ar ahead in the race of improvement, without first subjecting it
to that trial and discipline which are absolutely necessary to fit it
for a new sphere. And the extreme disfavor with which such agitators are
regarded by society is an evidence of the safeguard which our
institutions contain within themselves, which, by moulding the minds of
the people to a proper appreciation of the blessings of limited reform
and of the inevitable and necessary stages and degrees of progress, as
well as of the danger of too sudden and radical change, effectually
counteract the evil influence of the unmethodical and empirical
reformer.

Our Government, in its form, can in no sense of the word be called a
democracy, however much its workings may tend toward such a result in
some far-distant future. It is founded in a recognition of the fact that
however equal all men may be in their civil and political
rights--however the humblest and most ignorant member of the community
may be entitled to 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,' all
men are not equal either in intellectual endowments or personal
acquirements, and consequently in their influence upon society, or
equally fitted either to govern or to choose their rulers. Our ancestors
recognized the fact that the people are not, in the democratic sense of
the term, fitted to govern themselves. Hence they threw around their
system a network of safeguards, and adopted and firmly established
restraints to counteract this principle of democratic rule, without
which our infant republic would soon have fallen to pieces by the force
of its own internal convulsions. And time has proven the wisdom of their
course, and we shall do well if we shall reflect long and deeply before
we essay to remove the least of those restraints, remembering that when
once the floodgate is opened to change, the eternal tide is set in
motion, and a precedent established which will prove dangerous if it be
not carefully restrained within the limits of the necessities of the
times.

To draw an illustration from the constitution of our body politic: we
find that the people meet in their primary elections, and choose a
representative to their State legislature, which representative is,
_theoretically_, considerably advanced above his constituents in
intellect, and in knowledge and experience of governmental affairs, and
of the necessities of the nation; by whom, in conjunction with his
colleagues--and not by the pe