date

[clx. 406] 1822 July 12 Constitut
[clx. 406]

1822 July 12

Constitut. Code Rationale or Exposition?

Securities Counterforces

4. Legal responsibility

5. Moral do

Public Opinion Tribunal

Members who

Sections Democratical and

Aristocratical

?. Public Opinion Tribunal - Members who - Sections, Democratical and Aristocratical - their affections and opinions.

The Members of the Public Opinion Tribunal in a community are the members of that same community the whole number of them considered in respect of their capacity of taking cognizance of each others conduct, and sitting in judgment on it and causing their judgments in the several cases to be made known In the English House of Commons, in the formation of a Committee of the Members for this or that particular purpose an Order that now and then is seen to have place is that all who come to the Committee shall have voices. The Members of the Public Opinion Tribunal are to the members of the community at large what the Members of the House of Commons Committee thus formed are to the Members of the House.

This being the case, the Members of the Aristocratical Section of the Tribunal being as much Members of the community as those of the Democratical Section, can not but be Members of the Democratical Section likewise. They have every one of them a vote in it: and this vote not only has a force and effect not less than that of a Member of the Democratical section but a force and effect much greater, rising above it in a scale composed of numerous degrees of magnitude. Still however in proportion as the number of the Members of the Community in the habit of acting in this character encreased, the ratio of the number of /in/ this more extended section to the members in the more contracted Section would encrease - and thus the members of the Aristocratical Section being constantly in a minority the whole Section would be without influence. To preserve their influence they make common cause, secede from the democratical members, and act in a Section apart, forming as it were a House of Lords having an interest of its own different from distinct from and opposite to the interest of the remainder and acting constantly in pursuance of that particular and sinister interest.
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