Page:Armatafragment00ersk.djvu/51

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¬in their unceasing and impetuous revolutions, are repelled from it by a kind of instinctive terror; since, if the sun could by its influence detach them from their force centrifugal, they would be absorbed with the swiftness of light- ning into the centre, and, like the fly allured by the light of the taper, be instantly consumed. ¬"The powers given to executive governments for great national purposes, like those given to the sun, ought to be extensive, nor can they be dangerous if they are sufficiently balanced, and that balance preserved upon the very prin- ciple of centrifugal force ; because the existence of a strong government, and the possibility of its misconduct, are the strongest securities of freedom. Every page of the history of Armata illustrates this important truth ; since, in the same proportion that executive power has at different periods become the objects of salutary jealousy, popular privileges have been uniformly strengthened from the abuses, and when at last a grand and glorious struggle to put an ¬end ¬