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CONSTITUTION OF THE U. STATES.
[BOOK III.
two bodies of men, each having a decisive check upon the action of the other. All the arguments derived from the analogy between the movements of political bodies, and the operations of physical nature; all the impulses of political parsimony; all the prejudices against a second co-ordinate legislative assembly stimulated by the exemplification of it in the British parliament, were against a division of the legislative power.[1]
§ 548. It is also certain, that the notion, that the legislative power ought to be confided to a single body, has been, at various times, adopted by men eminent for their talents and virtues. Milton, Turgot, Franklin, are but a few among those, who have professedly entertained, and discussed the question.[2] Sir James Mackintosh, in a work of a controversial character, written with the zeal and eloquence of youth, advocated the doctrine of a single legislative body.[3] Perhaps his maturer life may have changed this early opinion. At all events, he can, in our day, count few followers. Against his opinion, thus uttered, there is the sad example of France itself,whose first constitution, in 1791, was formed on this basis, and whose proceedings the genius of this great man was employed to vindicate. She stands a monument of the folly and mischiefs of the scheme; and by her subsequent adoption of a division of the legislative powder, she has secured to herself (as it is hoped) the permanent blessings of liberty.[4]
- ↑ President J. Q. Adams's Oration, 4th July, 1831. See also Adams's Defence of American Constitution, per tot.; 1 Kent's Comm. 208, 209, 210; 2 Pitk. Hist. 233, 305; Paley's Moral Phil. B. 6, ch. 7.
- ↑ 1 Adams's Defence American Constitution, 3; id. 105; id. 306; 2 Pitk. Hist. 233.
- ↑ Mackintosh on the French Revolution, (1792) 4 edit. p. 266 to 273.
- ↑ 1 Kent's Comm. 209, 210.
