I have inserted in an Appendix the Form of the American Constitution, and if my readers wish to examine more closely into it, I must refer them to M. Tocqueville's excellent work. The first point which must strike the reader who examines into it is, that it is extremely complicated. It is, and it is not. It is so far complicated that a variety of wheels are at work; but it is not complicated, from the circumstance that the _same principle_ prevails throughout, from the Township to the Federal Head, and that it is put in motion by one great and universal propelling power. It may be compared to a cotton-thread manufactory, in which thousands and thousands of reels and spindles are all at work, the labour of so many smaller reels turned over to larger, which in their turn yield up their produce, until the whole is collected into one mass. The principle of the American Government is good; the power that puts it in motion is enormous, and therefore, like the complicated machinery I have compared it to, it requires constant attention, and proper regulation of the propelling power, that it may not become out of order. The propelling power is the sovereignty of the people, otherwise the will of the majority. The motion of all propelling powers must be regulated by a fly-wheel, or corrective check, if not, the motion will gradually accelerate, until the machinery is destroyed by the increase of friction. But there are other causes by which the machinery may be deranged; as, although the smaller portions of the machine, if defective, may at any time be taken out and repaired without its being necessary for the machine to stop; yet if the larger wheels are by any chance thrown out of their equilibrium, the machinery may be destroyed just as it would be by a too rapid motion, occasioned by the excess of propelling power. Further, there are external causes which may endanger it: any machine may be thrown out of its level by a convulsion, or shock, which will cause it to cease working, if even it does not break it into fragments.
Now, the dangers which _threaten_ the United States are, the Federal Government being still weaker than it is at present, or its becoming, as it may from circumstances, too powerful.