In our whole system, national and State, we have shunned all the
defects which unceasingly preyed on the vitals and destroyed the
ancient Republics. In them there were distinct orders, a nobility and a
people, or the people governed in one assembly. Thus, in the one
instance there was a perpetual conflict between the orders in society
for the ascendency, in which the victory of either terminated in the
overthrow of the government and the ruin of the state; in the other, in
which the people governed in a body, and whose dominions seldom
exceeded the dimensions of a county in one of our States, a tumultuous
and disorderly movement permitted only a transitory existence. In this
great nation there is but one order, that of the people, whose power,
by a peculiarly happy improvement of the representative principle, is
transferred from them, without impairing in the slightest degree their
sovereignty, to bodies of their own creation, and to persons elected by
themselves, in the full extent necessary for all the purposes of free,
enlightened and efficient government. The whole system is elective, the
complete sovereignty being in the people, and every officer in every
department deriving his authority from and being responsible to them
for his conduct.

Our career has corresponded with this great outline. Perfection in our
organization could not have been expected in the outset either in the
National or State Governments or in tracing the line between their
respective powers. But no serious conflict has arisen, nor any contest
but such as are managed by argument and by a fair appeal to the good
sense of the people, and many of the defects which experience had
clearly demonstrated in both Governments have been remedied. By
steadily pursuing this course in this spirit there is every reason to
believe that our system will soon attain the highest degree of
perfection of which human institutions are capable, and that the