The purest republican feature in the government of our own State, is the House of Representatives.  The Senate is equally so the first year, less the second, and so on.  The Executive still less, because not chosen by the people directly.  The Judiciary seriously anti-republican, because for life; and the national arm wielded, as you observe, by military leaders, irresponsible but to themselves.  Add to this the vicious constitution of our county courts (to whom the justice, the executive administration, the taxation, police, the military appointments of the county, and nearly all our daily concerns are confided), self-appointed, self-continued, holding their authorities for life, and with an impossibility of breaking in on the perpetual succession of any faction once possessed of the bench.  They are, in truth, the executive, the judiciary, and the military of their respective counties, and the sum of the counties makes the State.  And add, also, that one half of our brethren who fight and pay taxes, are excluded, like Helots, from the rights of representation, as if society were instituted for the soil, and not for the men inhabiting it; or one half of these could dispose of the rights and the will of the other half, without their consent.

     What constitutes a State? 
     Not high-raised battlements, or lahor’d mound,
     Thick wall, or moated gate;
     Not cities proud, with spires and turrets crown’d;
     No:  men, high-minded men;
     Men, who their duties know;
     But know their rights; and, knowing, dare maintain. 
     These constitute a State.’

In the General Government, the House of Representatives is mainly republican; the Senate scarcely so at all, as not elected by the people directly, and so long secured even against those who do elect them; the Executive more republican than the Senate, from its shorter term, its election by the people, in practice (for they vote for A only on an assurance that he will vote for B), and because, in practice, also, a principle of rotation seems to be in a course of establishment; the judiciary independent of the nation, their coercion by impeachment being found nugatory.

If, then, the control of the people over the organs of their government be the measure of its republicanism (and I confess I know no other measure), it must be agreed that our governments have much less of republicanism than ought to have been expected; in other words, that the people have less regular control over their agents, than their rights and their interest require.  And this I ascribe, not to any want of republican dispositions in those who formed these constitutions, but to a submission of true principle to European authorities, to speculators on government, whose fears of the people have been inspired by the populace of their own great cities, and were unjustly entertained against the independent, the happy, and therefore orderly citizens of the United States.  Much I apprehend