l of whom exerted equally their best endeavors for
its success, and have a common right to the merits of its acquisition.
So also in the civil revolution of 1801. Very many and very meritorious
were the worthy patriots who assisted in bringing back our government
to its republican tack. To preserve it in that will require unremitting
vigilance. Whether the surrender of our opponents, their reception into
our camp, their assumption of our name, and apparent accession to
our objects, may strengthen or weaken the genuine principles of
republicanism, may be a good or an evil, is yet to be seen. I consider
the party division of whig and tory the most wholesome which can exist
in any government, and well worthy of being nourished, to keep out those
of a more dangerous character. We already see the power, installed
for life, responsible to no authority (for impeachment is not even a
scare-crow), advancing with a noiseless and steady pace to the great
object of consolidation. The foundations are already deeply laid by
their decisions, for the annihilation of constitutional State rights,
and the removal of every check, every counterpoise to the ingulphing*
power of which themselves are to make a sovereign part. If ever this
vast country is brought under a single government, it will be one of the
most extensive corruption, indifferent and incapable of a wholesome care
over so wide a spread of surface. This will not be borne, and you will
have to choose between reformation and revolution. If I know the spirit
of this country, the one or the other is inevitable. Before the canker
is become inveterate, before its venom has reached so much of the body
politic as to get beyond control, remedy should be applied. Let the
future appointments of judges be for four or six years, and renewable
by the President and Senate. This will bring their conduct, at regular
periods, under revision and probation, and may keep them in equipoise
between the general and special governments. We have erred in this
point, by copying England, where certainly it is a good thing to have
the judges independent of the King. But we have omitted to copy their
caution also, which makes a judge removable on the address of
both legislative Houses. That there should be public functionaries
independent of the nation, whatever may be their demerit, is a solecism
in a republic, of the first order of absurdity and inconsistency.

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