Constitutional history -- United States -- Sources; Constitutional law -- United States
In the second place, they will enter into the public service under
circumstances which cannot fail to produce a temporary affection at
least to their constituents. There is in every breast a sensibility to
marks of honor, of favor, of esteem, and of confidence, which, apart
from all considerations of interest, is some pledge for grateful and
benevolent returns. Ingratitude is a common topic of declamation against
human nature; and it must be confessed that instances of it are but
too frequent and flagrant, both in public and in private life. But the
universal and extreme indignation which it inspires is itself a proof of
the energy and prevalence of the contrary sentiment.
In the third place, those ties which bind the representative to his
constituents are strengthened by motives of a more selfish nature. His
pride and vanity attach him to a form of government which favors his
pretensions and gives him a share in its honors and distinctions.
Whatever hopes or projects might be entertained by a few aspiring
characters, it must generally happen that a great proportion of the men
deriving their advancement from their influence with the people,
would have more to hope from a preservation of the favor, than from
innovations in the government subversive of the authority of the people.
All these securities, however, would be found very insufficient without
the restraint of frequent elections. Hence, in the fourth place, the
House of Representatives is so constituted as to support in the members
an habitual recollection of their dependence on the people. Before the
sentiments impressed on their minds by the mode of their elevation
can be effaced by the exercise of power, they will be compelled to
anticipate the moment when their power is to cease, when their exercise
of it is to be reviewed, and when they must descend to the level from
which they were raised; there forever to remain unless a faithful
discharge of their trust shall have established their title to a renewal
of it.
I will add, as a fifth circumstance in the situation of the House of
Representatives, restraining them from oppressive measures, that they
can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves
and their friends, as well as on the great mass of the society. This has
always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can
connect the rulers and the people together. It creates between them
that communion of interests and sympathy of sentiments, of which few
governments have furnished examples; but without which every government
degenerates into tyranny. If it be asked, what is to restrain the
House of Representatives from making legal discriminations in favor of
themselves and a particular class of the society? I answer: the genius
of the whole system; the nature of just and constitutional laws; and
above all, the vigilant and manly spirit which actuates the people of
America--a spirit which nourishes freedom, and in return is nourished by
it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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