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the votes of an actual majority of the oldest men of a nation, taken in their wards, can be obtained in a factious way to annul a good law. And such a power is absolutely necessary to prevent oppressive laws from continuing in force, if they happen to be made, either from design or mistake.

THUS, by uniting the interests of all the classes, and by uniting the interest of the senators with the interest of the society, these regulations form the surest guard against sedition and tyranny. And by the encouragement which they give to the practice of virtue, and cultivation of talents, they must have a powerful tendency to raise a society to the highest state of perfection of which human nature is capable. If the Romans had adopted some such modifications of their constitution, the inconveniences of allowing the lower ranks a vote in enacting laws and electing officers, would have been in a great degree obviated.

SECTION VII.

On the Nature and Tendency of the Powers intrusted by the National Assembly, to the Public Agents in France.

To prevent the evils which had attended absolute monarchy, the national assembly propos-' ed, that the people should elect representatives, who should have the sole power of enacting and repealing laws, and the control of the public treasury; the king to retain the important powers of directing the current public business, the command of the military force, the disposal of public offices, and to be allowed a certain sum annually for the expense of his court. As the king agreed to these principal regulations, with others of inferior consequence, they were formed into a constitution, called a limited monarchy.

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By this constitution, the representatives were invested with unlimited power to act as they might think proper, in the name of the people; their acts to be considered as the acts of the whole society. There was no reservation, nor any method pointed out, by which the people might divest these men of their power, during the period for which they were elected, in case they should betray their trust.

Ir is obvious, therefore, that this constitution invested the king and assembly of representatives, jointly, with the same absolute power over the nation, that the king possessed solely before the revolution; and that each of them was independent of the other in the exercise of their respective shares of that power. This division of the sovereignty, by giving the king the sole power of scheming and directing the current business of the nation, and by giving the assembly sole power over the means necessary for executing his schemes, had a direct

tendency to produce the most violent altercations and recriminations, between the king and the assembly, which could only end in civil war, unless one of them submitted to the other.

BUT as it could not be expected, that the majority of seven hundred representatives would submit, and implicitly agree to the schemes of a king, without some strong personal inducement, the king, to avoid contention and civil war, was obliged either to submit to the representatives, or to bribe them to consent to such taxes and laws, as might be necessary for carrying on his schemes; and it ought to have been expected that he would choose the latter method, as he had the disposal of the public offices, and the direction of the expenditure, by which means he was enabled to offer such high bribes out of the national funds, as few men could resist. For, as each member of the French assembly repre

sented about nine thousand families, an an ave rage, if the king desired a member to vote for taxes amounting to one pound sterling upon each family, the constituents of that member would pay, if the tax took place, nine thousand pounds a year, of which the member would pay two, three, or five pounds.

AND, at the same time, if the king or his agents offered to give the member out of the produce of the tax, in money and places, five hundred pounds a year to himself and friends, few could be expected to resist such a powerful temptation, and the leaders would obtain. places worth ten, twenty, and some above forty times that sum.

As the king, in such a government, must bribe a majority in the national assembly, to obtain their concurrence with his schemes, it is therefore his interest to increase the number of offices, and to allow the officers to increase

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