6*24> OPPOSITION. 



tending elements in health and vigour as long as virtuous government 

 has strength to oppose the delirium of private passion as long as public 

 spirit, the vigour of institutions, and the courage of citizens, present an 

 inseparable barrier to the passions of the multitude, so long those 

 different societies flourish and increase ; but when an alteration takes 

 place in this state of balanced powers, when any one of those sa- 

 lutary checks is moved and its opposite becomes predominant, the 

 government perishes by its own excesses. If the multitude be left 

 without a guide, such anarchy is sure to ensue as caused the bloody 

 troubles of Rome, the disasters of Athens, the sanguinary revolutions 

 of modern times ; when power finds no legal and courageous opposition 

 in its way, it degenerates into tyranny, and by its own enormities pre- 

 cipitates its fall. It is then we behold the sight of mad men and weak 

 men mounting the throne in quick succession, and disappearing as 

 rapidly: such as Caligula, Claudius Nero, Heliogabulus, at first the 

 tyrants, and then the victims of the enslaved populace. From these 

 considerations it would appear, that, that opposition which govern- 

 ments are apt to regard as an obstruction, is in reality, essential to the 

 continuance of their power. It forms their great source of light and 

 support ; left without its regulating and restraining force, they would 

 diverge and go astray, and ultimately fall. The vast volume of history 

 is overspread with examples of the justice of this doctrine. We meet 

 with confirmation of it in the sacred colleges of Memphis, in the Magi 

 in Persia, the Areopagus at Athens, and the Ephori at Sparta. 



Under a representative government, consisting of machinery com- 

 plicated yet simple, a system of checks and counter-checks, mutually 

 aiding and counteracting each other, opposition assumes a more than 

 ordinary importance. To such a constitutional form of government, 

 exercise, agitation, the struggle to overcome difficulties, is as necessary 

 to keep alive its energies and invigorate its impulses, as it is to the 

 individual man. In this state of ballanced powers, a suspicious watch- 

 fulness, a tendency to probe the legality of all acts of the executive, a 

 legal and vigilant opposition to every thing erroneous, every thing 

 arbitrary, every thing unjust, becomes the surest safeguard of the 

 liberties of the 'people, and the strongest arm of government. Such an 

 opposition is nothing less than the representative of public opinion, 

 unsuppressed by hatred, undisturbed by misrepresentation, undisguised 

 by flattery, affection, or prejudice. 



Even admitting that an opposition is deceived in its views, that it has 

 taken up hasty and inconsiderate opinions of measures, and the conduct 

 of an administration, still it is eminently useful ; it instructs in the 

 midst of its errors, it opens new views of subjects, and helps to place 

 them in a proper light. If, for instance, an opposition, even allowing 

 it to make considerable deviations in its course, were to demonstrate to 

 those in power that they had been betrayed into grave faults, that they 

 had swerved from the principles of the constitution and of justice, that 

 those entrusted with the execution of their decrees, had abused the 

 power placed in their hands ; would it not be incumbent on those in 

 power, to pause and 'consider their conduct, to retrieve their errors if 

 possible, to institute an iquiry into the conduct of their subordinates, to 

 restrain and punish them if necessary ; would not such an opposition be 

 as useful to a government based on sound and just principles, as to the 

 nation at large, whose rights it watches with jealousy and suspicion ; 



