Last year we had published in this country, a treatise from the same
fertile pen on the subject of 'Representative Government,' which,
however, was subsequent in the order of composition to that which has
just now appeared in the United States from the press of Ticknor &
Fields, of Boston. Both these productions, that on 'Representative
Government,' and that 'On Liberty,' are valuable to the American people,
teaching lessons important to be learned even by them. From the nature
of our institutions, and especially from the vainglorious sentiments too
generally entertained by us, we are apt to consider ourselves so well
versed in the principles of civil liberty and of representative
government, as to be incapable of learning anything on these subjects,
especially from English writers. Unfortunately, recent events are
calculated rudely to disturb our self-satisfaction, and to arouse within
us a serious distrust, not indeed of the principles embodied in our
institutions, but of our practical ability to carry them out to their
legitimate results, and thus to enjoy, fully and permanently, the
advantages of the system of free government of which we have always been
so boastful.
It is perhaps natural that the mass of the American people should
conceive the whole of liberty as comprised in the privilege of voting,
and its substantial benefits as being fully secured by the popular form
of government. This, however, would be an inconsiderate conclusion,
involving a most pernicious error; and so far is it from constituting
any important part of the discussion, that in the whole of Mr.
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