CLASS VIII....LESSON III.

OF GOVERNMENT.

2. HOW is the earth divided?

A. Into nations, and under various forms of government.

2. What are the forms of government?

A. The governments of the world may be described either as voluntary, or involuntary.... free, or subjected....or into republics, oligarchies, and monarchies.

2. Whence do you derive the word republic?

A. From the Latin words res, affairs....and publica, public. Respublica, in its correct sense, means a commonwealth, or a government estab lished by common consent for common good.

2. Republics then, it is to be presumed, are the voluntary governments?

A. Evidently, such is the meaning of the word ..but to deceive and enslave mankind, oligarchies, and even despotisms, have been sometimes called republics: Rome was called a republic alike after the expulsion of the Tarquins, and during the tyranny of Augustus and Tiberius. France was called a republic under the committee of safety, the directory, and the consulate. Venice was called a republic, though the government was totally independent of the people. Poland was called a republic, though it was governed by a king who was elected by nobles, and the people were all slaves.

2. Are there no governments but republics, oligarchies, and monarchies ?

A. These three general denominations comprehend a numerous variety of other descriptions, which I shall attempt to enumerate, after premising that a government in which all mankind are equal in the view of the law, as they are in the eyes of God....where all men can alike aspire to honor and trust among their fellow men, as they can aspire to Heaven by the practice of virtue, is the only true free government....the only government that should be called a republic....every other form, whatever may be the name, if it has not these objects duly secured, is an unnatural subjection and enslavement of mankind, repugnant to justice, and to the word of God.

2. What are the other forms of government?

A. Our form of government is properly a democratic republic, as all the governments of the United States should be; the people being the sovereign, and the word democracy being derived from the Greek words demos, the people....and krateo, to will or govern....that is, the power or will of the people operating government for the common and mutual good of all.

Aristocracy is that kind of government in which all power and authority is held by a class of persons to the exclusion of all the rest; such were the republics of Venice and Genoa, and the Batavian republic. Those governments in which pecuniary qualification or property is requisite to give the right of suffrage, are aristocratical: some of the state governments are of this description.

Oligarchy differs from aristocracy only in the number of the rulers; in the latter they are more numerous; in oligarchies very few. The great-..

er part of those governments which go by the name of monarchies, &c. are in fact oligarchies 5 for although there is a king or an emperor, he cannot be supposed to do all that the duty of government requires; hence he gives immense emoluments and powers to those who assist him to keep the rest in subjection....and these are in fact the oligarchs.

Some governments in the old world are called empires, kingdoms, monarchies, ecclisiastical states, electorates, dukedoms, principalities, and mixed governments.

2. What empires exist at present?

A. In Asia, there are the empires of China, of Japan, as was formerly that of the Great Mogul, or empire of Hindustan ; but the power of the emperor of the latter has ceased, since the British under the color of protecting the emperor Sha Allum, actually usurped his throne and power.

In Europe there are the empire of all the Russias; the empire of Austria; the empire of the Turks or Ottomans; and in 1804, the govern ment of France was changed from a consular or military republic, to an empire, under the name of the empire of the French.

2. How was the German empire founded?

A. The German princes claimed to be the successors of the Roman emperors in the western empire, but the imperial title had been in fact continued only from Charlemagne, who reigned in 800, and whose empire comprehended France, Germany, and part of Italy: on his death, the empire was divided among his sons.

2. Whence is derived the appellation.... Ottoman empire?

A. Because its chief, déscended of Othman, reigns in Constantinople, which is in Europe,

the seat of the eastern empire: the greater part of the Turkish empire is in Asia.

2. What is to be understood by the distinction between the Eastern and Western empires?

A. In the decline of the Roman empire at the end of the fourth century, the emperor Theodosius ordered that the empire should be divided between his two sons, Arcadius and Honorius the first had the eastern, and resided at Constantinople, the second had the western, and resided at Rome. The eagle with two heads, used by Austria, in its arms, bears a reference to the Eastern and Western empires, or two heads to one body.

2. How long has the Russian empire existed? A. Only since the year 1727. Before that period the chief was called Tzar or Czar.

2. What are the ecclesiastical governments? A. In Asia the government of Hindustan, in remote ages, was an ecclesiastical government of a most refined kind, and calculated, if unmolested, to endure forever. It was first shaken by the Mahomedans. The British have completed its overthrow.

2. Was there no ecclesiastical government in Europe?

A. The Papal government in Europe was of that character; but not so mild nor so minutely organized as the Braminical; the latter admitted no proselytės, nor persecuted; the papal government, until within a few years, employed torture and cruelty to subjugate conscience; persecuted those who differed from them, in this world, and damned them in the next....the papal power has now ceased; and the Catholic religion divested of temporal power, has become