396 NATURAL AND CIVIL 



America, is therefore proposed to her citizen^^ 

 pot as the most perfect standard of what man 

 can ever attain to, but only as the best form, 

 which we have as yet been able to discover : 

 Not as a form, which is to bind our heirs and 

 * posterity forever, but as a form which is refer- 

 red to them, to alter and improve, as they shall 

 find best. Upon this idea, it is one of the con- 

 stituent and essential parts of the American 

 government, that conventions shall be called at 

 certain periods of time, to alter, amend, and im- 

 prove the present form and constitution of gov- 

 ernment ; as the state, circumstances, and im- 

 provements of society, shall then require. Thus 

 provision is made, that the improvement of 

 government, shall keep pace with the improve- 

 ment of society in America. And no policy 

 would appear more puerile or contemptible to 

 the people of America, than an attempt to bind 

 posterity to our forms, or to confine them to 

 our degrees of knowledge, and improvement : 

 The aim is altogether the reverse, to make pro- 

 vision for the perpetual improvement and pro- 

 gression of the government itself. 



As this kind of government is not the same 

 as that, which has been called monarchy, aris- 

 tocracy, or democracy ; as it had a conspicuous 

 origin in America, and has not been suffered to 

 prevail in any other part of the globe, it would 

 be no more than just and proper, to distinguish 

 it by its proper name, and call it. The American 

 System of GovernmeTit. 



Constitution of Vermont. The gov- 

 ernment of Vermont is of the same nature, and 

 founded upon the sanie principles, as the other. 



