But let not the many console themselves with the vain belief that democracy would long survive the consolidation of our government--that very power which they would endeavor so sedulously to concentrate in the hands of one great central government, would be quickly made to recoil upon their own heads. The executive department, which would be built up and established by the dominant majority, the better to accomplish its own selfish purposes, would quickly become omnipotent; and when once safely entrenched in the impregnable bulwarks of its power, like Athens enclosed in the walls of Themistocles, it would bid defiance to all assaults, and all would then be ground down to the same ignominious common level. The Executive, in such a system, would be all--the People, nothing! We should then be reduced to the condition of the silent crushing despotisms of Asia--with every principle of improvement gone, and the whole elasticity of mind destroyed. Soon would we, then, hug the chains which bound us; and bend the knee in degrading servility before him who had rivetted them on us. Soon would we be ready to use the idolatrous language of the Roman bard, "Erit ille mihi semper Deus: illius aram Sœpe tener nostris ab ovilibus imbuet agnus." A great empire speedily assimilates every thing to its own genius. No long season is requisite to generate the spirit of submission. The monarch that first mounts the throne is often the most worshipped. The first emperor of Rome had not descended to his grave before the servility of his subjects had become so disgusting as to call forth censure from even the monarch himself.[25] [Footnote 25: Augustus, at the expiration of his third term in the imperial office, was accosted by the people at a public entertainment with the title of "Lord," or "Master," which so much disgusted him, that he published a serious edict on the following day, forbidding such a title, and saying, "_My name is Cæsar, and not Master._"] These great despotisms too, when once established, are likely long to endure. Great empires have an extraordinary vitality--a wonderful tenacity of existence; they but too closely resemble that fabled serpent whose parts when forced asunder were quickly drawn together again and united into a living body. There has always been something painfully revolting to my mind in the contemplation of the history of great empires. From our boyhood we contract a horror of eastern despotisms, with their great monarchs, their satraps and tyrants; and who that has read the _luminous page_ of Gibbon and contemplated the imperial despot with his Prætors, pro-consuls to their provinces Hasting, or on return, in robes of state, Lictors and rods the ensigns of their power, Legions and cohorts, turms of horse and wings,