ple
were all massed together in the four urban ones. This
circumstance was regarded, and with reason, as the salvation of
the republic. Appius Claudius had distributed the lower people
among the whole tribes, but Fabius classed then again in the four
urban ones, and thence acquired the surname of 'Maximus.' The
Censors very five years took a survey of the citizens, and
distributed the people in the tribes to which they legally
belonged; so that the ambitious could not render themselves
masters of their suffrages, nor the people abuse their own
power."--C. 8.

The Romans had good reason for styling Fabius "Maximus," who
discovered this way of preventing the lower classes, by their number,
from acquiring an overwhelming superiority in the government of the
state. He achieved as great a good for his country by so doing, as by
baffling Hannibal after the battle of Cannae. But for that circumstance
the Roman constitution would have become, after the change of Appius
Claudius, a mere prototype of the American democracy; a government
constantly swayed by a numerical majority of the lowest class of
citizens. There can be no doubt that the matter at issue, in this
question, is the most material which can engage the attention of
political philosophers and statesmen in a free country, and that, on
its determination, its ultimate fate is entirely dependant. So great
is the number of the working-classes in every old and opulent
community, compared to those who possess the advantages of property
and superior education, that nothing is more certain than that, if the
elective franchise be widely diffused, and no mode of classifying the
votes, as at Rome, has been discovered, the sway of a numerical
majority of incompetent electors will, erelong, become irresistible.
Certain ruin then awaits the state. It was that which ruined Athens in
ancient, which has destroyed Poland in modern times, and is fast
undermining the foundations of the social union in America. The Roman
method of giving every citizen a vote, but classifying them in such a
way that the paramount influence of a mere numerical majority was
prevented, and the practical direction of affairs was thrown into the
hands of the better class of citizens, though not free from objection,
is the most perfect method of combining universal suffrage in the
citizens, with the real direction of affairs by those fitted to
conduct them, w