sions of the legislature that they were not the people, and that it was ruinous to the Republic for them to taint the atmosphere of absolute liberty, which the representative of the people should breathe, by expressing their own crude opinions in the sanctuary of the law. On the withdrawal of that salutary and restraining influence, it is reported that Buenos Ayres became again the theatre of that tumultuous and stormy liberty of which Webster spoke, and which gives other nations such cause for scandal. It was the same spirit which impelled him on more than half a dozen occasions, to maintain from his place in the Senate the rights of the executive authority against the encroachments of the legislature; and to one governor, who had summoned to his audience-chamber the leaders of various factions, in order to advise with them upon the nomination of a minister, he said, as appears from subsequent speeches in the Senate, the following prophetic words: "In less than a year we shall have to go and pick up from the rubbish of the streets the fragments of the executive power which our governors are throwing away, one after the other, for want of courage enough to perform their duties."
A year had not elapsed, when, in the presence of the enemy, on November 8, 1859, tkis same governor was deposed by the coalition in the legislature already described, which was led astray by the fear of some, the ill-will of others, and perhaps the treason of a very small number.
While member of a senatorial commission, Colonel Sarmiento proposed a new law for the regulation of elections, designed to cure the constantly recurring
