1823. March 1

Greece.

Division of power

Any division which it might be proposed to make of the supreme power in the State, has it or has it not a tendency to lodge any part of that same power in the hands of the great body of the people? If not, in what way is it possible that by that same great body any benefit should be reaped from it? If yes, supposed such tendency ripened into act: the consequence is - a portion of the power but no more than a portion, becomes lodged in the hands of the people. But from this portion be it ever so considerable, how is it possible than any benefit can be reaped by them greater than or even so great as that which would be reaped by them from the whole? In a word how can a chance of a part be equal in value to the possession of the whole? Yet on this chance of a part, and it has been seen how feeble an one, depends the utmost benefit, which can ever have been supposed derivable by them from any division made of the supreme power in question, they by the supposition not having any share in it.

Take now the converse of the above case. Suppose the whole of the supreme power to be already in the hands of the people: and then let it be seen whether any benefit could be produced to them by any scheme of division by which this or that portion of it were lodged in other hands. Take for example the Anglo-American United States. In that seat of good government and consequent felicity, the whole of the supreme power is in the hands of the people: the supreme Constitutive the hands of the greatest number: the supreme Operative, supreme Legislative and Executive included, in the hands of agents of theirs, placed by them some in an immediate others in an unimmediate way [...?], sooner or later, all displaceable, and those who have most power regularly displaced by them. Add now a King, with a vote upon every act of the legislative body, and the power of placing and displacing all subordinate functionaries belonging to the Executive department. Here then would be division of power: a division, so far as it went, agreeing with that which has place in England. To the people in question what would be the benefit of it? By the most anxious scrutiny could any the smallest possible particle of benefit be found derivable from it?