His next step would have been decisive, but this he was not fated to take. When we turn from the history of the agrarian movement and its unexpected consequences to other items in the internal fortunes of Rome during this period, we find that Tiberius Gracchus had left another legacy to the State. This was the idea of a magistracy which, freed from the restraint of consulting the senate, should busy itself with political reform, remove on its own initiative the obstacles which the constitution threw in the path of its progress, and effect the regeneration of Rome and even of Italy by means of ordinances elicited from the people. The social question was here as elsewhere the efficient cause; but it left results which seemed strangely disproportionate to their source. The career of Gracchus had shown that the leadership of the people was encumbered by two weaknesses. These were the packing of assemblies by dependants of the rich, whose votes were known and whose voices were therefore under control, and the impossibility of re-election to office, which rendered a continuity of policy on the part of the demagogue impossible. It was the business of the tribunate of Carbo to remove both these hindrances to popular power. His first proposal was to introduce voting by ballot in the legislative assemblies;[474] it was one that could not easily be resisted, since the principle of the ballot had already been recognised in elections, and in all judicial processes with the exception of trials for treason. These measures seem to have had the support of the party of moderate reform: and Scipio and his friends probably offered no resistance to the new application of the principle. Without their support, and unprovided with arguments which might excite the fears or jealousy of the people, the nobility was powerless: and the bill, therefore, easily became law. The change thus introduced was unquestionably a great one. Hitherto the country voters had been the most independent; now the members of the urban proletariate were equally free, and from this time forth the voice of the city could find an expression uninfluenced by the smiles or frowns of wealthy patrons. The ballot produced its intended effect more fully in legislation than in election; its introduction into the latter sphere caused the nobility to become purchasers instead of directors; but it was seldom that a law affected individual interests so directly as to make a bargain for votes desirable. The chief bribery found in the legislative assemblies was contained in the proposal submitted by the demagogue.