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GOVERNMENT PURELY ELECTIVE.

are compelled to adopt both the principles and the policy dictated by their constituents. To attempt to stem the torrent of popular passion and clamour, by a policy at once firm and enlightened, must belong to representatives somewhat more firmly seated than any which are to be found in Congress. Public men in other countries may be the parasites of the people, but in America they are necessarily so. Independence is impossible. They are slaves, and feel themselves to be so. They must act, speak, and vote according to the will of their master. Let these men hide their chains as they will, still they are on their limbs, galling their flesh, and impeding their motions; and it is, perhaps, the worst and most demoralizing result of this detestable system, that every man, ambitious of popular favour,-and in America who is not so?-is compelled to adopt a system of reservation. He keeps a set of exoteric dogmas, which may be changed or modified to suit the taste or fashion of the moment. But there are esoteric opinions, very different from any thing to be found in State documents, or speeches in Congress, or 4th of July orations, which embody the

DEPENDENCE OF THE LEGISLATURE.

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convictions of the man, and which are not to be surrendered up at the bidding of a mob.

than what they are.

I speak now of minds of the higher order. The majority of Congress are fitted for nothing better God meant them to be tools, and they are so. But there are men among them qualified to shine in a higher sphere; who stand prominently out among the meaner spirits by whom they are surrounded, and would be distinguished in any country by vigour, activity, and comprehension of thought. These men must feel, that to devote their great powers to support and illustrate the prejudices of the ignorant and vulgar, is to divert their application from those lofty purposes for which they were intended. It cannot be without a sense of degradation that they are habitually compelled to bear part in the petty squabbles of Congress; to enter keenly into the miserable contests for candles-ends and cheeseparings; to become the cats' paws of sectional cupidity; to dole out prescribed opinions; to dazzle with false glitter, and convince with false reasoning; to flatter the ignorant, and truckle to the base; to have no object of ambition but the

offices of a powerless executive; to find no field for the exercise of their higher faculties; to know they are distrusted, and, judging from the men with whom they mingle, to feel they ought to be so.

It is to be wished that the writings of Burke were better known and appreciated in America. Of all modern statesmen, Burke brought to the practical duties of legislation the most gifted and philosophical mind. In an age prolific in great men, he stood confessedly the greatest; and while the efforts and the eloquence of his contemporaries were directed to overcome mere temporary emergencies, Burke contemplated the nobler achievement of vindicating unanswerably the true principles of enlightened government, and bequeathing to posterity the knowledge by which future errors might be avoided, and future difficulties overcome.

It is this loftiness of purpose which constitutes the leading distinction of Burke, when compared with contemporary or succeeding statesmen. They spoke for the present; he for all times, present and future. Their wisdom was directed to meet the immediate perils and exigencies of the state; his to establish

great and memorable principles, by which all perils and all difficulties might be successfully encountered. The consequence has been, that while their words have passed away, his endure, and exert a permanent and increasing influence on the intellect of mankind. Who now resorts for lessons in political wisdom to the speeches of North, or Chatham, or Pitt, or Fox? but where is the statesman who would venture to profess himself unread in those of Burke?

That the opinions of this great political philosopher were sometimes erroneous may be admitted, yet it may truly be said that they were never founded on mere narrow views of temporary expediency, and that his errors were uniformly those of a grand and glorious intellect, scarcely less splendid in failure than in triumph.

The nature of the connexion which ought to exist between the representative and his constituents, and the duties it imposes, are finely illustrated in the final address of Burke to the electors of Bristol. It were well if the people, both of England and America, would read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the following noble passages, not more remarkable for

8

their wisdom and eloquence, than for their tone of

dignified independence.

"It is the duty of the representative," says this memorable man, "to sacrifice his repose, his pleasures, his satisfactions, to his constituents. But his unbiassed opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or any set of men living. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment, and HE BETRAYS INSTEAD OF SERVING YOU if he sacrifice it to your opinion.”

Again.

"If government were a matter of will upon any side, yours, without question, ought to be superior. But government and legislation are matters of rea→ son and judgment, not of inclination. And what sort of reason is that, in which the determination precedes the discussion; in which one set of men deliberate and another decide; and where those who form the conclusion are perhaps three hundred miles distant from those who hear the arguments?"

Once more.