upon that representative or agent who forgets his responsibility. It is this powerful control, which without resumption of the sovereign power into the hands of the people, as is sometimes necessary for the reformation of the constitution, preserves the several branches of the government within their due limits; for the people where they are as vigilant, and attentive to their rights as they ought to be, will be sure to take part against those who would usurp either the rights of the people, or the proper functions of a different agent; and, thus by their weight restore the constitutional balance. On the other hand, where such vigilance and attention to their just rights is wanting on the part of the people, the progress of usurpation is often as little perceived as that of a star, rising in the east whilst the sun is in the meridian. It reaches the zenith before the departure of day discovers its ascent. But whenever there is a due vigilance on the part of the people, not only the errors or vices of the administration, but any defects in the fundamental principles of the government are more readily discovered in a representative democracy, than in any other form of government. This sometimes produces parties; but they are never violent until a general spirit of encroachment, or of corruption, is discovered to exist in the public functionaries and agents; then indeed more violent parties arise, and such as may endanger the public happiness. But they are engendered, and fostered by the government, and not as is falsely supposed, by the people. The latter are always more disposed to submission, than to encroachment, and often distrust their own judgments rather than suspect the integrity of their representative, or agent: a delusion from which they seldom recover until it’s almost too late.
If any possible device can ensure happiness to the state, and security to the individual, it must be the establishment of this important principle of responsibility in the public agents; and its union with that other important principle, the separation and division of the powers of the government. Bold and desperate must that representative be who dares openly to violate his duty, when he knows himself amenable to the people for such a breach of trust. And wicked and corrupt must be that administration, all the parts of which unite in one conspiracy against the peace and happiness of the people collectively, and the security of every individual of the community.
The limitation of power; the frequency of elections, by the body of the people; the capacity of every individual citizen to be elected to any public office, to which his talents and integrity may recommend him, and the responsibility of every public agent to his constituents, the people, are the distinguishing features of a representative democracy; and whilst the people preserve a proper sense of the value of such a form of government, will effectually guard it against the snares, intrigues, and encroachments of its counterfeit, and most dangerous enemy, aristocracy; of which we shall now proceed to speak.
SECTION VIII.
An aristocracy is that form of government in which the supreme power is vested in a small number of persons. It may be absolute, or limited; absolute, where it is not founded in the consent and compact of the society, over which the government is established; or limited, where that consent has been given, and the constitution and its powers have been fixed, and limited, at the time of such consent; but in which the other important characters of a representative democracy have not been preserved. It may likewise be temporary; as where the members of the supreme council, or senate sit there only for a certain term and then retire to their former condition; or perpetual, during their lives. It may likewise be hereditary; where the representatives of certain families (distinguished by the flattering epithet of the well-born,) are senators by birth, or elective, where either at certain periods the whole senate is chosen, and vacancies are supplied by election. And this election may be either popular as where the body of the people choose the person whom they may think proper to advance to the senatorial dignity; which is also called creation, where the person so chosen is advanced from the plebeian to the senatorial order: or it may be made by the whole senatorial order, from among themselves; or by the senate itself, out of the members of the senatorial order in which case it has been styled co-optation: or by the senate itself out of the order of plebeians; in which case as in one before mentioned, it obtains the name of creation.
This form of government is capable of such an approximation, and resemblance, in its external form, to a representative democracy that the one is frequently mistaken for the other. The discriminating features of a representative democracy, as we have before observed, are the limitation of power; the frequency of elections, by the whole body of the people; the capacity of every citizen of the state to be elected to any public office, to which his talents and integrity may recommend him; and the responsibility of the public agent to the people, for his conduct. If all, or either of these characters be wanting in the constitution of the state, it is an aristocracy, though it should be founded upon the consent of the people, if either of these characters be wanting in the mode of administering the government, it then becomes an aristocracy founded upon fraud and usurpation. Seldom has such a government failed to spring up, from the immediate ruins of monarchy: never, perhaps, has it hitherto failed to undermine and subvert a government founded on the principles of a democracy. There is not in nature a spirit more subtle than aristocracy; nothing more unconfinable; nothing whose operations are more constant, more imperceptible, or more certain of success; nothing less apt to alarm in infancy; nothing more terrible at maturity.
Malum bud non aliud velocius ullum;
Mobilitate yiget, vousque acquirit eundo;
Parva mety primo; mox sese attollit in auras;
Ingrediturque solo et caput inter nubila condit.
VIRGIL
In aristocracies where the whole power is lodged in a senate, or council of men of eminent stations or fortunes, one may sometimes expect sufficient wisdom and political abilities to discern and accomplish whatever the interest of the state may require. But there is no security against factions, seditions, and civil wars; much less can this form secure fidelity to the public interest. The views of a corrupt senate will be the aggrandizing of themselves, their families, and their posterity, by all oppressions of the people. In hereditary senates these evils are certain; and the majority of such bodies may even want a competent share of talents to discharge the duties of their stations. Among men born in high stations of wealth and power, ambition, vanity, insolence, and an unsociable contempt of the lower orders, as if they were not of the same species, or were not fellow-citizens with them, too frequently prevail. And these high stations afford many occasions of corruption, by sloth, luxury, and debauchery, the general fore-runners and attendants of the barest venality. An unmixed hereditary aristocracy, if not the worst, must be among the very worst forms of government, since it engenders every species of evil in a government, without producing any countervailing benefit, or advantage.
In a council of senators elected for life, by the people, or by any popular interest, there is more reason to expect both wisdom and fidelity, than in the case of an hereditary aristocracy: but here the cogent tie of responsibility is wanting; and without that, the ambitious views of enlarging their powers, and their wealth, will supercede all ideas of gratitude, or fidelity to those to whom they owe their elevation.
When new members are admitted into the senatorial order by an election, in which the right of suffrage is confined to such as have already obtained an admission into that order; or where the right of admission into the senate itself is vested in that body; the senate will infallibly become a dangerous cabal, (Without any of the advantages desirable in civil polity,) and attempt to make their office hereditary. When senators are entitled to the privileges of that station in consequence of possessing a certain degree of wealth, the burdens of the state will, without exception, be, thrown upon the poorer classes of the people. Thus aristocracy, whatever foundation it may be raised upon, will always prove a most iniquitous and oppressive form of government.
In absolute monarchies, and in perfect democracies, the seeds of aristocracy are contained in wealth; but they do not germinate so long as these governments remain unmixed: for power is not attached to riches in the former, they being hidden from the sight there, least they should tempt the grasp of
