comparing to storms, or to the current of the Euripus,* and in regard to which they accordingly thought themselves at liberty to pass over the rules of justice, they now find that they have to deal with men who are their equals in point of education and knowledge, and their inferiors only in point of rank and form. They, in consequence, soon find it necessary to adopt quite different methods; and, above all, become very careful not to talk to them any more about the sacred chickens, the white or black days, and the Sibylline books. As they see their new adversaries expect to have a proper regard paid to them, that single circumstance inspires them with it as they see them act in a regular manner, observe constant rules, in a word, proceed with form, they come to look upon them with respect, for the very same reason which makes them themselves to be reverenced by the people.

The representatives of the people, on the other hand, do not fail soon to procure for themselves every advantage that may enable them effectually to use the powers with which they have been intrusted, and to adopt every rule of proceeding that may make their resolutions to be truly the result of reflection and deliberation. Thus it was that the representatives of the English nation, soon after their first establishment, became formed into a separate assembly: they afterwards obtained the liberty of appointing a president: soon after, they insisted upon their being consulted on the last form of the acts to which they had given rise: lastly, they insisted on thenceforth framing them themselves.

In order to prevent any possibility of surprise in the course of their proceedings, it is a settled rule with them, that every proposition, or bill, must be read three times, at different prefixed days,+ before it can receive a final sanction :

*Tully makes no end of his similes on this subject. Quod enim fretum, quem Euripum, tot motus, tantas et tam varias habere putatis agitationes fluctuum, quantas perturbationes et quantos astus habet ratio comitiorum? See Orat. pro Murænâ.-Concio, says he, in another place, imperitissimis constat, &c. De Amicitiâ, § 25.

quæ ex

+ It has occasionally been found expedient to pass a law without delay. This is done, as was lately the case in regard to the funeral of the Duke of Wellington, by placing that day commercially as if it were Sunday. By suspending the standing orders, the bill to that effect was read three times in both Houses in one day.-Ed.

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and before each reading of the bill, as well as at its first introduction, an express resolution must be taken to continue it under consideration. If the bill be rejected in any one of those several operations, it must be dropped, and cannot be proposed again during the same session.*

The Commons have been, above all, jealous of the freedom of speech in their assembly. They have expressly stipulated, as we have mentioned above, that none of their words or speeches should be questioned in any place out of their House. In fine, in order to keep their deliberations free from every kind of influence, they have denied their president the right to give his vote, or even his opinion: they moreover have settled it as a rule, not only that the king could not send to them any express proposal about laws, or other subjects, but even that his name should never be mentioned in the deliberations.†

But that circumstance which, of all others, constitutes the superior excellence of a government in which the people act only through their representatives, that is, by means of an assembly formed of a moderate number of persons, and in which it is possible for every member to propose new subjects, and to argue and to canvass the questions that arise,-is, that such a constitution is the only one capable of the immense advantage (of which perhaps I did not convey an adequate idea to the reader when I mentioned it before) of putting into the hands of the people the moving springs of the legislative authority.

In a constitution where the people at large exercise the

* It is, moreover, a settled rule in the House of Commons, that no member is to speak more than once in the some debate. When the number and nature of the clauses of a bill require that it should be discussed in a free manner, a committee is appointed for the purpose, who are to make their report afterwards to the House. When the subject is of importance, this committee is formed of the whole House, which still continues to sit in the same place, but in a less solemn manner, and under another president, who is called the chairman of the committee. In order to form the House again, the mace is replaced on the table, and the Speaker goes again into his chair.

If any person should mention in his speech, what the king wishes should be, would be glad to see, &c. he would be immediately called to order, for attempting to influence the debate.

See chap. iv. of this book.

function of enacting the laws, as it is only to those persons towards whom the citizens are accustomed to turn their eyes, that is, to the very men who govern, that the assembly have either time or inclination to listen, they acquire, at length, as has constantly been the case in all republics, the exclusive right of proposing, if they please, when they please, in what manner they please: a prerogative this, of such extent, that it would suffice to put an assembly, formed of men of the greatest parts, at the mercy of a few dunces, and renders completely illusory the boasted power of the people. Nay more, as this prerogative is thus placed in the very hands of the adversaries of the people, it forces the people to remain exposed to their attacks, in a condition perpetually passive, and takes from them the only legal means by which they might effectually oppose their usurpations.

To express the whole in a few words-A representative constitution places the remedy in the hands of those who feel the disorder: but a popular constitution places the remedy in the hands of those who cause it: and it is necessarily productive, in the event, of the misfortune-of the political calamity, of trusting the care and the means of repressing the invasions of power, to the men who have the enjoyment of power.

CHAPTER IX.

A FARTHER DISADVANTAGE OF REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENTS. -THE PEOPLE ARE NECESSARILY BETRAYED BY THOSE IN WHOM THEY TRUST.

HOWEVER, those general assemblies of a people who were made to determine upon things which they neither under

*If a popular constitution is construed to mean that in which the authority of the multitude prevails, there would be no security against anarchy, which eventually would end in despotism. The only free government which can practically exist is one which is based on equitable representative legislation. A disproportionately great number of representatives would also render a legislative representative assembly far less practically deliberative than if the assembly were confined to a moderate number. Probably all the rotten boroughs in England might

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stood nor examined,-that general confusion in which the ambitious could at all times hide their artifices, and carry on their schemes with safety,-were not the only evils attending the ancient commonwealths. There was a more secret defect, and a defect that struck immediately at the very vitals of it, inherent in that kind of government.

It was impossible for the people ever to have faithful defenders. Neither those whom they had expressly chosen, nor those whom some personal advantages enabled to govern the assemblies (for the only use, I must repeat it, which the people ever make of their power, is either to give it away, or allow it to be taken from them), could possibly be united to them by any common feeling of the same concerns. As their influence put them, in a great measure, upon a level with those who were invested with the executive authority, they cared little to restrain oppressions out of the reach of which they saw themselves placed. Nay, they feared they should thereby lessen a power which they knew was one day to be their own; if they had not even already an actual share in it.*

Thus, at Rome, the only end which the tribunes ever pursued with any degree of sincerity and perseverance, was to procure to the people, that is, to themselves, an admission to all the different dignities in the republic. After having obtained that a law should be enacted for admitting plebeians to the consulship, they procured for them the liberty of intermarrying with the patricians. They afterwards rendered them admissible to the dictatorship, to the office of military tribune, to the censorship: in a word, the only use they made of the power of the people was to increase privileges which they called the privileges of all, though they and their friends alone were ever likely to have the enjoyment of them.

be disfranchised with great legislative advantage; even if no new members were elected to replace their present representatives, by an extended representation of large towns and counties.-Ed.

* How could it be expected that men who entertained views of being prætors, would endeavour to restrain the power of the prætors,-that men who aimed at being one day consuls, would wish to limit the power of the consuls, that men whom their influence among the people made sure of getting into the senate, would seriously endeavour to confine the authority of the senate?

We do not find that they ever employed the power of the people in things really beneficial to the people. We do not find that they ever set bounds to the terrible power of its magistrates, that they ever repressed that class of citizens who knew how to make their crimes pass uncensured,—in a word, that they ever endeavoured, on the one hand to regulate, and on the other to strengthen, the judicial power; precautions these, without which men might struggle to the end of time, and never attain true liberty.*

And indeed the judicial power, that sure criterion of the goodness of a government, was always, at Rome, a mere instrument of tyranny. The consuls were at all times invested with an absolute power over the lives of the citizens. The dictators possessed the same right; so did the prætors, the tribunes of the people, the judicial commissioners named by the senate, and so, of course, did the senate itself: and the fact of the three hundred and seventy deserters whom it commanded to be thrown at one time, as Livy relates, from the Tarpeian rock, sufficiently shows that it well knew how to exert its power upon occasion.

It even may be said, that, at Rome, the power of life and death, or rather the right of killing, was annexed to every kind of authority whatever, even to that which results from mere influence, or wealth; and the only consequence of the murder of the Gracchi, which was accompanied by the slaughter of three hundred, and afterwards of four thousand unarmed citizens, whom the nobles knocked on the head, was to engage the senate to erect a temple to Concord. The Lex Porcia de tergo civium, which has been so much celebrated, was attended with no other effect than that of more completely securing, against the danger of a retaliation, such consuls, prætors, quæstors, &c., as, like Verres, caused the inferior citizens of Rome to be scourged with rods, and put to death upon crosses, through mere caprice and cruelty.†

* Without such precautions, laws must always be, as Pope expresses it,

"Still for the strong too weak, the weak too strong."

If we turn our eyes to Lacedæmon, we shall see, from several instances of the justice of the ephori, that matters were little better ordered there, in regard to the administration of public justice. And in Athens itself, the only one of the ancient commonwealths in which