3592. GOVERNMENTS (American), Ward administration.—
The elementary republics
of the wards, the county republics,
the State republics, and the Republic of the
Union, would form a gradation of authorities,
standing each on the basis of law, holding
every one its delegated share of powers,
and constituting truly a system of fundamental
balances and checks for the government.
Where every man is a sharer in the
direction of his ward-republic, or of some
of the higher ones, and feels that he is a
participator in the government of affairs, not
merely at an election one day in the year, but
every day; when there shall not be a man
in the State who will not be a member of
some one of its councils, great or small, he
will let the heart be torn out of his body
sooner than his power be wrested from him
by a Cœsar or a Bonaparte.—
To Joseph C. Cabell. Washington ed. vi, 543.
(M.
1816)
