not enough to look merely at the form of its construction.  The practical character of government depends often on a variety of considerations, besides the abstract frame of its constitutional organization.  Among these are the condition and tenure of property; the laws regulating its alienation and descent; the presence or absence of a military power; an armed or unarmed yeomanry; the spirit of the age, and the degree of general intelligence.  In these respects it cannot be denied that the circumstances of this country are most favorable to the hope of maintaining the government of a great nation on principles entirely popular.  In the absence of military power, the nature of government must essentially depend on the manner in which property is holden and distributed.  There is a natural influence belonging to property, whether it exists in many hands or few; and it is on the rights of property that both despotism and unrestrained popular violence ordinarily commence their attacks.  Our ancestors began their system of government here under a condition of comparative equality in regard to wealth, and their early laws were of a nature to favor and continue this equality.

A republican form of government rests not more on political constitutions, than on those laws which regulate the descent and transmission of property.  Governments like ours could not have been maintained, where property was holden according to the principles of the feudal system; nor, on the other hand, could the feudal constitution possibly exist with us.  Our New England ancestors brought hither no great capitals from Europe; and if they had, there was nothing productive in which they could have been invested.  They left behind them the whole feudal policy of the other continent.  They broke away at once from the system of military service established in the Dark Ages, and which continues, down even to the present time, more or less to affect the condition of property all over Europe.  They came to a new country.  There were, as yet, no lands yielding rent, and no tenants rendering service.  The whole soil was unreclaimed from barbarism.  They were themselves, either from their original condition, or from the necessity of their common interest, nearly on a general level in respect to property.  Their situation demanded a parcelling out and division of the lands, and it may be fairly said, that this necessary act fixed the future frame and form of their government.  The character of their political institutions was determined by the fundamental laws respecting property.  The laws rendered estates divisible among sons and daughters.  The right of primogeniture, at first limited and curtailed, was afterwards abolished.  The property was all freehold.  The entailment of estates, long trusts, and the other processes for fettering and tying up inheritances, were not applicable to the condition of society, and seldom made use of.  On the contrary, alienation of the land was every