Several other circumstances concur in rendering the power of the majority in America not only preponderant, but irresistible. With the exception of the tumult, this comes to the same thing as if the majority of the populace held its deliberations in the market-place. A proceeding which will in the end set all the guarantees of representative government at naught is becoming more and more general in the United States it frequently happens that the electors, who choose a delegate, point out a certain line of conduct to him, and impose upon him a certain number of positive obligations which he is pledged to fulfil. In several States the judicial power was also submitted to the elective discretion of the majority, and in all of them its existence was made to depend on the pleasure of the legislative authority, since the representatives were empowered annually to regulate the stipend of the judges.Ĭustom, however, has done even more than law. It deprived the representatives of the executive of all stability and independence, and by subjecting them completely to the caprices of the legislature, it robbed them of the slender influence which the nature of a democratic government might have allowed them to retain. It is to a legislature thus constituted that almost all the authority of the government has been entrusted.īut whilst the law increased the strength of those authorities which of themselves were strong, it enfeebled more and more those which were naturally weak. The members of both houses are taken from the same class in society, and are nominated in the same manner so that the modifications of the legislative bodies are almost as rapid and quite as irresistible as those of a single assembly. The Americans determined that the members of the legislature should be elected by the people immediately, and for a very brief term, in order to subject them, not only to the general convictions, but even to the daily passion, of their constituents. The legislature is, of all political institutions, the one which is most easily swayed by the wishes of the majority. Most of the American Constitutions have sought to increase this natural strength of the majority by artificial means. The very essence of democratic government consists in the absolute sovereignty of the majority for there is nothing in democratic States which is capable of resisting it. Unlimited Power Of The Majority In The United States, And Its Consequences
Natural strength of the majority in democracies-Most of the American Constitutions have increased this strength by artificial means-How this has been done-Pledged delegates-Moral power of the majority-Opinion as to its infallibility-Respect for its rights, how augmented in the United States.
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