lives of his people; an
aristocracy may crush the poorer classes into a state of bondage, and
the poorer classes being invariably the most numerous, may resort to
their physical force to control those who are wealthy, and despoil them
of their possessions. Correctly speaking, the struggle is between the
plebeian and the patrician, the poor and the rich, and it is therefore
that a third power has, by long experience, been considered as necessary
(an apex, or head to the pyramid of society), to prevent and check the
disorders which may arise from struggles of ambition among the upper
classes.

Wherever this apex has been wanting, there has been a continual attempt
to possess it; whenever it has been elective, troubles have invariably
ensued; experience has, therefore, shewn that, for the benefit of all
classes, and the maintenance of order, the wisest plan was to make it
hereditary. It is not to be denied that despotism, when it falls into
good hands, has rendered a nation flourishing and happy, that an
oligarchy has occasionally, but more rarely, governed with mildness and
a regard to justice; but there never yet was a case of a people having
seized upon the power, but the result has been one of rapacity and
violence, until a master-spirit has sprung up and controlled them by
despotic rule. But, although one despot, or one oligarchy may govern
well, they are exceptions to the general rule; and, therefore, in
framing a government, the rule by which you must be guided, is on the
supposition that each class will encroach, and the laws must be so
constituted as to guard against the vices and passions of mankind.

To suppose that a people can govern themselves, that is to say directly,
is absurd. History has disproved it. They may govern themselves
indirectly, by selecting from the mass the more enlightened and
intelligent, binding themselves to adhere to their decisions, and, at
the same time, putting that due and necessary check to the power
invested in their delegates, which shall prevent their making an
improper use of it. The great point to arrive at, is the exact measure
and weight of their controlling influences, so as to arrive at the just
equipoise; nor can these proportions be always the same, but must be
continually added to or reduced, according to the invariable
progressions or recessions which must ever take place in this world,
where nothing stands still.

The history of nations will shew, that althou