good; that those were chosen to command who could expend the most in banquets or in pageantry; and that the wicked and the crafty could please the vulgar most, and were always the most successful: he adds, that their demagogues were commonly in the pay of their enemies. But it is not only by misleading the affections of the multitude that demagogues have been enabled to hurry them into ruinous measures. Every person who is at all acquainted with the manner in which affairs are transacted in numerous assemblies, will readily subscribe to the reasonableness of the following reflections, with which a judicious and enlightened citizen of Geneva (M. de Lolme) concludes his account of the success of a very bold experiment of this sort in the history of his own republic:-"That, in popular deliberations, the few who are united together, who take an active part in public affairs, and whose station is conspicuous, have such an advantage over the many who turn their eyes towards them, and are without union among themselves, that even with a middling degree of skill, they can at all times direct at their pleasure the general resolutions; that, as a consequence of the very nature of things, there is no proposal, however absurd, to which a numerous assembly of men may not, at one time or other, be brought to assent, and that laws would be wiser, and more likely to procure the advantage of all, if they were to be made by drawing of lots, or casting dice, than by the suffrages of a multitude.”1 1 [On the Constitution of England, B. II. chap. v. p. 255, edit. 1816.] 'In the year 1707, a law was enacted, that a general assembly of the people should be held every five years, to treat of the affairs of the Republic; but the magistrates, who dreaded these assemblies, soon obtained from the citizens themselves the repeal of that law; and the first resolution of the people, in the first of these periodical assemblies, (1712,) was to abolish them for ever. The profound secrecy with which the magistrates prepared their proposal to the citizens on that subject, and the sudden manner in which the latter, when assembled, were acquainted with it, have indeed accounted but imperfectly for this strange determination of the people; and the consternation which seized the whole assembly when the result of the suffrages was proclaimed, has confirmed many in the opinion, that some unfair means had been used. The whole transaction bas been kept secret to this day; but the common opinion on the subject, which has been adopted by M. Rousseau in his Lettres de la Montagne, is thisThe magistrates, it is said, had pri Mr. Hume, in one of his Essays, takes notice of a very singular circumstance in the Athenian government, which has escaped the attention of antiquaries and commentators. By the Tpapn Пapavóμwv, or indictment of illegality, "any man was tried and punished by any common court of judicature, for any law which had passed upon his motion in the assembly of the people, if that law appeared to the Court unjust or prejudicial to the public." Of this sort of trial he gives several instances, and subjoins to them the following observations: "The Athenian Democracy was such a tumultuary government as we can scarce form notion of in the present age of the world. The whole collective body of the people voted in every law, without any limitation of property, without any distinction of rank, without control from any magistracy or senate, and, consequently, without regard to order, justice, or prudence. The Athenians soon became sensible of the mischiefs attending this constitution; but being averse to the checking themselves by any rule or restriction, they resolved at least to check their demagogues or counsellors, by the fear of future punishment and inquiry. They accordingly instituted this remarkable law, a law esteemed so essential to their government, that Æschines insists on it as a known truth, that were it abolished or neglected, it were impossible for the democracy to subsist." "The people," he adds, "feared not any ill consequence to liberty from the authority of the criminal courts, because these were nothing but very numerous juries, chosen by lot from among the people; and they considered themselves justly as in a state of perpetual pupillage, where they had an authority, after they came to the use of reason, not only to retract and control whatever had been determined, but to punish any guardian for measures which they had embraced by his persuasion. The same law had place in Thebes, and for the same reason.' vately instructed the secretaries, in whose ears the citizens were to whisper their suffrages; when a citizen said 'Approbation,' he was understood to approve the proposal of the magistrates, when he said Rejection,' he was under stood to reject the periodical assem blies."-De Lolme, [Ibidem. p. 254, npte.] *[Essays, &c., Part II., Essay x. Of some Remarkable Customs.] It is in consequence of experiencing this incapacity of large assemblies to transact business, that we find in all free governments two councils, a less and a greater; or, in other words, a Senate and a People. "The people," as Harrington observes, "would want wisdom without the senate, the senate without the people would want honesty."* But here another inconvenience occurs. It appears from what has been said, that a liberty of debate in a very numerous assembly can hardly answer any good purpose. The senate, therefore, we shall suppose, deliberates, and the people only reserve to themselves the privilege of resolving. But if the senate deliberates, and the people only resolves without debating, the latter have indeed the shew of liberty, but the senate possesses, in fact, the legislative authority. This inconvenience. no government, of which we have any account, has yet been able fully to remedy. There is, indeed, a plan for that purpose, and one that seems very practicable in theory, proposed by Mr. Hume in his Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth, an Essay that contains many original and profound observations. "If the people debate," says he, "all is confusion. If they do not debate they can only resolve, and then the senate carves for them. Divide the people into many separate bodies, and then they may debate with safety, and every inconvenience seems to be prevented." "When an absurdity," he continues, "strikes a member of a numerous assembly, he conveys it to his neighbour, and so on till the whole be infected. Separate this great body, and though every member be only of middling sense, it is not probable that anything but reason can prevail over the whole. Influence and example being removed, good sense will always get the better of bad among a number of people. Good sense is one thing, but follies are numberless, and every man has a different one. The only way of making a people wise, is to keep them from uniting into large assemblies."t * [Oceana.] [In the edition of the Essays, London, 1788, vol. i. p. 456. But in that edition, the last two sentences, beginning with "Good," &c., do not appear. Mr. Stewart's reference is, "Essays, vol. i. p. Besides the inconveniences which have been hitherto mentioned as incident to democratical governments, there is another which seems to be essential to their nature. In the English constitution, it is well known that the great security we have for our liberty, and for the enactment of equitable laws, is that our lawgivers have no share whatever in the executive branch of government, but are bound by the laws, when made, in common with the rest of their fellow-citizens. But this advantage never can be enjoyed in a Democracy, because there are no persons qualified by their influence to defend the rights of the people, and, at the same time, called upon to do so by motives of self-interest. The favour of the people is indeed the road to eminence, but the moment that this eminence is attained by any individual, he is placed above that rank in life which exposes to the danger of oppression from the executive magistrates; nay, he becomes unwilling to curtail their authority, as he naturally looks forward to the time when he himself shall be placed in some similar station. In all Democratical Governments too, it will naturally be the policy of those in power to draw over to their party those aspiring men who have acquired an influence among the people. De Lolme remarks, that," At Rome, the only end which the tribunes ever pursued with any degree of sincerity and perseverance, was to procure to the people, that is, to themselves, an admission to all the different dignities in the Republic. After having obtained a law for admitting the plebeians to the consulship, they procured for them a liberty of intermarrying with the patricians. They afterwards got them admitted to the dictatorship, to the office of military tribune, to the censorship; in a word, the only use they made of the power of the people, was to increase prerogatives, which they called the prerogatives of all, but which they and their friends alone were ever likely to enjoy. 533." But I have not, at the moment, been able to ascertain whether there be a difference in the various editions. The Essay is not found in the third, that of 1748, which is at hand. It is more commonly said, "Truth is one, but Errors infinite, in number ;" and in this form Hume is quoted by the Author for the apophthegm, Works, (supra) Vol. VII. p. 212.] "But we do not find that they ever employed the power of the people in things really beneficial to the people. We do not find that they ever set bounds to the terrible power of its magistrates; that they ever repressed that class of citizens who knew how to make their crimes pass uncensured; in a word, that they ever endeavoured to regulate the judicial power,that power which is the sure criterion of the goodness of a government, and which was always at Rome a mere instrument of tyranny."* It would seem, therefore, that the advantage of the English constitution in placing all executive authority out of the hands of those to whom the people entrust their liberties, cannot be obtained in a Democracy, in which the people will almost necessarily be betrayed by those whom they trust, as by this very confidence they elevate them above their own rank, and as the attainment of the executive offices is the ultimate object of ambition to which the favourites of the people naturally aspire. From the observations which have been made, it appears how very difficult it must be in a Democracy to secure the enactment of equal laws. But supposing such laws to be enacted, it is still more difficult to secure the faithful interpretation and application of them. When the passions of the people are roused, their rulers will find it necessary to gratify them by popular regulations; but unless there are proper checks on the judicial power, the most salutary laws are perfectly inefficacious; and how to impose such checks, and, at the same time, to secure to judges that independence which is necessary for the pure administration of justice, is a problem which does not seem to have been successfully solved in any democratical establishment recorded in history. On this subject, some very judicious observations, illustrated chiefly by the history of the Roman Commonwealth, may be found in De Lolme.† Let us now consider how far a Democratical Constitution is [On the Constitution of England, Book II. chap. ix.] + [Ibidem, Book II. chap. xvi. sey.] |