the rights and duties of principals and agents are also divided, because there is no other social principal to depute
or to instruct. Laws made by centuries or districts, each
having a vote, or by the agents of each. are binding, because
the society has adopted such modes of ascertaining the social majority; and the adoption of one mode, proves that
no other exists. A division of the mode of exercising the
natural right of self government, is extremely different
from a division of the right itself. The first is indispensible in a large territory, from the impossibility of assembling the nation at one place, for the preservation of the
right. But to cut the right itself asunder, and to lodge only half, or less than half, with the divisional mode for exercising and saving it, would certainly kill the whole. It is
compounded of the powers of naming and instructing its
agents. The instructing moiety is better than the naming
moiety, as the right of naming an agent is no security if we
cannot influence him; nor is it of much consequence who
names him, if we can. If the divisional mode of exercising
the right of self government, can only contain its form, but
not its substance; and the aggregate mode has been determined by experience, to be unsuccessful in small, and impracticable in large countries, the conclusion is, that the
right itself must die. It can be held but not exercised
aggregately, and it can be exercised but not held divisionally.
The objection to the district right of instruction, is founded upon the idea, that a nation, though it divides election, retains aggregately the right of instruction. But all natural rights are individual, and this individuality is the substratum of our policy. It has not moulded this individuality into an aggregate right of instruction, but it has moulded it into a right of district election, without committing the errour of withholding the natural appurtenance of election, and breaking up the relation between principal and agent, to bestow on itself the following hideous aspect. If the electing, punishing and rewarding district, and this
