Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/51

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

CH. VIII.]

THE LEGISLATURE.

43

tives, but occasionally upon the people themselves, against their own temporary delusions and errors. The cool, deliberate sense of the community ought, in all governments, and actually will, in all free governments, ultimately prevail over the views of their rulers. But there are particular moments in public affairs, when the people, stimulated by some irregular passion, or some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men, may call for measures, which they themselves will afterwards be the most ready to lament and condemn. In these critical moments, how salutary will be the interference of a body of respectable citizens, chosen without reference to the exciting cause, to check the misguided career of public opinion, and to suspend the blow, until reason, justice, and truth can regain their authority over the public mind.^[1] It was thought to add great weight to all these considerations, that history has informed us of no long-lived republic, which had not a senate. Sparta, Rome, Carthage were, in fact, the only states, to whom that character can be applied.^[2]

↑ The Federalist, No. 63.
↑ The Federalist, No, 63.—There are some very striking remarks on this subject in the reasoning of the convention, in the county of Essex, called to consider the constitution proposed for Massachusetts, in 1778,^{[a 1]} and which was finally rejected. "The legislative power," said that body, "must not be trusted with one assembly. A single assembly is frequently influenced by the vices, follies, passions, and prejudices of an individual. It is liable to be avaricious, and to exempt itself from the burthens it lays on its constituents. It is subject to ambition; and after a series of years will be prompted to vote itself perpetual. The long parliament in England voted itself perpetual, and thereby for a time destroyed the political liberty of the subject. Holland was governed by

↑ It is contained in a pamphlet, entitled "The Essex Result," and was printed in 1778. I quote the passage from Mr. Savage's valuable Exposition of the Constitution of Massachusetts, printed in the New-England Magazine for March, 1832, p. 9. See also on this subject Paley's Moral Philosophy, B. 6, ch. 7, p. 388; The Federalist, No. 62, 63.

[1] The Federalist, No. 63.

[s567n2-3] The Federalist, No, 63.—There are some very striking remarks on this subject in the reasoning of the convention, in the county of Essex, called to consider the constitution proposed for Massachusetts, in 1778,^{[a 1]} and which was finally rejected. "The legislative power," said that body, "must not be trusted with one assembly. A single assembly is frequently influenced by the vices, follies, passions, and prejudices of an individual. It is liable to be avaricious, and to exempt itself from the burthens it lays on its constituents. It is subject to ambition; and after a series of years will be prompted to vote itself perpetual. The long parliament in England voted itself perpetual, and thereby for a time destroyed the political liberty of the subject. Holland was governed by

[2] It is contained in a pamphlet, entitled "The Essex Result," and was printed in 1778. I quote the passage from Mr. Savage's valuable Exposition of the Constitution of Massachusetts, printed in the New-England Magazine for March, 1832, p. 9. See also on this subject Paley's Moral Philosophy, B. 6, ch. 7, p. 388; The Federalist, No. 62, 63.

[1]

[2]

[a 1]