are susceptible, to bestow upon executive power an aspect, both formidable and inconsistent with the principles by which the constitution intended to mould it. The great check imposed upon executive power, was a popular mode of election; and the true object of jealousy, which ought to attract the attention of the people of every state, is any circumstance, tending to diminish or destroy that check. It was also a primary intention of the constitution, to keep executive power independent of legislative; and although a provision was made for its election by the House of Representatives in a possible case, that possible case never was intended to be converted into the active rule, so as to destroy, in a degree, the line of separation and independency between executive and legislative power. The controversy is not, therefore, between larger and smaller states, but between the people of every state, and the House of Representatives. Is it better that the people-a fair majority of the popular principle— should elect executive power; or that a minor faction should be enabled to embarrass and defeat the judgment and will of this majority, and throw the election into the House of Representatives? This is the question. If this amendment should enable the popular principle to elect executive power, and thus keep it separate and distinct from legislation, the intention of the constitution, the interest of the people, and the principles of our policy will be preserved; and if so, it is as I have often endeavored to prove in this debate, the interest of the smaller states themselves that the amendment should prevail. For, sir, is an exposure of their representatives to bribery and corruption, (a thing which may possibly happen at some future day, when men lose that public virtue which now governs them,) an acquisition more desirable than all those great objects, best, (if not exclusively,) attainable, by the election of executive power by the popular principle of the federal government, as the constitution itself meditates and prefers?

So far, then, the amendment strictly coincides with

the constitution, and with the interests of the people of every state in the union. But suppose, by some rare accident, the election should still be sent into the House of Representatives; does not the amendment then afford cause of jealousy to the smaller states? Sir, each state has but one vote, whether it is large or small; and the President and vice president are still to be chosen out of five persons. Such is the constitution in both respects now. To have enlarged the number of nominees, would have increased the occurrence of an election by the House of Representatives; and if, as I have endeavored to prove, it is for the interest of every state, that the election should be made by the popular principle of government and not by this House; then it follows, that whatever would have a tendency to draw the election into this House, is against the interest of every state in the union; and that every state in the union is interested to avoid an enlargement of the nominees, if it would have such a tendency.

Sir, the endeavor to excite a national jealousy against the idea of amending the constitution, is, in my view, infinitely more dangerous and alarming, than even the attempt to marshal states against states. The gentleman from Connecticut, (Mr. Tracy,) has twice pronounced with great emphasis, "man is man," and attempted to make inferences against all attempts to amend our constitution, from the evil moral qualities with which human nature is afflicted! Sir, he has forgotten, that governments as well as nations are constituted of men, and that if the vices of governed man, ought to alarm us for the safety of liberty, the vices of governing man, are not calculated to assuage our apprehensions. Sir, it is this latter species of depravity, which has suggested to the people of America, a new idea, enforced by constitutions. Permit me, to illustrate this new idea, by the terms political law and municipal law. The former is that law, called constitutional, contrived and enacted in the United States, to

control those evil moral qualities, to which this creature "man" is liable, when invested with power! The latter is that law enacted to control the vices of man in his private capacity. If the former species of law should be suffered to remain unchanged, the ef fects would be the same, as if the latter should remain unchanged. Both, unaltered, would be evaded by the ingenuity, avarice and ambition of public man, as well as private man. And therefore, it is as necessary for the preservation of liberty, that constitutions or political law, should be amended from time to time, in order to preserve liberty against the avarice and ambition of men in power, by meeting and controlling their artifices; as it is occasionally to amend municipal law, for the preservation of property against the vicious practices of men not in power.

To illustrate this argument, I will repeat a position which I lately advanced, namely, that the substance of a constitution may be effectually destroyed, and yet its form may remain unaltered. England illustrates it. The government of that country took its present form in the thirteenth century; but its aspect, in substance, has been extremely different at different periods, under the same form. Without taking time to mark the changes, in substance, which have taken place under the form of kings, lords and commons, it will suffice to cast our eyes upon the present state of that government. What are now its chief and substantial energies? Armies, debt, executive patronage, penal laws and corporations. These are the modern energies or substance of the English monarchy; to the ancient English monarchy they were unknown. Of the ancient, they were substantial abuses; for, whether these modern energies are good or bad, they overturned the ancient monarchy substantially, without altering its form. Under every change of administration, these abuses proceeded. The outs were clamorous for preserving the constitution, as they called it; for though divorced from its administration, the hope of getting in,

again caused them to maintain abuses, by which their avarice or ambition might be gratified upon the next turn of the wheel; just as in Prussia, where divorces are common, nothing is more usual than for late husbands to affect a violent passion for a former wife, if she carried off from him a good estate! And the ins, fearing the national jealousy, and the prepossession against amending the form of government, and meeting new abuses by new remedies, brought no relief to the nation. So that, under every change of men, abuses proceeded.

The solution of this effect exists in the species of political craft, similar to priestcraft. Mankind were anciently deprived of their religious liberty, by a dissemination of a fanatical zeal for some idol; in times of ignorance, this idol was of physical structure; and when that fraud was detected, a metaphysical idol in the shape of a tenet or dogma, was substituted for it, infinitely more pernicious in its effects, because infinitely more difficult of detection. The same system has been pursued by political craft. It has ever labored to excite the same species of idolatry and superstition, for the same reason, namely, to conceal its own frauds and vices. Sometimes it sets up a physical, at others, a metaphysical idol, as the object of vulgar superstition. Of one, the former "grand monarch of France;" of the other, the present "church and state” tenet of England, is an evidence. And if our constitution is to be made like the "church and state" tenet of England; a metaphysical, political idol, which it will be sacrilege to amend, even for the sake of saving both that and the national liberty; and if, like that tenet, it is to be exposed to all the means which centuries may suggest to vicious men, for its substantial destruction; it is not hard to imagine that it, also, may become a monument of the inefficacy of unalterable forms of political law to correct avarice and ambition in the new and multifarious shapes they are forever assuming. A constitution may allegorically be considered as a

temple for the preservation of the treasure of liberty. Around it, may be posted one, two or three, or more sentinels; but unless these sentinels are themselves watched by the people, and unless the injuries they are frequently committing upon the temple, are diligently repaid, such is the nature of man in power, that the very sentinels themselves have invariably broken into the temple, and conveyed away the treasure. And this because of the delusion inspired by political idolatry, which forbids nations to meet abuses by amending their governments or constitutions; and teaches them, that municipal law alone will suffice for their happiness.

Permit me, sir, to illustrate this argument by declaring how I would proceed, if such was my design, to destroy the constitution of the United States; premising that I speak prospectively and not retrospectively. I would have recourse to those very energies which constitute the English monarchy; armies, debt, executive patronage, penal laws, and corporations. I would endeavor, by these monarchical energies, to produce the same effects as in England; and I would hide my intentions by exciting a fanatical adoration for the constitution, which I would endeavor to make a metaphysical idol; and which I would myself adore-in order to destroy. Whilst I pretended to be its devotee, it should become my screen.

This, sir, will be the consequence, if the people of the United States should become jealous of amending the constitution; and therefore this species of jealousy, so industriously attempted to be excited, is calculated, if it could operate, to bring upon them the utmost calamity. Abuses of a political system will happen; and amendments only can meet abuses. Public opinion, and not an idolatrous tenet, is the element of our policy; and however the gentleman from Massachusetts, (Mr. Pickering,) may deride the opinion of the people, it is the element in which our policy is rooted, and which can at all times be safely intrusted with moulding their form of government.