In this we
do not follow the author, but we and the author travel together upon the
same safe and middle path.
The theory contained in his book is not to furnish principles for making
a new Constitution, but for illustrating the principles of a
Constitution already made. It is a theory drawn from the _fact_ of our
government. They who oppose it are bound to show that his theory
militates with that fact; otherwise, their quarrel is not with his book,
but with the Constitution of their country. The whole scheme of our
mixed Constitution is to prevent any one of its principles from being
carried as far as, taken by itself, and theoretically, it would go.
Allow that to be the true policy of the British system, then most of the
faults with which that system stands charged will appear to be, not
imperfections into which it has inadvertently fallen, but excellencies
which it has studiously sought. To avoid the perfections of extreme,
all its several parts are so constituted as not alone to answer their
own several ends, but also each to limit and control the others;
insomuch that, take which of the principles you please, you will find
its operation checked and stopped at a certain point.
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