nation in ignorance, a moderate portion of useful knowledge would be
universally disseminated. If your Lordship has travelled in the
democratic cantons of Switzerland, you must have seen the herdsman with
the staff in one hand and the book in the other. In the constituent
Assembly of France was found a peasant whose sagacity was as
distinguished as his integrity, whose blunt honesty over-awed and
baffled the refinements of hypocritical patriots. The people of Paris
followed him with acclamations, and the name of Père Gerard will long be
mentioned with admiration and respect through the eighty-three
departments.

From these hints, if pursued further, might be demonstrated the
expediency of the whole people 'intruding themselves' on the office of
legislation, and the wisdom of putting into force what they may claim as
a right. But government is divided into two parts--the legislative and
executive. The executive power you would lodge in the hands of an
individual. Before we inquire into the propriety of this measure, it
will be necessary to state the proper objects of the executive power in
governments where the principle of universal representation is admitted.
With regard to that portion of this power which is exerted in the
application of the laws, it may be observed that much of it would be
superseded. As laws, being but the expression of the general will, would
be enacted only from an almost universal conviction of their utility,
any resistance to such laws, any desire of eluding them, must proceed
from a few refractory individuals. As far, then, as relates to the
internal administration of the country, a Republic has a manifest
advantage over a Monarchy, inasmuch as less force is requisite to compel
obedience to its laws.

From the judicial tribunals of our own country, though we labour under a