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execution of things, which, at the same time that they so materially concern them, require so many qualifications to perform them with any degree of sufficiency.

To these considerations, of themselves so material, another must be added, which is, if possible, of still greater weight. This is, that the multitude, in consequence of their being a multitude, are incapable of coming to any mature resolution.

Those who compose a popular assembly are not actuated, in the course of their deliberations, by any clear and precise views of present or positive personal interest. As they see themselves lost, as it were, in the crowd of those who are called upon to exercise the same function with themselves— as they know that their individual votes will make no change in the public resolutions, and that, to whatever side they may incline, the general result will nevertheless be the same ;they do not undertake to inquire how far the things proposed to them agree with the whole of the laws already in being, or with the present circumstances of the state; because men will not enter upon a laborious task, when they know that it can scarcely answer any purpose.

It is, however, with dispositions of this kind, and each relying on all, that the assembly of the people meet. But, as very few among them have previously considered the subjects on which they are called upon to determine, very few carry along with them any opinion or inclination, or at least any inclination of their own, and to which they are resolved to adhere. As, however, it is necessary at last to come to some resolution, the major part of them are determined by reasons which they would blush to pay any regard to on much less serious occasions. An unusual sight, a change of the ordinary place of the assembly, a sudden disturbance, a rumour, are, amidst the general want of a spirit of decision, the sufficiens ratio of the determination of the greatest part;* and from this assemblage of separate wills, thus formed hastily, and without reflection, a general will results, which is also void of reflection.

If, amidst these disadvantages, the assembly were left to

* Every one knows of how much importance it was, in the Roman commonwealth, to assemble the people in one place rather than another. In order to change entirely the nature of their resolutions, it was often sufficient to hide from them, or let them see, the Capitol.

COMBINATION OF PUBLIC POWER.

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themselves, and nobody had an interest to lead them into error, the evil, though very great, would not however be extreme, because such an assembly never being called upon but to determine npon an affirmative or negative (that is, only having two cases to choose between), there would be an equal chance of their choosing either; and it might be hoped that at every other turn they would take the right side

But the combination of those who share either in the actual exercise of the public power, or in its advantages, do not thus allow themselves to sit down in inaction. They wake, while the people sleep: entirely taken up with the thoughts of their own power, they live but to increase it. Deeply versed in the management of public business, they see at once all the possible consequences of measures. And, as they have the exclusive direction of the springs of government, they give rise, at their pleasure, to every incident that may influence the minds of a multitude who are not on their guard, and who wait for some event or other that may finally determine them.

It is they who convene the assembly, and dissolve it: it is they who offer propositions, and make speeches to it. Ever active in turning to their advantage every circumstance that happens, they equally avail themselves of the tractableness of the people during public calamities, and its heedlessness in times of prosperity. When things take a different turn from what they expected they dismiss the assembly. By presenting to it many propositions at once, and which are to be voted upon in the lump, they hide what is destined to promote their own private views, or give a colour to it, by joining it with things which they know will take hold of the mind of the people.* By presenting, in their speeches, arguments and facts which men have no time to examine,

* It was thus the senate at Rome assumed to itself the power of laying taxes. They promised, in the time of the war against the Veientes, to give pay to such citizens as would enlist; and to that end they established a tribute. The people, solely taken up with the idea of not going to war at their own expense, were transported with so much joy, that they crowded at the door of the senate, and laying hold of the hands of the senators, called them their fathers.-Nihil unquam, acceptum à plebe tanto gaudio traditur; concursum itaque ad curiam esse, prehensatasque exeuntium manus, patres vere appellatos, &c. See Tit. Liv. book iv.

they lead the people into gross, and yet decisive errors and the common-places of rhetoric, supported by their personal influence, ever enable them to draw to their side the majority of votes.

On the other hand, the few (for there are, after all, some) who, having meditated on the proposed question, see the consequences of the decisive step which is just going to be taken, being lost in the crowd, cannot make their feeble voices to be heard amidst the universal noise and confusion. They have it no more in their power to stop the general motion, than a man in the midst of an army, on a march, has it in his power to avoid marching. In the meantime, the people are giving the suffrages; a majority appears in favour of the proposal; it is finally proclaimed as the general will of all; and it is at bottom nothing more than the effect of the artifices of a few designing men, who are exulting among themselves.*

* I might confirm all these things by numberless instances from ancient history; but if I may be allowed, in this case, to draw examples from my own country, et celebrare domestica facta, I shall relate facts which will be no less to the purpose. In Geneva, in the year 1707, a law was enacted, that a general assembly of the people should be held, every five years, to treat of the affairs of the republic: but the magistrates, who dreaded those assemblies, soon obtained from the citizens themselves the repeal of the law; and the first resolution of the people, in the first of those periodical assemblies (in the year 1712), was to abolish them for ever. The profound secrecy with which the magistrates prepared their proposal to the citizens on that subject, and the sdden manner in which the latter, when assembled, were acquainted with it, and made to give their votes upon it, have indeed accounted but imperfectly for this strange determination of the people; and the consternation which seized the whole assembly when the result of the suffrages was proclaimed, has confirmed many in the opinion that some unfair means had been used. The whole transaction has been kept secret to this day; but the common opinion on this subject, which has been adopted by M. Rousseau in his Lettres de la Montagne, is this :The magistrates, it is said, had privately instructed the secretaries in whose ears the citizens were to whisper the suffrages: when a citizen said approbation, he was understood to approve the proposal of the magistrates when he said rejection, he was understood to reject the periodical assemblies.

In the year 1738, the citizens enacted at once into laws a small code of forty-four articles, by one single line of which they bound themselves for ever to elect the four syndics (the chiefs of the council of the twentyfive), out of the members of the same council; whereas they were before

REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENTS.

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In a word, those who are acquainted with republican governments, and, in general, who know the manner in which business is transacted in numerous assemblies, will not scruple to affirm that the few who are united, who take an active part in public affairs, and whose station makes them conspicuous, have such an advantage over the many who turn their eyes towards them, and are without union among themselves, that, even with a middling degree of skill, they can at all times direct, at their pleasure, the general resolutions; that, as a consequence of the very nature of things, there is no proposal, however absurd, to which a numerous assembly may not, at one time or other, be brought to assent, and that laws would be wiser, and more likely to procure the advantage of all, if they were to be made by drawing lots, or casting dice, than by the suf frages of a multitude.*

free in their choice. They at that time suffered also the word approved to be slipped into the law mentioned in the note in another page, which was transcribed from a former code: the consequence of which was to render the magistrates absolute masters of the legislature.

The citizens had thus been successively stripped of all their political rights, and had little more left to them than the pleasure of being called a sovereign assembly, when they met (which idea, it must be confessed, preserved among them a spirit of resistance which it would have been dangerous for the magistrates to provoke too far), and the power of at least refusing to elect the four syndics. Upon this privilege the citizens, a few years ago (A.D. 1765 to 1768), made their last stand; and a singular conjunction of circumstances having happened at the same time, to raise and preserve among them, during three years, an uncommon spirit of union and perseverance, they in the issue succeeded, in a great measure, to repair the injuries which they had been made to do to themselves for two hundred years and more. A total change has since that time been effected by foreign forces, in the government of the republic (A.D. 1782), upon which this is not a proper place to make any observation,

* Although we may trace the free elements of the constitution of England to the assemblies of the Anglo-Saxons and Anglo-Scandinavians, yet we must not consider that those assemblies or Witena-Gemotes consisted of the multitude of the people. They consisted only of freemen, and did not include serfs, who were by far the most numerous class of the inhabitants.-Ed.

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CHAPTER VI.

ADVANTAGES THAT ACCRUE TO THE PEOPLE FROM APPOINTING
REPRESENTATIVES.

How, then, shall the people remedy the disadvantages that necessarily attend their situation? How shall they resist the phalanx of those who have engrossed to themselves all the honours, dignities, and power in the state?

It will be by employing for their defence the same means by which their adversaries carry on their attack :—it will be by using the same weapons as they do,-the same order,— the same kind of discipline.

They are a small number, and consequently easily united: -a small number must therefore be opposed to them, that a like union may also be obtained. It is because they are a small number, that they can deliberate on every occurrence, and never come to any resolutions but such as are maturely weighed; it is because they are few, that they can have forms which continually serve them for general standards to resort to, approved maxims to which they invariably adhere, and plans which they never lose sight of: -here, therefore, I repeat it, oppose to them a small number, and you will obtain the like advantages.

Besides, those who govern, as a farther consequence of their being few, have a more considerable share, consequently feel a deeper concern in the success, whatever it may be, of their enterprises. As they usually profess a contempt for their adversaries, and are at all times acting an offensive part against them, they impose on themselves an obligation of conquering. They, in short, who are all alive from the most powerful incentives, and aim at gaining new advantages, have to do with a multitude, who, wanting only to preserve what they already possess, are unavoidably liable to long intervals of inactivity and supineness. But the people, by appointing representatives, immediately gain to their cause that advantageous activity which they before stood in need of, to put them on a par with their adversaries; and those passions become excited in their defenders, by which they themselves cannot be actuated.

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