but the people of Rome should not have continued them in power from year to year." How will you hinder the people from continuing them in power? If the people have the choice, they may continue the same men; and we certainly know they will; no bonds can restrain them. Without the liberty of choice, the deputies would not be the people's representatives. If the people make a law that the same man shall never serve two years, the people can and will repeal that law; if the people impose upon themselves an oath, they will soon say and believe they can dispense with that oath. In short, the people will have the men whom they love best for the moment, and the men whom they love best will make any law to gratify their present humor. Nay, more, the people ought to be represented by the men who have their hearts and confidence, for these alone can ever know their wants and desires. But these men ought to have some check to restrain them and the people too when those desires are for forbidden fruit-for injustice, cruelty, and the ruin of the minority. And that the desires of the majority of the people are often for injustice and inhumanity against the minority, is demonstrated by every page of the history of the whole world.

We come next to the examples of continuing power in particular persons. The Romans were swallowed up, by continuing

power too long in the hands of the triumvirates of emperors or generals. The first of these were Cæsar, Pompey, and Crassus. But who continued the power of Cæsar? If the people continued it, the argument arising from the example is against a civil government of the people, or by their successive representative assemblies. Was it the senate, was it the standing permanent power in the constitution, that conferred this continuance of power on Cæsar? By no means. It is again necessary to recollect the story, that we may not be imposed on. No military station existed in Italy, lest some general might overawe the republic. Italy, however, was understood to extend only from Tarentum to the Arnus and the Rubicon. Cisalpine Gaul was not reputed to be in Italy, and might be held by a military officer and an army. Cæsar, from a deliberate and sagacious ambition, procured from the people an unprecedented prolongation of his appointments for five years; but the distribution of the provinces was still the prerogative of the senate, by the Sempronian law. Cæsar had ever been at variance with a majority of the senate. In the office of prætor he had been suspended by them. In his present office of consul, he had set them at open defiance. He had no hopes of obtaining from them the prolongation of his power and the command of a province. He knew that the very proposal of giving him the command of Cisalpine Gaul for a number of years would have shocked them. In order to carry his point, he must set aside the authority of the senate, and destroy the only check, the only appearance of a balance, remaining in the constitution. A tool of his, the tribune Vatinius, moved the people to set aside the law of Sempronius, and, by their own unlimited power, name Cæsar as pro-consul of Cisalpine Gaul and Illyricum for five years, with an army of several legions. The senate were alarmed, and in vain opposed. The people voted it. The senate saw that all was lost; and Cato cried, "You have placed a king with his guards in your citadel." Cæsar boasted, that he had prevailed both in obtaining the consulate and the command, not by the concession of the senate, but in direct opposition to their will. He was well aware of their malice, he said. Though he had a consummate command of his temper, and the profoundest dissimulation, while in pursuit of his point, his exuberant vanity braved the world when he had carried it. He now openly insulted the senate, and no longer

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concealed his connection with Pompey and Crassus, whom he had overreached to concur in his appointment. Thus, one of the clearest and strongest examples in history, to show the necessity of a balance between an independent senate and an independent people, is adduced by Nedham in favor of his indigested plan, which has no balance at all. The other example of Augustus, Antony, and Lepidus, is not worth considering particularly; for the trial between them was but a struggle of arms, by military policy alone, without any mixture of civil or political debates or negotiations.

The fourth reason is, "because a succession of supreme powers destroys faction;" which is defined to be "an adhering to an interest distinct from the true interest of the state."

In this particular, one may venture to differ altogether from our author, and deny the fact, that a succession of sovereign authority in one assembly, by popular elections, destroys faction. We may affirm the contrary; that a standing authority in an absolute monarch, or an hereditary aristocracy, is less friendly to the monster than a simple popular government; and that it is only in a mixed government, of three independent orders, of the one, the few, and the many, and three separate powers, the legislative, executive, and judicial, that all sorts of factions, those of the poor and the rich, those of the gentlemen and common people, those of the one, the few, and the many, can at all times be quelled. The reason given by our author is enough to prove this. "Those who are factious, must have time to improve their sleights and projects, in disguising their designs, drawing in instruments, and worming out their opposites." In order to judge of this, let us put two suppositions: 1. Either the succession must be by periodical elections, simply; or, 2, by periodical elections in rotation. And, in either case, the means and opportunities of improving address and systems, concealing or feigning designs, making friends and escaping enemies, are greater in a succession of popular elections, than in a standing aristocracy or simple monarchy, and infinitely greater than in a mixed government. When the monster Faction is watched and guarded by Cerberus with his three heads, and a sop is thrown to him to corrupt or appease him, one mouth alone will devour it, and the other two will give the alarm.

But to return to our first case, a succession in one assembly, by