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§63. Of the Principles tJiat Should Oovern the Distribution of the 

 Sovereign Powers. 



To determine the modes in which the sovereign powers of the State 

 may be most safely and efficiently distributed in the government, is the 

 great problem of political organization. This problem, however, does 

 not admit of any general solution, but is to be differently solved accord- 

 ing to the character of the people, and the circumstances that surround 

 them, and especially the grade of civilization that characterizes them. 

 There are, indeed, certain general principles governing the subject, that 

 have been evolved by a long and painful experience, and which, when 

 well understood and applied, may be accepted ; but in general, the par- 

 ticular mode of their application must be determined, in a large measure, 

 by experience, and by the natural development of political institutions. 

 For no fact in the constitution of the State is more obvious or more im- 

 portant than that the political institutions of the State are mainly the 

 result of a natural or organic development ; and that, in this fundamental 

 matter, as in all others, the extent and limit of human power is to modify 

 this development, either by conservmg, improving, and perfecting it, or 

 by hindering and destroj-ing it. 



Hence, it is a principle of political organization, as obvious as it is gen- 

 erally disregarded, that political reforms should be cautious and gradual, 

 and such only as are clearly and obviously suggested by the necessities 

 of the times, and a thorough knowledge of existing institutions, their 

 nature and significance, and their practical operation ; for, obviously, 

 political innovations are too serious to be undertaken until necessity de- 

 mands, and they never can be safely adopted without a just appreciation 

 of their effect upon the existing order. On the other hand, reform is as 

 essential to preserve the body politic in health, as are the cares of the 

 physician to the natural man ; and, looking back to the experience of the 

 nations that have appeared and disappeared on the theatre of the world's 

 history, it may be said that their decay and death, when not occasioned by 

 external force, have been the result of defects in their political institutions 

 that might have been reformed. Hence, as it were, we have to pass between 

 Scylla and Charybdis ; and it is almost impossible to avoid, on the one 

 hand, the dangers of injudicious reform, and on the other, those of stupid 

 conservatism, (o) 



Hence, from a logical and scientific point of view, no principle of party 

 division could be more irrational than that on which parties are in fact 

 usually divided, and which is founded upon the distinction between con- 

 servatives, and radicals or liberals. The wise man will be either, as the 

 occasion demands ; or, rather, he will, at all times, be both ; that is, 

 liberal, and even radical, in thought, but conservative in sentiment and 

 in practice. And this suggests another important consideration, which is, 

 that the permanent organization of political parties is itself irrational, 

 and, as constituting imperia in imperio, inconsistent with a rational and 



