for the publication of a book, even thus imperfect, upon this theme.

Of the two classes of political questions,—those concerning forms of government and those concerning its administration,-there are seasons for both. I would sedulously guard myself against the error of undervaluing that class of questions of which I know least. I admit that, under very many aspects of political society, questions concerning forms of government exceed all others in importance. I am far indeed from subscribing to that couplet of Mr. Pope's, which has obtained such singular celebrity,

"For forms of government let fools contest;
"Whiche'er is best administered is best."

No rational man did ever dispute that a good administration of government is the summum bonum of political science: but neither can it be reasonably denied that good forms of govern

ment are essential to its good administration: they are contested on this ground; and to dismiss the contending parties with the epithet applied to them by Mr. Pope, appears to be hardly worthy of an instructed writer.

But with all due respect for questions of form and for an exclusive attention to them in their paramount season, what I would suggest is, that a time may come in which these questions should be degraded to a secondary rank, and questions of administration should take their place. I would observe that the contest concerning forms may be so engrossing, and so long continued, as to defeat its own end. It may do so not only for the time, but in its ultimate result. Whilst all men's minds are agitated by these contests, whilst owing to this agitation administrative efficiency is suspended, and administrations are fugitive and precarious, it is clear that the end in view is sacrificed for the time being. And though it be not equally

clear, it may yet be reasonably offered for consideration, that after constitutional reforms have been carried far enough to make it the interest of a government to engage in administrative reforms, the further progress of the former will be rather retarded than accelerated by the suspension of the latter.

Suppose, for example, the case of a people who felt the want of good laws in general, but whose greatest want, though the least felt, was that of moral, religious, and intellectual instruction; and suppose them living under a form of government so imperfect as not to make it the interest of their rulers to supply their wants. Suppose this people in the progress of time to have attained casually enough of intellectual instruction to make them impatient of their form of government, and thereupon to effect from time to time such changes of that form as shall at length make it the interest of the government to apply itself to their religious,

moral, and civil improvement: - so far forth their efforts and changes were means, and the end was not sacrificed, even temporarily. But imagine this people in the pursuit of this end, by these means, to have effected in their own minds and desires, as the manner of all people is, a conversion of the means into the end, and to have acquired a disposition to fix their desires upon changes of form, without any or with a disproportionate reference to administrative measures. From that time forward their agitation of constitutional questions, whether or not it may tend to amendments of their constitution, will at least conjoin with that tendency a sacrifice. Measures for their instruction (which by the hypothesis is their greatest want) will be intermediately suspended or impeded. And furthermore, the constitutional reforms themselves may be either less rapidly, or less beneficially and substantially obtained. For they who hold that knowledge is power, will

admit that to retard the acquisition of knowledge by the people, pending the discussion of constitutional changes, is, in one of its results at least, to impede their advance to power, and to postpone the substance of popular power to the form.

It is not, of course, as logical propositions exacting necessary assent, that I apply these remarks to the present circumstances of this country. The case assumed merely represents my own opinion and belief in regard to our political predicament; and the opinion and belief are stated as a motive for making an early effort, and an apology if it be a premature one, to divert the attention of thoughtful men from forms of government to the business of governing.

THE END.