Whether the Carthaginian senators enjoyed their seats for life, or whether they were liable to be expelled for any misdemeanour, and by whom, are points in which history is quite silent. At Rome, as the censors had the power of promoting to that dignity, so they had equally the power of expelling any member for bad manners, by the single ceremony of leaving out his name when they called over the list of the senate. I cannot help thinking this a great defect in the Roman polity: since it threw the power of garbling and modelling the senate into the hands of two men, who were liable to be corrupted to serve the ends of faction. A power which ought never to be lodged in so few hands in a country which enjoys the blessings of liberty. For how serviceable soever it might have been, as a curb to licentiousness in the earlier ages of that republick; yet Cicero, in his oration for A. Cluentius, inveighs bitterly against the abuse of the censorial power in his time, and gives several instances where it was made subservient to the ends of faction in modelling the senate. And he seems to fear that the censors list may bring as many calamities upon the citizens as the late most inhuman proscription; and that the point of the censors pen may prove as terrible as the sword of their late dictator. C. Nepos, in the life of Hamilcar, takes notice of an officer of the same nature amongst the Carthaginians, to whose inspection the greatest men in that republick seem to have been subject. But it does not appear from history, whether his power extended so far as to expel a senator. Should a bad prince, or a wicked minister, ever be invested with the power of weeding the house, and modelling the parliament at pleasure, there would be an end of our constitution and liberty. In the Roman senate all questions were decided (as in our parliament) by a majority of voices. At Carthage no law could pass, unless the senate were unanimous, like the Polish diet. One single veto from any one member, took the question out of the hands of the senate, and gave up the ultimate decision to the people, who were the _dernier resort_ of all power. This Aristotle censures as inclining more towards democracy than was consistent with the just rules of a well regulated republick.[338] Because the magistrates were not only obliged to open all the different opinions and debates of the senators upon the question, in the hearing of the people, who were the absolute and decisive judges in all these cases of appeal; but any one, even the lowest fellow in the mob, might freely give his opinion in opposition just as he thought proper. A source of endless discord, anarchy, and confusion! A kind of polity, as Aristotle observes, unknown in any other form of republican government.