And, I trust,
America will be the broad and solid foundation of other edifices, not
less magnificent, which will be equally permanent monuments of their
errors.
But it is not to be denied that the portraits they have sketched of
republican government were too just copies of the originals from which
they were taken. If it had been found impracticable to have devised
models of a more perfect structure, the enlightened friends to liberty
would have been obliged to abandon the cause of that species of
government as indefensible. The science of politics, however, like most
other sciences, has received great improvement. The efficacy of various
principles is now well understood, which were either not known at all,
or imperfectly known to the ancients. The regular distribution of power
into distinct departments; the introduction of legislative balances and
checks; the institution of courts composed of judges holding their
offices during good behavior; the representation of the people in the
legislature by deputies of their own election: these are wholly new
discoveries, or have made their principal progress towards perfection in
modern times.
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