In Connecticut and Rhode Island, the periods
are half-yearly. In the other States, South Carolina excepted, they are
annual. In South Carolina they are biennial -- as is proposed in the
federal government. Here is a difference, as four to one, between the
longest and shortest periods; and yet it would be not easy to show, that
Connecticut or Rhode Island is better governed, or enjoys a greater
share of rational liberty, than South Carolina; or that either the one
or the other of these States is distinguished in these respects, and by
these causes, from the States whose elections are different from both.
In searching for the grounds of this doctrine, I can discover but one,
and that is wholly inapplicable to our case. The important distinction
so well understood in America, between a Constitution established by the
people and unalterable by the government, and a law established by the
government and alterable by the government, seems to have been little
understood and less observed in any other country. Wherever the supreme
power of legislation has resided, has been supposed to reside also a
full power to change the form of the government.
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