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238 plain, the means of producing it, amidst the various, complicated and multiplied circumstances of human condition and of human pailties, has rendered the knowledge of Government, proverbially, the most difficult of all sciences. To render it therefore in any tolerable degree perfect and permanent, is a task that has baffled human experience and human effort in past ages of the world.

 Such is the constitution of human nature in its best estate, that the individual is inclined to seek his own objects and purposes of happiness in modes and channels inconsistent with those of the whole community. Hence the insecurity of vesting permanent power, for the purposes of Government, in the hands of individuals or a combination of individuals, less than a larger part of the Whole, who are designed to form a social compact. But in this form of society, the insecurity incident to that, where the power has been deposited with an individual, or a limited number of individuals, becomes doubly insecure, from the difficulties attendant on the exercise of powers. Thus retained in the whole body of the community; and the usual result has been that monarchy and aristocracy, prevailed, and seemed under such circumstances best calculated for the purposes of society, as well as to stand the test of time.

    It has been left to our own age, and to our own county, successfully to bring into being a form of government, that leaves the power vested in the majority, and delegates the exercise of it, to individuals for short and limited periods of time, restrained by charted rules, suggested by the experience of ages, and matured, approved and ratified by the consent of the majority, and to be observed and kept until dispensed, or altered by the same mode.

  This form of social compact has obtained the appellation of Republican, because it is supposed practically to consult the equal happiness and welfare of the whole, instead of a part of a community. And inasmuch as its objects ought not to extend beyond those included in the compact, its powers are to be exercised with a single eye to promote the happiness of the nation, who formed it. The individual