proxies in joint stock companies always vote as directed by their principals? Would it be thought honorable to hold a proxy and disobey the will of the principal? What have the co-principals to do with the reason for the agent's acts? Whether he obeys the will of his principal, or his own will, they are equally bound, and the question is between him and his employer. They have still less right to object to his resignation, because the agent is nothing in the contract, but the _act_ is every thing. Whether the agent {635} is bound by oaths and bonds and security to obey, or is left free, he is equally a legal agent. But is it fair to judge of rights which appertain to the structure of our government, and are necessary for its proper administration, and the safety of the people, by analogy to a private association of individuals, whose rights, if not regulated by express contract, are regulated by the arbitrary dictates of positive law? You may suppose a private association to be regulated by any principles which you may please to fancy, and hence may suppose the right of instruction to exist or not at your pleasure. But you cannot infer from what you suppose to exist in this fancied compact, that an analogous right does or does not exist in the great positive governmental compact. That must be tried by its positive terms, and not by fanciful analogies. Wherever a Constitution rests the power to elect _a representative_, there lies the power to instruct. A Senator is responsible only for his own conduct, not that of his constituents; if their instructions are not approved by the people, they are responsible. Shifting responsibility destroys responsibility. If a Senator may defeat the will of his constituents in any case, he may in all, however unanimous the people and the legislature may be, and however important and permanent the consequences of his vote. If his firmness and independence may defeat his constituents, and he call solemn acts of the legislature temporary delusions, so may he under a delusion, defeat the deliberate wisdom of the people. Persons now living have seen Senators disobey and defeat the deliberate judgment of the people, expressed by several successive legislatures, sanctioned by repeated State elections, and sustained by the concurrent opinions of a majority of the States, the House of Representatives, and a vast majority of the American people. If this is right, then our government is under the control of a despicable and vexatious aristocracy.