ble jealousy. But a great change has been wrought. The care of foreign relations, the maintenance of armies and navies, and their command and control, have devolved on another government. Even the power of appointment, so exclusively, one would think, an executive power, is, in very many of the States, held or controlled by the legislature; that department either making the principal appointments itself, or else surrounding the chief executive magistrate with a council of its own election, possessing a negative upon his nominations.

Nor has it been found easy, nor in all cases possible, to preserve the judicial department from the progress of legislative encroachment. Indeed, in some of the States, all judges are appointed by the legislature; in others, although appointed by the executive, they are removable at the pleasure of the legislature. In all, the provision for their maintenance is necessarily to be made by the legislature. As if Montesquieu had never demonstrated the necessity of separating the departments of governments; as if Mr. Adams had not done the same thing, with equal ability, and more clearness, in his Defence of the American Constitutions; as if the sentiments of Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Madison were already forgotten; we see, all around us, a tendency to extend the legislative power over the proper sphere of the other departments. And as the legislature, from the very nature of things, is the most powerful department, it becomes necessary to provide, in the mode of forming it, some check which shall insure deliberation and caution in its measures. all legislative power rested in one house, it is very problematical whether any proper independence could be given, either to the executive or the judiciary. Experience does not speak encouragingly on that point. If we look through the several constitutions of the States, we shall perceive that generally the departments are most distinct and independent where the legislature is composed of two houses, with equal authority, and mutual checks. If all legislative power be in one popular body, all other 'power, sooner or later, will be there also.

If

I wish, now, Sir, to correct a most important mistake in the manner in which this question has been stated. It has been said, that we propose to give to property, merely as such, a control over the people, numerically considered. But this I take not to be at all the true nature of the proposition. The Senate

is not to be a check on the people, but on the House of Repre sentatives. It is the case of an authority, given to one agent, to check or control the acts of another. The people, having conferred on the House of Representatives powers which are great, and, from their nature, liable to abuse, require, for their own security, another house, which shall possess an effectual negative on the first. This does not limit the power of the people; but only the authority of their agents. It is not a restraint on their rights, but a restraint on that power which they have delegated. It limits the authority of agents in making laws to bind their principals. And if it be wise to give one agent the power of checking or controlling another, it is equally wise, most manifestly, that there should be some difference of character, sentiment, feeling, or origin in that agent who is to possess this control. Otherwise, it is not at all probable that the control will ever be exercised. To require the consent of two agents to the validity of an act, and yet to appoint agents so similar, in all respects, as to create a moral certainty that what one does the other will do also, would be inconsistent, and nugatory. There can be no effectual control, without some difference of origin, or character, or interest, or feeling, or sentiment. And the great question in this country has been, where to find, or how to create, this difference, in governments entirely elective and popular.

Various modes have been attempted in various States. In some, a difference of qualification has been required in the persons to be elected. This obviously produces little or no effect. All property qualification, even the highest, is so low, as to produce no exclusion, to any extent, in any of the States. A difference of age in the persons elected is sometimes required; but this is found to be equally unimportant. Neither has it happened, that any consideration of the relative rank of the members of the two houses has had much effect on the character of their constituent members. Both in the State governments, and in the United States government, we daily see persons elected into the House of Representatives who have been members of the Senate. Public opinion does not attach so much weight and importance to the distinction, as to lead individuals greatly to regard it. In some of the States, a different sort of qualification in the electors is required for the two houses; and this is

probably the most proper and efficient check. But such has not been the provision in this Commonwealth, and there are strong objections to introducing it. In other cases, again, there is a double election for senators; electors being first chosen, who elect senators. Such is the case in Maryland, where the senators are elected for five years, by electors appointed in equal numbers by the counties; a mode of election not unlike that of choosing representatives in the British Parliament for the boroughs of Scotland. In this State, the qualification of the voters is the same for the two houses, and there is no essential difference in that of the persons chosen. But, in apportioning the Senate to the dif ferent districts of the State, the present constitution assigns to each district a number proportioned to its public taxes. Whether this be the best mode of producing a difference in the construction of the two houses, is not now the question; but the question is, whether this be better than no mode.

The gentleman from Roxbury called for authority on this subject. He asked, what writer of reputation had approved the principle for which we contend. I should hope, Sir, that, even if this call could not be answered, it would not necessarily follow that the principle should be expunged. Governments are instituted for practical benefit, not for subjects of speculative reasoning merely. The best authority for the support of a particular principle or provision in government is experience; and of all experience, our own, if it have been long enough to give the principle a fair trial, should be most decisive. This provision has existed for forty years, and while so many gentlemen contend that it is wrong in theory, no one has shown that it has been either injurious or inconvenient in practice. No one pretends that it has caused a bad law to be enacted, or a good one to be rejected. To call on us, then, to strike out this provision, because we should be able to find no authority for it in any book on government, would seem to be like requiring a mechanic to abandon the use of an implement, which had always answered all the purposes designed by it, because he could find no model of it in the patent-office.

But, Sir, I take the principle to be well established, by writers of the greatest authority. In the first place, those who have treated of natural law have maintained, as a principle of that law, that, as far as the object of society is the protection of

something in which the members possess unequal shares, it is just that the weight of each person in the common councils should bear a relation and proportion to his interest. Such is the sentiment of Grotius, and he refers, in support of it, to several institutions among the ancient states.

Those authors who have written more particularly on the subject of political institutions have, many of them, maintained similar sentiments. Not, indeed, that every man's power should be in exact proportion to his property, but that, in a general sense, and in a general form, property, as such, should have its weight and influence in political arrangement. Montesquieu speaks with approbation of the early Roman regulation, made by Servius Tullius, by which the people were distributed into classes, according to their property, and the public burdens apportioned to each individual according to the degree of power which he possessed in the government. By this regulation, he observes, some bore with the greatness of their tax because of their proportionable participation in power and credit; others consoled themselves for the smallness of their power and credit by the smallness of their tax. One of the most ingenious of political writers is Mr. Harrington, an author not now read so much as he deserves. It is his leading object, in his Oceana, to prove, that power naturally and necessarily follows property. He maintains that a government founded on property is legitimately founded; and that a government founded on the disregard of property is founded in injustice, and can only be maintained by military force. "If one man," says he, "be sole landlord, like the Grand Seignior, his empire is absolute. If a few possess the land, this makes the Gothic or feudal constitution. If the whole people be landlords, then is it a commonwealth." "It is strange," says an ingenious person in the last century, "that Harrington should be the first man to find out so evident and demonstrable a truth as that of property being the true basis and measure of power." In truth, he was not the first. The idea is as old as political science itself. It may be found in Aristotle, Lord Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh, and other writers. Harrington seems, however, to be the first writer who has illustrated and expanded the principle, and given to it the

*Spence's Anecdotes of Books and Men, p. 75.

effect and prominence which justly belong to it. To this sentiment, Sir, I entirely agree. It seems to me to be plain, that, in the absence of military force, political power naturally and necessarily goes into the hands which hold the property. In my judgment, therefore, a republican form of government rests, not more on political constitutions, than on those laws which regulate the descent and transmission of property.

If the nature of our institutions be to found government on property, and that it should look to those who hold property for its protection, it is entirely just that property should have its due weight and consideration in political arrangements. Life and personal liberty are no doubt to be protected by law; but property is also to be protected by law, and is the fund out of which the means for protecting life and liberty are usually furnished. We have no experience that teaches us that any other rights are safe where property is not safe. Confiscation and plunder are generally, in revolutionary commotions, not far before banishment, imprisonment, and death. It would be monstrous to give even the name of government to any association in which the rights of property should not be completely secured. The disastrous revolutions which the world has witnessed, those political thunder-storms and earthquakes which have shaken the pillars of society to their very deepest foundations, have been revolutions against property. Since the honorable member from Quincy has alluded on this occasion to the history of the ancient states, it would be presumption in me to dwell upon it. It may be truly said, however, I think, that Rome herself is an example of the mischievous influence of the popular power when disconnected with property and in a corrupt age. It is true the arm of Cæsar prostrated her liberty; but Cæsar found his support within her very walls. Those who were profligate and necessitous, and factious and desperate, and capable, therefore, of being influenced by bribes and largesses, which were distributed with the utmost prodigality, outnumbered and outvoted, in the tribes and centuries, the substantial, sober, prudent, and faithful citizens. Property was in the hands of one description of men, and power in those of another; and the balance of the constitution was destroyed. Let it never be

• President Adams.