; name nearly all our military
leaders, which leaders, once named, are removable but by themselves. The
juries, our judges of all fact, and of law when they choose it, are
not selected by the people, nor amenable to them. They are chosen by an
officer named by the court and executive. Chosen, did I say? Picked up
by the sheriff from the loungings of the court-yard, after every thing
respectable has retired from it. Where then is our republicanism to be
found? Not in our constitution certainly, but merely in the spirit of
our people. That would oblige even a despot to govern us republicanly.
Owing to this spirit, and to nothing in the form of our constitution,
all things have gone well. But this fact, so triumphantly misquoted by
the enemies of reformation, is not the fruit of our constitution, but
has prevailed in spite of it. Our functionaries have done well, because
generally honest men. If any were not so, they feared to show it.

But it will be said, it is easier to find faults than to amend them. I
do not think their amendment so difficult as is pretended. Only lay down
true principles, and adhere to them inflexibly. Do not be frightened
into their surrender by the alarms of the timid, or the croakings of
wealth against the ascendancy of the people. If experience be called
for, appeal to that of our fifteen or twenty governments for forty
years, and show me where the people have done half the mischief in these
forty years, that a single despot would have done in a single year;
or show half the riots and rebellions, the crimes and the punishments,
which have taken place in any single nation, under Kingly government,
during the same period. The true foundation of republican government
is the equal right of every citizen, in his person and property, and
in their management. Try by this, as a tally, every provision of our
constitution, and see if it hangs directly on the will of the people.
Reduce your legislature to a convenient number for full, but orderly
discussion. Let every man who fights or pays, exercise his just and
equal right in their election. Submit them to approbation or rejection
at short intervals. Let the executive be chosen in the same way, and for
the same term, by those whose agent he is to be; and leave no screen of
a council behind which to skulk from responsibility. It has been thought
that the people are not competent electors of judges learned in the law.
But I do not know that this is true, and