the laws, and then to propose them to the people. In a word, they possessed that branch of the legislative power, which may be called the initiative, that is, the prerogative of putting that power into action. In the first times of the Roman republic, this initiative power was constantly exercised by the Roman senate. Laws were made populi jussu, ex authoritate senati; and, even in elections, the candidates were subject to the previous approbation of the senate. In modern times, in the republics of Venice, Berne, and Geneva, the same power is, in fact, exercised by a select assembly, before it can be acted upon by the larger assembly of the citizens, or their representatives.[1] He has added, that this power is very useful, and perhaps even necessary, in states of a republican form, for giving a permanence to the laws, as well as for preventing political disorders and struggles for power. At the same time, he is compelled to admit, that this expedient is attended with inconveniences of little less magnitude, than the evils it is meant to remedy.[2] The inconveniences are certainly great, but there are evils of a deeper character belonging to such a system. The natural, nay, necessary tendency of it is, ultimately to concentrate all power in the initiative body, and to leave to the approving body but the shadow of authority. It is in fact, though not in form, an oligarchy. And, so far from its being useful in a republic, it is the surest means of sapping all its best institutions, and overthrowing the public liberties, by corrupting the very fountains of legislation. De Lolme praises it as a peculiar excellence of the British monarchy. America, no less, vindicates it, as a fundamental principle in all her republican constitutions.
Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/364
356
CONSTITUTION OF THE U. STATES.
[BOOK III.
