CHAPTER XIV. 



GOVERNMENT, LAWS, AND RELIGION. 



400. MR. PROFESSOR CHRISTIAN, who has written great piles of 

 Notes on Blackstone s Commentaries, and whose Notes differ from 

 those of the Note-writers on the Bible, in this, that the latter only 

 tend to add darkness to that which was sufficiently dark before, 

 while the Professor s Notes, in every instance, without a single 

 exception, labour most arduously, and not always without success, 

 to render that obscure, which was before clear as the sun now is 

 in Long Island, on this most beautiful fifth of December, 1818 : 

 this Professor, who, I believe, is now a Judge, has, in his Note 

 126 on Book I, drawn what he calls &quot; a distinction &quot; between 

 Political and Civil Liberty, which distinction contains as to ideas, 

 manner, and expressions, a complete specimen of what, in such a 

 case, a writer ought to avoid. 



401. Leaving definitions of this sort to such conceited bunglers 

 as the Professor, I will just give a sketch (for it can be nothing 

 more) of the Government and Laws of this country. 



402. The country is divided into States. Each of these States 

 has its own separate government, consisting of a Governor, 

 Legislative Body, and Judiciary Department. But, then there is 

 a General Government, which is, in fact, the government of the 

 whole nation : for, it alone can do any thing with regard to other 

 nations. This General Government consists of a President, 

 a Senate, a House of Representatives, all which together are called 

 the Congress. The President is elected for four years, the Senate 

 for four years, and the House of Representatives for two years. 



403. In most of the State-Governments, the election is annual 

 for the House of Representatives. In some the Governor and the 

 Senate are elected for a longer period, not exceeding four years 

 in any case. But, in some, the whole, Governor, Senate, and 

 Representatives, are elected ANNUALLY ; and this last appears 

 now to be the prevailing taste. 



404. The suffrage, or qualification of electors, is very various. 

 In some States every free man ; that is, every man who is not 

 bondman or slave, has a vote. In others, the payment of a tax 

 is required. In others, a man must be worth a hundred pounds. 

 In Virginia a man must be a freeholder. 



N 173 



