Carbo's second proposal, that immediate and indefinite re-election to the tribunate should be permitted, was not recommended on the same grounds of precedent or reason. The analogies of the Roman constitution were opposed to it, and the rules against the perpetuity of office which limited the patrician magistracies, and made even a single re-election to the consulship illegal,[475] while framed in support of aristocratic government, had had as their pretext the security of the Republic, and therefore ostensibly of popular freedom and control. Again, the people might be reminded that the tribunate was not always a power friendly to their interests, and that the veto which blocked the expression of their will might be continued to a second year by the obstinate persistence of a minority of voters. Excellent arguments of a popular kind could be, and probably were, employed against the proposal. Certainly the sentiment which really animated the opposition could have found little favour with the masses, who ultimately voted for the rejection of the bill. All adherents of senatorial government must have seen in the success of the measure the threat of a permanent opposition, the possibility of the rise of official demagogues of the Greek type, monarchs in reality though, not in name, the proximity of a Gracchan movement unhampered by the weakness which had led to Gracchus's fall. It is easier for an electorate to maintain a principle by the maintenance of a personality than to show its fervour for a creed by submitting new and untried exponents to a rigid confession of faith. The senate knew that causes wax and wane with the men who have formulated them, and it had always been more afraid of individuals than of masses. Scipio's view of the Gracchan movement and his acceptance of the cardinal maxims of existing statecraft, prepare us for the attitude which he assumed on this occasion. His speech against the measure was believed to have been decisive in turning the scale. He was supported by his henchmen, and the faithful Laelius also gave utterance to the protests of the moderates against the unwelcome innovation. This victory, if decisive, would have made the career of Caius Gracchus impossible--a career which, while it fully justified the attitude of the opposition, more than fulfilled the designs of the advocates of the change. But the triumph was evanescent. Within the next eight years re-election to the tribunate was rendered possible under certain circumstances. The successful proposal is said to have taken the form of permitting any one to be chosen, if the number of candidates fell short of the ten places which were to be filled.[476] This arrangement was probably represented as a corollary of the ancient religious injunction which forbade the outgoing tribunes to leave the Plebs unprovided with guardians; and this presentment of the case probably weakened the arguments of the opposition. The aristocratic