CH. IX.]
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
69
ence and sympathy and responsibility can be effectually secured.[1] Just the question, what degree of frequency is best calculated to accomplish that object is not susceptible of any precise and universal answer, and must essentially depend upon very different considerations in different nations, and vary with their size, their age, their conditions, their institutions, and their local peculiarities.[2]
§ 588. It has been a current observation, that "where annual elections end, tyranny begins."[3] But this remark, like many others of a general nature, is open to much question. There is no pretence, that there is any natural connection between the period of a year, or any other exact revolution of time, and the political changes fit for governments or magistrates. Why is the election of a magistrate or representative more safe for one year, than for two years? For one year, more than for six months? For six months, more than for three months? It is certainly competent for a state to elect its own rulers, daily, or weekly, or monthly, or annual-- ↑ The Federalist, No. 52, 57.
- ↑ Dr. Paley, with his usual practical sense, has remarked, in regard to the composition, and tenure of office, of the British house of commons, that, "the number, the fortune, and quality of the members; the variety of interests and characters among them; above all, the temporary duration of their power, and the change of men, which every new election produces, are so many securities to the public, as well against the subjection of their judgments to any external dictation, as against the formation of a junto in their own body, sufficiently powerful to govern their decisions. The representatives are so intermixed with the constituents, and the constituents with the rest of the people, that they cannot, without a partiality too flagrant to be endured, impose any burthen upon the subject, in which they do not share themselves. Nor scarcely can they adopt an advantageous regulation, in which their own interests will not participate of the advantage." Paley's Moral Philosophy, B. 6, ch. 7.
- ↑ The Federalist, No. 53. See Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws, B. 2, ch. 3.
