y would be
impossible. Or, were we dependent on officers in the army or navy for our
government, legislative and administrative, we would be likely to have
many of our rights circumscribed. Were as many clergymen to frame a
Constitution, and administer laws, we might be under a crushing
priesthood. A government of mere scholars, poets or orators, would be only
a sublime dream. A Constitution of philosophies alone, would glitter with
abstractions beautiful, cold, grand as the snow-capt Alps, and as distant,
too, from the actualities of men! A government of mere gentlemen who have
nothing to do but think for slaves, to enjoy the chase and the
race-ground, to extol their pedigree, and traduce labor, and lead
retainers to war--would be a government for the few over the many, an
aristocracy of blood and privilege, of curled moustache and taper fingers;
but not a republic of patriots, of self-made men, of equal privilege and
just laws. It would be a return to semi-barbarism, to the age of Louis
XIV., or even of Charles I.

This is now the strong tendency in the Rebel States: even along our free
border, but below it, such is the system of representation, that a county
containing only about 3,000 inhabitants, sends as many representatives to
the legislature as another county of 30,000, and a single proprietor casts
as many votes as a whole commune. So much liberty of citizens is already
sacrificed to the chevalier, to the system of forced service.

But were a select number of experienced men, of true statesmen, embracing
different pursuits and professions, educated in different parts of the
world, and drawn together by grand national events,--statesmen born in the
age when liberty had its first grand revival, and was guarded by soberness
of thought, and tried by every variety and extent of sacrifice--by men who
had no professional, exclusive interest to provide for, but who expected
to fight and die for their convictions, who sought only to lay the
foundation of a nationality for future generations, and for the world; who
aimed at a healthful union of all popular interests, both among poor and
rich, among masters and dependents; who provided for freedom of action
under law; of worship and education, of commerce, agriculture, and the
arts; for the easy and equitable support of government,--for its
perpetuity indeed, infusing into it elements that appeal powerfully, both
to the self-interest and the patriotism of the citizens,--I