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¬a scale properly allotted to them, in which their great weight is judiciously deposited. — It must be obvious to the meanest capacity, that if those very powers which are thus to be balanced can create or materially influence the antagonist power which is to controul them, the consti- tution must at all events be theoretically im- perfect. — I have already informed you why, for a long period, this imperfection had not been felt, and the degree of its operation, when it began to operate, and as it now exists, ought to be correctly and temperately stated ; because, without a reverence for government, whatever defects may be discovered in it, a nation must be dissolved. ¬" You are not therefore to imagine that the portentous war I have described to you arose from a general and wicked prostitution of high station in those who had in a manner the choice of the popular council, nor from a vile corrupt sale of their voices by those who had been chosen, feeling at the time that they were de- voting ¬
