than the temporary setting aside of some more or less useful speculation.

In a word, the result of a division of the executive power is either a more or less speedy establishment of the right of the strongest, or a continued state of war: that of a division of the legislative power, is either truth, or general tranquillity.

The following maxims will therefore be admitted: That the laws of a state may be permanent, it is requisite that the legislative power should be divided: that they may have weight, and continue in force, it is necessary that the executive power should be one.

If the reader should conceive any doubt as to the truth of the above observations, let him cast his eyes on the history of the proceedings of the English legislature down to our times, and he will readily find a proof of them. He would be surprised to see how little variation there has been in the political laws of this country, especially during the last hundred years; though, it is most important to observe, the legislature has been, as it were, in a continual state of action, and (no dispassionate man will deny) has generally promoted the public good. Nay, if we except the act passed under William III. by which it had been enacted, that parliaments should sit no longer than three years, and which was repealed by a subsequent act, under George I. which allowed them to sit for seven years, we shall not find, that any law, which may really be called constitutional, and which has been enacted since the Restoration, has been changed afterward.

Now, if we compare this steadiness of the English government with the continual subversions of the constitutional laws of some ancient republics, with the impru dence of some of the laws passed in their assemblies,+ and with the still greater inconsiderateness with which they sometimes repealed the most salutary regulations, as it

Every one knows the frequent hostilities that took place between the Roman senate and the tribunes. In Sweden there have been continual contentions between the king and the senate, in which they have overpowered each other by turns. And in England, when the executive power became double, by the king's allowing the parliament to have a perpetual and independent existence, a civil war almost immediately followed.

The Athenians, among other laws, had enacted one to forbid the application of a certain part of the public revenues to any other use than the expenses of the theatres and public shows,

were, the day after they had been enacted-if we call to mind the extraordinary means to which the legislature of those republics, at times sensible how its very power was prejudicial to itself and to the state, was obliged to have recourse, in order, if possible, to tie its own hands, we shall remain convinced of the great advantages which attend the constitution of the English legislature.+

Nor is this division of the English legislature accompanied (which is indeed a very fortunate circumstance) by any actual division of the nation: each constituent part of it possesses strength sufficient to ensure respect to its resolutions; yet no real division has been made of the forces of the state. Only a greater proportional share of all those distinctions which are calculated to gain the reverence of the people, has been allotted to those parts of the legislature which could not possess their confidence in so high a degree as the others; and the inequalities, in point of real strength, between them, have been made up by the magic of dignity.

Thus the king, who alone forms one part of the legislature, has on his side the majesty of the kingly title: the two houses are, in appearance, no more than councils entirely dependent on him; they are bound to follow his person; they only meet, as it seems, to advise him; and never address him but in the most solemn and respectful manner.

As the nobles, who form the second order of the legislature, bear, in point both of real weight and numbers, no proportion to the body of the people, they have received,

* In some ancient republics, when the legislature wished to render a certain law permanent, and at the same time mistrusted their own future wisdom, they added a clause to it, which made it death to propose the revocation of it. Those who afterward thought such revocation necessary to the public welfare, relying on the mercy of the people, appeared in the public assembly with a halter about their

necks.

We shall perhaps have occasion to observe hereafter, that the true cause of the equability of the operations of the English legislature is the opposition that happily takes place between the different views and interests of the several bodies that compose it; a consideration this, without which all political inquiries are no more than airy speculations, and the only one that can lead to useful practical conclusions.

It is for want of having duly considered this subject, that M. Rousseau exclaims somewhere against those, who, when they speak of the general estates of France, 'dare to call the people the third At Rome, where all the order we mention was invertedwhere the fasces were laid at the feet of the people-and where the tribunes, whose function, like that of the king of England, was to

as a compensation, the advantage of personal honours, and of an bereditary title.

Besides, the established ceremonial gives to their assembly a great pre-eminence over that of the representatives of the people. They are the upper house, and the others are the lower house. They are in a more special manner considered as the king's council; and it is in the place. where they assemble that his throne is placed.

When the king comes to the parliament, the commons, are sent for, and make their appearance at the bar of the house of lords. It is moreover before the lords, as before their judges, that the commons bring their impeachments./ When, after passing a bill in their own house, they send it to the lords to desire their concurrence, they always order a number of their own members to accompany it: whereas the lords send down their bills to them, only by some of the assistants of their house.+ When the nature of the alterations which one of the two houses may wish to make in a bill sent to it by the other, renders a confe rence between them necessary, the deputies of the commons to the committee, which is then formed of members of both houses, are to remain uncovered. Lastly, those bills which (in whichever of the two houses they have originated) have been agreed to by both, must be deposited in the house of lords, there to remain till the royal pleasure is signified.

Besides, the lords are members of the legislature by virtue of a right inherent in their persons; and they are supposed to sit in parliament on their own account, and for the support of their own interests. In consequence of this, they have the privilege of giving their votes by proxy; and when any of them dissent from the resolutions of their oppose the establishment of new laws, were only a subordinate kind of magistracy-many disorders followed. In Sweden, and in Scotland (before the Union), faults of another kind prevailed: in the former kingdom, for instance, an overgrown body of two thousand nobles frequently overruled both king and people.

The speaker of the house of lords must come down from the woolpack to receive the bills which the members of the commons bring to heir house,

+ The twelve judges and the masters in chancery. There is also a ceremonial establishment with regard to the manner and marks of respect with which those, two of them, who are sent with a bill to the commons, are to deliver it.

The commons have not that privilege, because they are themselves proxies for the people.-See Coke's Inst. 4. p. 41.

house, they may enter a protest against them, containing the reasons of their particular opinion. In a word, as this #part of the legislature is destined frequently to balance

the power of the people, what it could not receive in real strength it has received in outward splendour and great3 ness; so that, when it cannot resist by its weight, it overawes by its apparent magnitude.

In fine, as these various prerogatives, by which the component parts of the legislature are thus made to balance each other, are all intimately connected with the fortune of the state, and flourish and decay according to the vicissitudes of public prosperity or adversity, it thence follows, * that, though differences of opinion may sometimes take place between those parts, there can scarcely arise any when the general welfare is really in question. And when, to resolve the doubts that may arise on political speculations of this kind, we cast our eyes on the debates of the two houses for a long succession of years, and see the nature of the laws which have been proposed, of those which have passed, and of those which have been rejected, as well as of the arguments that have been urged on both sides, we shall remain convinced of the goodness of the principles on which the English legislature is formed.

CHAP. IV.

A third advantage peculiar to the English government.-The business of proposing laws lodged in the hands of the people.

A THIRD circumstance, which I propose to shew to be peculiar to the English government, is the manner in which the respective offices of the three component parts of the legislature have been divided, and allotted to each of them.

In most of the ancient free states, the share of the people in the business of legislation was to approve or reject the propositions which were made to them, and to give the final sanction to the laws. The function of those persons (or in general those bodies), who were intrusted with the executive power, was, to prepare and frame the laws, and then to propose them to the people: and, in a word, they possessed that branch of the legislative power which may be called the initiative, that is, the prerogative of putting that power in action.*

* This power of previously considering and approving such laws as

This initiative, or exclusive right of proposing in legis. lative assemblies, attributed to the magistrates, is indeed very useful, and perhaps even necessary, in states of a republican form, for giving a permanence to the laws, as well as for preventing the disorders and struggles for power which have been mentioned before; but, upon examination, we shall find that this expedient is attended with inconveniences of little less magnitude than the evils it is meant to remedy.

These magistrates, or bodies, at first indeed apply frequently to the legislature for a grant of such branches of power as they dare not of themselves assume, or for the removal of such obstacles to their growing authority as they do not yet think it safe for them peremptorily to set aside. But when their authority has at length gained a sufficient degree of extent and stability, as farther manifestations of the will of the legislature could then only create obstructions to the exercise of their power, they be gin to consider the legislature as an enemy whom they must take great care never to rouse. They consequently convene the assembly of the people as seldom as they can. When they do it, they carefully avoid proposing any thing favourable to public liberty. They soon even entirely cease to convene the assembly at all; and the people, after thus losing the power of legally asserting their rights, are exposed to that which is the highest degree of political ruin, the loss of even the remembrance of them, unless some indirect means are found, by which they may, from time to time, give life to their dormant privileges: means which were afterward to be propounded to the people, was, in the first times of the Roman republic, constantly exercised by the senate: laws were made populi jussu, ex auctoritate senatus. Even in cases of elections, the previous approbation and auctoritas of the senate, with regard to those persons who were offered to the suffrages of the people, were required. Tum enim non gerebat is magistratum qui ceperat, si patres auctores non erant facti.' Cic. pro Plancio, 3.

At Venice, the senate also exercises powers of the same kind with regard to the grand council, or assembly of the nobles. In the canton of Bern, all propositions must be discussed in the little council, which is composed of twenty-seven members, before they are laid before the council of the two hundred, in whom resides the sovereignty of the whole canton. And, in Geneva, the law is, that nothing shall be treated in the general council, or assembly of the citi zens, which has not been previously treated and approved in the council of the two hundred: and that nothing shall be treated in the two hundred which has not been previously treated and approved in the council of the twenty-five.'