of republican government were too just copies of the originals from
which they were taken. If it had been found impracticable to have
devised models of a more perfect structure, the enlightened friends
to liberty would have been obliged to abandon the cause of that
species of government as indefensible. The science of politics,
however, like most other sciences, has received great improvement.
The efficacy of various principles is now well understood, which
were either not known at all, or imperfectly known to the ancients.
The regular distribution of power into distinct departments; the
introduction of legislative balances and checks; the institution of
courts composed of judges holding their offices during good
behavior; the representation of the people in the legislature by
deputies of their own election: these are wholly new discoveries,
or have made their principal progress towards perfection in modern
times. They are means, and powerful means, by which the excellences
of republican government may be retained and its imperfections
lessened or avoided. To this catalogue of circumstances that tend
to the amelioration of popular systems of civil government, I shall
venture, however novel it may appear to some, to add one more, on a
principle which has been made the foundation of an objection to the
new Constitution; I mean the ENLARGEMENT of the ORBIT within which
such systems are to revolve, either in respect to the dimensions of
a single State or to the consolidation of several smaller States
into one great Confederacy. The latter is that which immediately
concerns the object under consideration. It will, however, be of
use to examine the principle in its application to a single State,
which shall be attended to in another place.
The utility of a Confederacy, as well to suppress faction and to
guard the internal tranquillity of States, as to increase their
external force and security, is in reality not a new idea. It has