American Institutions and Their InfluenceTocqueville, Alexis de
History
American Institutions and Their Influence
Tocqueville, Alexis de
Democracy; United States -- Politics and government
Hamilton, after having demonstrated the utility of a power which might
prevent, or which might at least impede, the promulgation of bad laws,
adds: "It may perhaps be said that the power of preventing bad laws
includes that of preventing good ones, and may be used to the one
purpose as well as to the other. But this objection will have but
little weight with those who can properly estimate the mischiefs of that
inconstancy and mutability in the laws which form the greatest blemish
in the character and genius of our government."--(Federalist, No. 73.)
And again, in No. 62 of the same work, he observes: "The facility and
excess of law-making seem to be the diseases to which our governments
are most liable.... The mischievous effects of the mutability in the
public councils arising from a rapid succession of new members, would
fill a volume; every new election in the states is found to change one
half of the representatives. From this change of men must proceed
a change of opinions and of measures which forfeits the respect and
confidence of nations, poisons the blessings of liberty itself, and
diminishes the attachment and reverence of the people toward a political
system which betrays so many marks of infirmity."
Jefferson himself, the greatest democrat whom the democracy of America
has as yet produced, pointed out the same evils.
"The instability of our laws," he said in a letter to Madison, "is
really a very serious inconvenience. I think we ought to have obviated
it by deciding that a whole year should always be allowed to elapse
between the bringing in of a bill and the final passing of it. It should
afterward be discussed and put to the vote without the possibility
of making any alteration in it; and if the circumstances of the case
required a more speedy decision, the question should not be decided by
a simple majority, but by a majority of at least two thirds of both
houses."
* * * * *
PUBLIC OFFICERS UNDER THE CONTROL OF THE DEMOCRACY OF AMERICA.
Simple Exterior of the American public Officers.--No official
Costume.--All public Officers are remunerated.--Political Consequences
of this System.--No public Career exists in America.--Result of this.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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