it settles unanswerably the right of instructing representatives, and their duty to obey.  The system of banking we have both equally and ever reprobated.  I contemplate it as a blot left in all our constitutions, which, if not covered, will end in their destruction, which is already hit by the gamblers in corruption, and is sweeping away in its progress the fortunes and morals of our citizens.  Funding I consider as limited, rightfully, to a redemption of the debt within the lives of a majority of the generation contracting it; every generation coming equally, by the laws of the Creator of the world, to the free possession of the earth he made for their subsistence, unincumbered by their predecessors, who, like them, were but tenants for life.  You have successfully and completely pulverized Mr. Adams’s system of orders, and his opening the mantle of republicanism to every government of laws, whether consistent or not with natural right.  Indeed, it must be acknowledged, that the term republic is of very vague application in every language.  Witness the self-styled republics of Holland, Switzerland, Genoa, Venice, Poland.  Were I to assign to this term a precise and definite idea, I would say, that, purely and simply, it means a government by its citizens in mass, acting directly and personally, according to rules established by the majority:  and that every other government is more or less republican, in proportion as it has in its composition more or less of this ingredient of the direct action of the citizens.  Such a government is evidently restrained to very narrow limits of space and population.  I doubt if it would be practicable beyond the extent of a New England township.  The first shade from this pure element, which, like that of pure vital air, cannot sustain life of itself, would be where the powers of the government, being divided, should be exercised each by representatives chosen by the citizens either pro hac vice, or for such short terms as should render secure the duty of expressing the will of their constituents.  This I should consider as the nearest approach to a pure republic, which is practicable on a large scale of country or population.  And we have examples of it in some of our State constitutions, which, if not poisoned by priestcraft, would prove its excellence over all mixtures with other elements; and, with only equal doses of poison, would still be the best.  Other shades of republicanism may be found in other forms of government, where the executive, judiciary, and legislative functions, and the different branches of the latter, are chosen by the people more or less directly, for longer terms of years, or for life, or made hereditary; or where there are mixtures of authorities, some dependent on, and others independent of the peopje.  The further the departure from direct and constant control by the citizens, the less has the government of the ingredient of republicanism; evidently none where the authorities are hereditary, as in France, Venice, &c. or self-chosen, as in Holland; and little, where for life, in proportion as the life continues in being after the act of election.