In every form of government, we have ſeen a ſenate, or little council, a compoſition, generally, of thoſe officers of ſtate, who have the moſt experience and power, and a few other members ſelected from the higheſt ranks, and moſt illuſtrious reputations. On theſe leſſer councils, with the firſt magiſtrate at their head, generally reſts the principal burden of adminiſtration, a ſhare in the legiſlative, as well as executive and judicial authority of government. The admiſſion of ſuch ſenates to a participation of theſe three kinds of power, has been generally obſerved to produce in the minds of their members an ardent ariſtocratical ambition, graſping equally at the prerogatives of the firſt magiſtrate, and the privileges of the people, and ending in the nobility of a few families, and a tyrannical oligarchy: but in thoſe ſtates, where the ſenates have been debarred from all executive power, and confined to the legiſlative, they have been obſerved to be firm barriers againſt the encroachments of the crown, and often great ſupporters of the liberties of the people. The Americans then, who have carefully confined their ſenates to the legiſlative power, have done wiſely in adopting them.
We have ſeen, in every inſtance, another and a larger aſſembly, compoſed of the body of the people, in ſome little ſtates; of repreſentatives choſen by the people in others; of members appointed by the ſenates, and ſuppoſed to repreſent the people, in a third ſort; and of perſons appointed by themſelves or the ſenate, in certain ariſtocracies; to prevent them from becoming oligarchies. The Americans then, whoſe aſſemblies are the moft adequate, proportional, and equitable repreſentations of the people, that are
