whose foundations the Pilgrims had laid (we would reverently say it) after the model of one "not built with hands, eternal in the heavens." For the Federal Constitution corresponds to the spiritual constitution of man, and has elasticity to admit his growth. It is the unity of a triplicity. The universal suffrage expresses the Passion; the legislative and judicial departments, the Intelligence; and the executive, the Will, of the people. This political form was made out ideally by Sir Harry Vane, in his letter to Cromwell, when that remarkable person pretended to call his friends to counsel him as to what form he should give the government of England in the day of his power. Cromwell rejected it on the plea, that the sovereign grace of God, on which all progress depended, could be more readily found in an executive officer, whom a church recognized to be one of God's elect, than in the common sense of the electors of a legislalature. But this was but a new form of the old divine right, as the Protectorate proved; and Sir Harry Vane was farther justified by the growth of our government into an actual fact, a hundred and fifty years later.
It follows from such a political form, that the political action of the nation must reflect the character of the nation, point for point. The suffrage shows the prevalent character of its passion; the Congress and Supreme Court manifest its degree of intelligence, which necessarily will preserve a certain ratio to its passion, since it is elected by it; and the President expresses its will, on the penalty of being removed, if he does not execute its will, and also approve himself to the "sober second thought." It is an inevitable evil, that, like the principle of will in an individual, he will ever be more expressive of the passion than of the intelligence; for his interest depends more immediately upon it. He goes counter to the intelligence, to execute the impulses of the passion. Moreover, the intelligence of the people, as that of the individual is liable to be, is rounded in by its passion; and the too prevalent "doctrine of instructions" increases the danger of this.
In the last analysis, then, all is dependant upon the passion. "Out of the heart are the issues of life."
