just reasoning or correct knowledge, fhould be attended with uncertainty and confufion; or that it fhould be found impoffible to contrive a definition, which may include the numerous, unfettled, and ever varying fignifications, which the term is made to ftand for, and at the fame time accord with the condition and experience of focial life.

Of the two ideas that have been stated of civil liberty, whichever we affume, and whatever reafoning we found upon them, concerning its extent, nature, value, and prefervation, this is the conclufion-that that people, government, and conftitution, is the freeft, which makes the best provifion for the enacting of expedient and falutary laws.

CHAP.

A

S a series of appeals must be finite, there neceffarily exifts in every government a power from which the conftitution has provided no appeal; and which power, for that reafon, may be termed abfolute, omnipotent, uncontrolable, arbitrary, defpotic; and is alike so in all countries.

The perfon, or affembly, in whom this power refides, is called the fovereign, or the supreme power of the state.

Since to the fame power universally appertains the office of eftablishing public laws, it is called also the legislature of the state.

A government receives its denomination from the form of the legiflature; which form is likewise what we commonly mean by the conflitution of a country.

Political writers enumerate three principal forms of government, which, however, are to be regarded

regarded rather as the fimple forms, by fome combination and intermixture of which all actual governments are compofed, than as any where exifting in a pure and elementary state. Thefe forms are,

I. Defpotifm, or abfolute MONARCHY, where the legislature is in a fingle perfon.

II. An ARISTOCRACY, where the legislature is in a felect affembly, the members of which either fill up by election the vacancies in their own body, or fucceed to their places in it by inheritance, property, tenure of certain lands, or in refpect of fome personal right, or qualification.

III. A REPUBLIC, or democracy, where the people at large, either collectively or by reprefentation, conflitute the legislature.

The feparate advantages of MONARCHY are, unity of council, activity, decifion, fecrecy, difpatch; the military ftrength and energy which refult from these qualities of government; the exclufion of popular and ariftocratical contentions; the preventing, by a known rule of fucceffion, of all competition for the fupreme power; and thereby repreffing the hopes, intrigues, and dangerous ambition of afpiring citizens.

The mischiefs, or rather the dangers, of мONARCHY are, tyranny, expence, exaction, military domination; unneceffary wars waged to gratify the paffions of an individual; rifk of the character of the reigning prince; ignorance in the governors of the interefts and accommodation of the people, and a confequent deficiency of falutary regulations; want of conftancy and uniformity in the rules of government, and, proceeding from thence, infecurity of perfon and property.

The feparate advantage of an ARISTOCRACY confifts in the wifdom which may be expected from experience and education-a permanent council naturally poffeffes experience; and the members, who fucceed to their places in it by inheritance, will, probably, be trained and educated with a view to the ftations which they are deftined by their birth to occupy.

The mifchiefs of an ARISTOCRACY are, diffenfions in the ruling orders of the ftate, which, from the want of a common fuperior, are liable to proceed to the moft defperate extremities; oppreffion of the lower orders by the privileges of the higher, and by laws partial to the feparate interefts of the law ma

kers.

The

The advantages of a REPUBLIC are, liberty or exemption from needlefs reftrictions; equal laws; regulations adapted to the wants and circumstances of the people; public fpirit, frugality, averseness to war; the opportunities which democratic affemblies afford to men of every defcription, of producing their abilities and councils to public obfervation, and the exciting thereby, and calling forth to the fervice of the commonwealth, the faculties of its beft citi

zens.

The evils of a REPUBLIC arc, diffenfion, tumults, faction; the attempts of powerful citizens to poffefs themselves of the empire; the confufion, rage, and clamour which are the inevitable confequences of affembling multitudes, and of propounding queflions of flate to the difcuffion of the people; the delay and difclofure of public councils and defigns; and the imbecility of meafures retarded by the neceffity of obtaining the confert of numbers: laftly, the oppreffion of the provinces which are not admitted to a participation in the legiflative power.

A mixed government is compofed by the combination of two or more of the fimple forms of government above defcribed-and, in whatever proportion each form enters into the conftitution

of