the moral tone of society? Does it afford an example of magnanimity and of a delicate sense of honour in transactions with other states?

Those persons who hoped for such results will turn away from the United States with feelings of disappointment and humiliation. It would lead us to despair of human nature, if we believed that this form of government would be the last and highest effort of civilization.

There is, however, a serious difficulty in the amendment of a Constitution based on universal suffrage. Such a democracy is in one sense eminently conservative; it would assuredly offer vigorous resistance to any change. A monarchy may be limited by law or by prescription; an aristocracy may be deprived of its powers and privileges; but a democracy, when once it is supreme, howsoever degraded its character, or arbitrary its conduct, can only be dethroned by a military

revolution.

In this case the remedy would be

worse than the disease.

It is, however, idle to speculate on the

future.

"Futuri temporis exitum

Caliginosâ nocte premit Deus."

CHAPTER VII.

THE WORKING OF REPRESENTATIVE

INSTITUTIONS.

A FEELING is manifesting itself among thoughtful politicians, both in Europe and America, that the practical working of representative institutions is not altogether satisfactory. In the present condition of the most civilized states, constitutional government affords the best security for the orderly conduct of the community and for the prudent administration of public affairs. Representation is an essential element of constitutional government. The object of an electoral system should be to bring together a body of men who would represent the deliberate sense and conscience of the nation.

For this purpose it is neither necessary nor

desirable that the representatives should reflect every transient shadow or momentary wave of opinion which may pass over the surface of society. Such a system of representation would weaken the executive government by producing instability in the policy of the state, and a general feeling of uncertainty and distrust.

On the other hand, if the representative body is widely separated from the mass of the people, it ceases to be a faithful interpreter of the national mind. Public confidence is then withdrawn, and the whole system of the Constitution is impaired.

Some intermediate position between these two extremes should be the object of a sound representative system.

By whatever mode of election a body of educated persons are chosen as members of a representative assembly, an echo of public opinion will be heard amongst them. In this country a system of representation proportioned to population, to property, to taxation, or to

any other intelligible basis, never existed. The whole electoral machinery was composed of anomalies and incongruities.

Before the Reform Act of 1832, many large towns throughout the country, the centres of industry and wealth, were excluded from representation; whilst the aristocratic patron, the jobbing borough-monger, the self-elected corporation, the venal freeman, and the drunken pot-walloper, nominated a considerable proportion of the House of Commons.

Nevertheless, this constituent body, in spite of the intrigues of courtiers and place-men, raised the first Pitt to power, and sustained him in his vigorous and victorious administration. It enabled the second Pitt to defeat a clever but dishonest coalition, and to appeal, with triumphant success, from Parliament to the nation. In subsequent years this imperfect constituent body proved itself a faithful interpreter of public opinion by giving a persistent