or removal from office, for neglect of duties, or abuse of delegated powers. Hence arose the division of authority which now prevails, in the best governments, between the legislative, judicial, and executive departments: each having a check on the power of the others. Of these departments, we proceed briefly to speak.

§2. The Principles of Legislation, include the organization of legislatures; legislative forms, or parliamentary usages; and the principles of natural and divine law, on which all laws should be founded. Legislative power, or the power of making laws, even when entrusted to the immediate representatives of the people, is found to be most safely vested in two co-ordinate bodies, whose separate consent should be necessary to the enactment of a law. The more popular branch should of course be so numerous, as to secure a full representation of the interests and wishes of the whole people; beyond which an increase of numbers obstructs the efficiency and weakens the responsibility. The other branch of the legislature should be so limited as to embrace only the highest order of political talent, experience, and wisdom. Each house of the legislature is usually organized by the appointment, or election of a presiding officer and one or more clerks, or recorders of its proceedings; and each house is the proper judge of the qualifications of its own members.

In the proceedings of legislative, as of other deliberative bodies, certain rules are necessary to be observed, for the preservation of order, and expediting of business. Such rules, having been introduced into the British Parliament, at an early period, have been very generally styled Parliamentary Rules or Usages. Those of our Congress and State Legislatures, though founded on the English rules, have been modified, as the spirit of our institutions, and the change of circumstances required; and they are still liable to farther modifications. They relate to the duties of the presiding officer; the mode of qualifying members; the general order of business; the reference of subjects to committees, or to a committee of the whole house; the mode of receiving and acting upon bills or amendments; the courtesy due to co-ordinate houses, or to the executive; the recording and verification of the journal; and similar topics, of which we have no farther room to speak. These rules are the more important, from their being used in regulating the proceedings of public meetings generally; even those for religious or scientific purposes.

The style of laws should be as precise as possible; and they should be changed as seldom as a due regard to the public welfare will allow; lest they should lose in dignity, and fail in the requisite publicity. They should of course be founded in justice, and should be as few and as simple as the condition of society will admit; leaving things to regulate themselves, wherever they are not likely to produce public injury; unless much good will clearly result from positive legislation. The object of good laws should be, not only to punish crimes when committed, but as far as possible to prevent the commission of them. Montesquieu very properly enumerates four species of crimes; those against religion; against morals; against private security; and against public safety; all of which come within

the cognisance of legislative authority; and require active measures for their prevention of punishment.

As regards punishments, they should be commensurate with offences; and so framed as if possible both to redress the injured party, and vindicate the violated laws; having reference also to the prevention of future crimes, and the moral reformation of the offender. Among the various reasons theoretically assigned to justify the infliction of punishments, those to which we have just referred, including the preservation of public safety, seem to be the strongest. The public exhibition of capital punishments, we are fully persuaded, has a very demoralizing and injurious effect; but such punishment may, we think, be justified in extreme cases, by reason as well as by Scriptural authority. Still it remains a question, with some minds, whether, even in these cases, solitary confinement would not be preferable. Imprisonment for debt, we conceive to be justifiable, only where the debtor is chargeable with fraud, or culpable negligence, in contracting obligations without providing the means of discharging them.

§ 3. The Principles of Adjudication, or judicial action, relate to the organization of courts, with the right construction or interpretation of laws, and their due enforcement. Were the power of executing the laws intrusted to the same persons who make them; it would be much more likely to be abused than when placed in different hands. Hence the propriety of distinct Courts of Justice, and these of different grades; that there may be room for appealing from the lower to the higher, in cases of supposed injustice. The Judges or justices are properly nominated by the Chief Magistrate of the Nation, or State; but to prevent corruption, they should be approved by some responsible body, and should afterwards be independent of the appointing power, at least for a long term of years, except when impeached for misconduct. A judge should not only be impartial, but he should pay implicit obedience to the law, without regard to its merits; except in chancery or constitutional questions; his office being not to make the law, but to declare and enforce it. In general, more confidence may be placed in the decision of three or more judges, than in that of a single individual, though of equal capacity.

To secure more effectually the rights of citizens, the law allows them, in many cases, the privilege of trial by a Jury, composed of their fellow-citizens, who are supposed to have an immediate interest in doing them full justice. The origin of this institution is lost in antiquity; but it was confirmed in England, by Henry II. in the Constitutions of Clarendon, in 1164. The number of jurors, and mode of selecting them, vary in different places and courts. A Grand Jury, consists of at least twelve, and usually, when full, of twenty-three persons; who are charged with a general supervision of the public safety, interest, and morals. Petit Juries, on the other hand, are summoned and sworn for the trial of special causes. The other officers of a court of justice, are the Clerk or Prothonotary, who records its proceedings and decisions; and the Marshall, Sheriff, or Constable, who executes its processes and orders. The Attorneys, Solicitors, and Counsellors, or Advocates, are lawyers, commissioned by the court, to manage causes before it. An Attorney or

Solicitor General, is a lawyer specially appointed by the executive, to manage causes in which the government is a party directly concerned.

The jurisdiction of a court, signifies the extent of its powers, in regard to the causes which may be tried before it. It has original jurisdiction in cases which may come primarily before it; and appellate jurisdiction, in those cases which can only be brought before it by an appeal from some other court. Jurisdiction is also termed civil, when it extends only to the rights of persons and property; and criminal, when it extends to the trial of imputed crimes. Of legal hermeneutics, or the just interpretation of laws, we have only room here to remark that it depends upon the same principles as biblical hermeneutics; that is, the just principles of grammar, logic, ethics, and sound criticism in general.

§ 4. The Principles of Administration of governments, comprehend the greater part of what is usually termed Statesmanship, including Diplomacy. They relate to the duties of the chief Magistrate, and his immediate assistants and advisers, whether called Secretaries, Ministers, or by other names. The propriety of having a single and responsible chief, at the head of every government or society of men, is too evident to need any argument. Whether that chief be called President, or Consul, or King, or Emperor, is far less important, than that he should feel himself responsible to the people, for the manner in which he exercises the power confided to him; and that he should be competent to direct the government beneficially and wisely, with the aid of competent assistants and advisers.

The necessity of a cabinet, or ministry, to assist the chief magistrate, will at once appear, from the manifold duties of the executive branch. These duties are, for the most part, supervisory; to see that the laws are faithfully executed, and to advise for their alteration or improvement; to manage the fiscal and financial affairs of the nation; to superintend public improvements; to preserve friendly intercourse with foreign nations; and to provide for the public defence, with the aid of the military and naval forces. Accordingly, in most governments, there are distinct departments, of State, for correspondence and intercourse with foreign powers; of the Treasury, or of Finance, for the collection and disbursement of the public moneys; of War, for the management of military affairs; of the Navy or Marine, for naval affairs: besides others for various express purposes, as Posts, and Mails; Internal Improvements; Education; Patents; and the like.

Diplomacy, is that portion of Statesmanship, which relates to the intercourse of a government with foreign powers, by means of its accredited agents. It treats of the qualifications, and the duties of these agents; and the rules and precedents by which they are governed in their official acts. Diplomatic agents of the highest rank, are called Ambassadors, or Ministers; of whom ministers plenipotentiary, and envoys extraordinary, usually take precedence. Resident ministers rank next; and inferior to these in official grade, are Chargés d'affaires, and finally Secretaries of legation, and Attachés. As the interests and honor of a nation are confided, in a great degree, to

an ambassador, he should of course be a person of great dignity; of extensive knowledge; well versed in the forms and courtesies due to his station; familiar with the affairs both of his own state, and of that to which he is accredited; and of uncompromising integrity. When affairs of the highest importance are to be transacted, it is perhaps the safest, to intrust them to a Commission, or Embassy of several persons, of the highest capacity, and with joint powers.

Consuls, as they are now styled, are regarded by some as diplomatic officers; but more generally, as commercial agents, stationed in foreign parts, to afford protection to their fellow-citizens, and perform certain magisterial and legal duties; being themselves subject to the civil authorities of the places where they reside, at least, in criminal cases. It is usually a part of their duty, to watch over the fulfilment of commercial treaties, in their respective vicinities; and to transmit to their own government any information which they may deem of service. A Consul General, is one appointed for several places, or over several other consuls.

CHAPTER II.

INTERNATIONAL LAW.

THE branch of International Law, frequently, though less properly, called the Law of Nations, comprises that system of rules, which defines the rights, and prescribes the duties of nations, in their intercourse with each other. It does not properly include what have been termed the internal laws of nations, or the rights and obligations which subsist between the government and the citizens of the same state; and hence those laws are here referred to the subsequent branches of Nomology. But it does properly include the subjects of Commercial, Maritime, and Admiralty Law; in so far as they are instituted not by any one nation singly, but by the common consent of two or more sovereign states. International Law is based upon the principles of justice; and it consists of the natural or necessary laws; the prescriptive, or customary laws; and the positive, or express laws; by which the intercourse of nations is regulated.

A nation, or state, is a community, or body of men, united under one government, for mutual safety and benefit. It consists of officers, who are its agents; and of citizens, from among whom those officers are selected, or to whom they should be responsible. Nations are here considered as moral persons, possessing certain rights, and having certain duties to perform, in that capacity. And what is incumbent upon a nation, is morally incumbent on all its citizens, according to their respective stations and circumstances. The rules which prescribe the rights and duties of governments towards each other, are sometimes termed public laws, and those relating to the citizens of a nation, in regard to foreign powers, are then termed private laws, of nations. It is an admirable remark of Montesquieu, that nations

ought to do each other as much good in peace, and as little harm in war, as possible, consistently with the attainment of their just and reasonable objects.

Perhaps the earliest example of International Law, was afforded by the Grecian States, in the establishment of the Amphictyonic Council; which was designed to settle all disputes between them; though it failed of success. Rome, in its infancy, made some approach to an international code; particularly in the institution of a college of heralds, and of the fecial law and this subject found an able advocate in Cicero; but still the principles of just intercourse with other nations were often violated. At a later period, when the Roman Law became most highly cultivated, the law of nations was incorporated therein, to a considerable extent, though not in a separate or systematic form. Since that period, the Christian religion, the crusades, the institution of chivalry, the feudal system, and the family alliances of European sovereigns, have successively favored the development of International Law, as now generally recognised and understood.

The great work of Grotius, On the Rights of War and of Peace, (De Jure Belli et Pacis), published in 1625, was the first which reduced International Law to a regular system; procuring for its author the title of father of this science. Puffendorf, in his work On the Law of Nature and of Nations, (De Jure Naturæ et Gentium), published in 1672, treated the subject in a highly philosophical manner: but the treatise of Vattel on the Law of Nations, (Droits des Gens), first published in 1758, has contributed, perhaps, more than any other work, to give influence and popularity to this important study. The influence of these and similar works, in modern times, is shown, we think, in the frequency of treaty stipulations; settling points of international law, at least between the parties concerned, which, in former times, might have caused long and bloody wars, and finally have been decided by force, rather than by justice.

We proceed to treat farther of International Law, under the heads of Laws of Nations in Peace; Laws of Nations in War; Maritime Law; and Commercial Law.

§ 1. The Laws of Nations in Peace, depend upon the principle that nations, like moral persons, are responsible for their actions, and equal in respect to their rights and duties; whatever difference may exist in their strength, extent, forms of government, or systems of religion. Every nation therefore has a right to choose its own form of government; to exercise exclusive jurisdiction over its own territory, and the adjacent waters, so far as may be necessary for its defence; and to regulate its commerce and intercourse with other nations; provided always that it observe the principles of justice, including of course, conformity to its treaties and other obligations. Foreigners, residing in any nation, are amenable to its laws, unless they be public ministers; and in return they are entitled to protection for their persons and property. Criminals, fleeing from justice out of their own country, should be surrendered, on due proof, to the government of the injured party; since they cannot be seized by the same in another nation's territory. The granting, by one nation, of a free passage across its territory, to the citizens or troops of another, is a matter of