lic eye, as to excite a deep sensibility through the republican body of the nation. No further confirmation was wanting to fix the President unalterably in the opinion, long entertained by him, that in this defect of the Constitution lurked the germ, which, unless timely eradicated, was destined to destroy the happy equilibrium of powers in the General government, and between the General and State governments. In a letter to Wm. B. Giles, he writes:--"If there ever had been an instance in this or the preceding administrations, of federal judges so applying principles of law as to condemn a federal or acquit a republican offender, I should have judged them in the present case with more charity. All this, however, will work well. The nation will judge both the offender and judges for themselves. If a member of the executive or legislature does wrong, the day is never far distant when the people will remove him. They will see then, and amend the error in our constitution, which makes any branch independent of the nation. They will see that one of the great co-ordinate branches of the government, setting itself in opposition to the other two, and to the common sense of the nation, proclaims impunity to that class of offenders which endeavors to overturn the constitution, and are themselves protected in it by the constitution itself for impeachment is a farce which will not be tried again. If their protection of Burr produces this amendment, it will do more good than his condemnation would have done. Against Burr, personally, I never had one hostile sentiment. I never, indeed, thought him an honest, frank-dealing man, but considered him as a crooked gun, or other perverted machine, whose aim or shot you could never be sure of. Still, while he possessed the confidence of the nation, I thought it my duty to respect in him their confidence, and to treat him as if he deserved it: and if his punishment can be commuted now for an useful amendment of the constitution, I shall rejoice in it.”

While on the subject of the independence of the Judiciary, it may be proper to examine the opinions of Mr. Jefferson at a subsequent date, in a more general sense, and under a more dispassionate contemplation of the question, than was practicable in the state of sensibility excited by the particular case of Burr. The tenure of good behavior allotted to the federal Judges, was a defect in the Constitution, of which no one thought at the time of its adoption, 'nor until the abusive tendencies of the principle had begun to develope themselves in action. The monstrous amplitude of jurisdiction assumed during the federal ascendency, nearly co-extensive with the common law, the arrogance and severity of the Judges against of

fenders under the Sedition Law, and the subsequent failure of the impeachment of Judge Chase for the most flagrant irregularities of official conduct, seem first to have awakened the thinking part of the public in general, and Mr. Jefferson in particular, to a sense of the dangerous error which made one of the three branches of government so effectually independent of the nation. His solicitudes upon this important subject appeared to increase every year afterwards, following him steadily into his retirement, as new occasions of usurpation administered new aliment to his alarms, and superadded materials for anxious political reflection. The following extract of a letter to William T. Barry, in 1822, evinces the state of his convictions at that period, and the earnestness of his endeavors to procure the necessary amendment of the Constitution.

"Very many and very meritorious were the worthy patriots who assisted in bringing back our government to its republican tack. To preserve it in that will require unremitting vigilance. Whether the surrender of our opponents, their reception into our camp, their assumption of our name, and apparent accession to our objects, may strengthen or weaken the genuine principles of republicanism, may be a good or an evil, is yet to be seen. I consider the party division of whig and tory the most wholesome which can exist in any government, and well worthy of being nourished, to keep out those of a more dangerous character. We already see the power, installed for life, responsible to no authority (for impeachment is not even a scarecrow,) advancing with a noiseless and steady pace to the great object of consolidation. The foundations are already deeply laid by their decisions, for the annihilation of constitutional State rights, and the removal of every check, every counterpoise to the ingulphing power of which themselves are to make a sovereign part. If ever this vast country is brought under a single government, it will be one of the most extensive corruption, indifferent and incapable of a wholesome care over so wide a spread of surface. This will not be borne, and you will have to choose between reformation and revolution. If I know the spirit of this country, the one or the other is inevitable. Before the canker is become inveterate, before its venom has reached so much of the body politic as to get beyond control, remedy should be applied. Let the future appointments of judges be for four or six years, and renewable by the President and Senate. This will bring their conduct, at regular periods, under revision and probation, and may keep them in equipoise between the general and special governments. We have erred in this point, by copying England, where certainly it is a good thing to have the judges independent of the King. But we have omitted to copy their caution also, which makes a judge removable on the address

of both legislative Houses. That there should be public functionaries independent of the nation, whatever may be their demerit, is a solecism in a republic, of the first order of absurdity and inconsistency."

At the Revolution in England it was considered a great point gained in favor of liberty, that the commissions of the Judges, which had hitherto been during the pleasure of the King, should thenceforth be given during good behavior; and that the question of good behavior should be left to the vote of a simple majority in the two Houses of Parliament. A Judiciary, dependant on the will of the King, could never have been any other than a most oppressive instrument of tyranny; nothing, then, could be more salutary than a change to the tenure of good behavior, with the concomitant restraint of impeachment by a simple majority. The founders of the American Republic were more cordial in their jealousies of the Executive than either of the other branches; so true was this of Mr. Jefferson in particular, that he at first thought the qualified negative given to that magistrate on all the laws, should have been much further restricted. They, therefore, very properly and consistently adopted the English reformation of making the Judges independent of the Executive. But in doing this, they as little suspected they had made them independent of the nation, by requiring a vote of two thirds, in the Senatorial branch, to effect a removal. Experience has proved such a majority impracticable, where any defence is made, in a body of the strong political partialities and antipathies which ordinarily prevail. In the impeachment of Judge Pickering of New Hampshire, no defence was attempted, otherwise the party vote of more than one third of the Senate would have acquitted him. The Judiciary of the United States, then, is an irresponsible body; and history has established, if reason could not have foreseen, the 'slow and noiseless' despotism of its career, under the sanctuary of such a tenure. If the mischief is acknowledged, the only question should be, not when, but what should be the remedy? "I would not, indeed," says Mr. Jefferson, "make the Judges dependant on the Executive authority, as they formerly were in England; but I deem it indispensable to the continuance of this government, that they should be submitted to some practical and impartial control; and that this, to be impartial, must be compounded of a mixture of State and Federal authorities. It is not enough that honest men

are appointed Judges. All know the influence of interest on the mind of man, and how unconsciously his judgment is warped by that influence. To this bias add that of the esprit de corps, of their peculiar maxim and creed, that it is the office of a good Judge to enlarge his jurisdiction,' and the absence of responsibility; and how can we expect impartial decision between the General government, of which they are so eminent a part, and an individual State, from which they have nothing to hope or fear. We have seen too, that, contrary to all correct example, they are in the habit of going out of the question before them, to throw an anchor ahead, and grapple further hold for future advances of power. They are then, in fact, the corps of sappers and miners, steadily working to undermine the independent rights of the States, and to consolidate all power in the hands of that government, in which they have so important a freehold estate. But it is not by the consolidation or concentration of powers, but by their distribution, that good government is effected." "I repeat," he adds, “that I do not charge the Judges with willful and ill-intentioned error; but honest error must be arrested, when its toleration leads to public ruin. As, for the safety of society, we commit honest maniacs to Bedlam, so Judges should be withdrawn from the bench, whose erroneous biases are leading us to dissolution. It may, indeed, injure them in fame or in fortune; but it saves the Republic, which is the first and supreme law."

The latter part of Mr. Jefferson's administration was afflicted by a crisis in our foreign relations, which demanded the exercise of all that fortitude and emulous self-denial, which particularly immortalized the introductory stages of the Revolution, and charged the entire responsibility of the war upon Great Britain. Unfortunately, the fierce political passions and animosities engendered by the terrible contests of opinion, which had distracted the nation, and the demoralizing mania of commercial cupidity and avarice engendered by a twenty-four year's interval of peace, greatly interrupted on the present occasion, that spirit of indissoluble cohesion between the States, which, and which alone, carried us triumphantly through the crisis of emancipation, and of revolution from monarchism to republicanism. The generous enthusiasm of the spirit of '76 had, in a considerable measure, evaporated. Every description of embargo, and every degree of commercial deprivation, which was then

too little to satisfy the voluntary rivalry of self-immolation in the cause of country, was now too great to be endured, though clothed with the authority of law, and mercifully ordained for averting the otherwise inevitable and overwhelming calamities of a war, not with England alone, but with nearly the whole continent of Europe.

The memorable embargo of Mr. Jefferson was one of those extraordinary measures, which are occasionally indispensable to counteract extraordinary emergencies. There never was a situation of the world, which rendered the measure more imperative with America, than on the present occasion; nor is it probable there will ever exist a parallel situation. The causes which combined to produce such a phenomenon in our foreign relations, are too substantially understood to require dilatation. From the renewal of hostilities between Great Britain and France, in 1803, down to the period at which the embargo was enacted, the commerce of the United States was subjected to a steady, deliberate and progressive accumulation of rival depredations by the belligerents, until it was effectually annihilated with nearly all the world. In the tremendous struggle for ascendency, which animated these powerful competitors, and convulsed the European world to its centre, the laws of nature, and of nations, were utterly disregarded by both. The maritime interests of the United States constituted the desecrated medium through which the antagonists vied in the attempt to crush and overpower each other, the injuries inflicted on our commerce by the one, being retaliated by the other, not on the aggressor, but on the innocent and peaceable victim to their united ferocity.

Anterior to the above named epoch, however, Great Britain had commenced her system of desolating interpolations upon the established law of nations. She first forbade to neutrals all trade with her enemies in time of war, which they had not in time of peace. This deprived them of their trade from port to port of the same nation. Then she forbade them to trade from the port of one nation to that of any other at war with her, although a right fully exercised in time of peace. And these prohibitions she had the audacity to assert, by declaring places blockaded, before which she had not a single vessel of war, contrary to all reason and the usages of civilized nations; nay, she declared even places blockaded which her united forces would be incompetent to effect, such as entire coasts, and