but by fear of public opinion, perhaps of violence and insurrection. Should he carry his tyranny beyond a certain height, he is aware that he might raise a whirlwind, powerful enough to sweep him from the scene of his iniquity and hence pru-. dence represses what the insatiate spirit of domination inspires.

In the same way there are natural limits to corruption, wrong, and injustice of all kinds; limits arising from the spontaneous action of human passions, and not from pre-concerted regulations. It is not possible to push iniquitous conduct beyond a certain point; but as, notwithstanding this truth, there is still a fearful latitude, it is highly important that the distance of this point should be reduced, and that, in so momentous a matter as government, the field of possible wrong should be as narrow as the best arrangements can make it.

Amidst the imperfections attaching to such arrangements, the subsidiary checks adverted to are of inestimable value. In our own country, so defective has been the machinery by which the people controlled their representatives, that it would of itself have been quite insufficient for any salutary purpose, had it not been aided by the powerful influence of national opinion, operating

through the publicity of parliamentary proceedings. It is to the same influence that we are to look for the correction of those defects in the present system, which would otherwise be fraught with evil. However perfect, indeed, the arrangement of incitements and checks in the political machine may be, the power of public opinion, freely exercised, is absolutely necessary to remedy the deficiencies, and correct the disorders, which will perpetually manifest themselves in practice. In the organs of the state, it is like the vis medicatrix naturæ in the human constitution.

In allowing due importance to such subsidiary checks, as regard to public approbation, dread of infamy, and fear of resistance, we must constantly bear in mind what has been already adverted to, that they have incomparably the greatest force under free institutions. The neglect of this consideration seems to have misled some politicians into maintaining that these are the real securities for good government, that these operate on the most absolute kings, and that nothing else prevents the arbitrary encroachments of delegates in democracies.

Who does not see, however, that the efficacy of these checks greatly depends on the existence of the others of a constitutional nature; that under

a despotism, public opinion may be hushed into a whisper, frightened at its own tones, and the thought of resistance buried so deep in the breast, as to require the most desperate emergency to drag it forth; so that oppression may long reign triumphantly secure from the murmurs and the insurrection of its victims? While, on the other hand, under a representative government, the general voice rings through the land, from one extremity to the other, and the spirit of resistance starts into activity at the slightest touch of wrong.

CHAPTER III.

ON THE REPRESENTATIVE BODY.

HAVING taken a preliminary view of the object and province of government, and of the peculiar merits belonging to the system of political representation, the plan already laid down in the Introduction leads us, in the next place, to the consideration of the Representative Body.

We shall successively examine the province of the legislative assembly, the process of legislation, the relation of representatives and constituents, the effects of the publicity of legislative proceedings, the grounds on which the number of members ought to be determined, the qualifications to be required, and the duration of the trust to be reposed in them. These several inquiries are all deserving of the closest attention, and will bring before us, in succession, almost every interesting topic connected with the constitution of the most important part of the machinery of govern

ment.

SECTION I.

On the Province of the Supreme Legislative
Assembly.

WE have seen, in a preceding chapter, that it is the peculiar concern of government to effect the good of the society over which it presides, by such measures as individuals or inferior associations cannot adopt, or cannot so advantageously adopt, for themselves. It has been found expedient, for this purpose, that the state authorities should be divided into the legislative and executive branches, the duty of the one being to carry into effect the decrees of the other.

With the constitution and functions of the executive branch, we have at present nothing to do. The business of the legislature may be described, in consonance with the general definition of the object and province of government, to be to enact laws (with all that it implies), for the purpose of effecting beneficial ends which cannot be attained by individual efforts, or by the efforts of associations inferior to the whole political society.

The whole business of enacting laws, however, or in other words the whole legislative power,