ow up all the rest. The
theory of checks and balances is admirable if the object be to trammel
power, and to have as little power in the government as possible; but
it is a theory which is born from passions engendered by the struggle
against despotism or arbitrary power, not from a calm and philosophical
appreciation of government itself. The English have not succeeded in
establishing their theory, for, after all, their constitution does not
work so well as they pretend. The landed interest controls at one
time, and the mercantile and manufacturing interest at another. They
do not perfectly balance one another, and it is not difficult to see
that the mercantile and manufacturing interest, combined with the
moneyed interest, is henceforth to predominate. The aim of the real
statesman is to organize all the interests and forces of the state
dialectically, so that they shall unite to add to its strength, and
work together harmoniously for the common good.

CHAPTER VIII.

CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT--CONCLUDED.

Though the constitution of the people is congenital, like the
constitution of an individual, and cannot be radically changed without
the destruction of the state, it must not be supposed that it is wholly
withdrawn from the action of the reason and free-will of the nation,
nor from that of individual statesmen. All created things are subject
to the law of development, and may be developed either in a good sense
or in a bad; that is, may be either completed or corrupted. All the
possibilities of the national constitution are given originally in the
birth of the nation, as all the possibilities of mankind were given in
the first man. The germ must be given in the original constitution.
But in all constitutions there is more than one element, and the
several elements maybe developed pari passu, or unequally, one having
the ascendency and suppressing the rest. In the original constitution
of Rome the patrician element was dominant, showing that the
patriarchal organization of society still retained no little force.
The king was only the presiding officer of the senate and the leader of
the army in war. His civil functions corresponded very nearly to those
of a mayor of the city of New York, where all the effective power is in
the aldermen, common council, and heads of departments. Except in name
he was little else than a pageant. The kings, no doubt, labored to
develop and extend the royal element