I shall quietly resign all my posts and employments, withdraw all my money, or as much as I can; with part of it purchase some strong castle in one of the most distant provinces, and keep the remainder for any exigences that may happen." (2) So, absolute democracies or aristocracies could not endure opposition, not even the passive existence of those who were known to belong to the opposite side. Banishment followed banishment. Any administration in our modern representative states, which stigmatizes every opposition as factious, shows that it is either very weak or factious itself, and ought not to be borne with by the mass of substantial and good citizens.

As to the history of this great institution, for thus I feel tempted to call it, I believe we cannot date its perfection farther back than under George II. against Walpole, after the Jacobites had given up the idea of restoring the Stuarts, and when Pultney (afterwards Earl Bath) vigorously, yet not, at times, without the spirit of faction, led it. There existed, indeed, a regular opposition against William III., but it was generally more or less revolutionary; that is, it was in the interest of the Stuarts. The opposition in France mixes up frequently the two revolutionary parties of the legitimists and republicans, as this cannot be otherwise so soon after the expulsion of a dynasty. (3)

(1) Mr. Ellice called sir Robert Peel, in a speech relating to lord Durham's mission to the Canadas, in January 1838, if the papers be correct, the leader of her majesty's opposition. There is a deeper sense in this than that of mere pleasantry. The representative government of a free country is not complete without a lawful opposition. A proper lever is wanting.

(2) Memoirs of Sully, iii, p. 260, Lond. edit. of 1761.

(3) The manner in which members of legislative bodies place themselves is not a subject without importance in constitutional legislative police. It belongs to the external arrangements or police of parliamentary politics, hence to politics proper; yet I may be permitted to say a few words on it by way of note. The British commons sit on benches, close together, in rows on the right and left side of the speaker. On the right is the bench, usually called the treasury bench, because the ministers take, by custom, their seats there, be they whig or tory. The administration party, therefore, sits always on the right, and the opposition opposite to them. In France the members, likewise at liberty to choose their places, arrange themselves according to party colors. The seats are disposed of in a semicircular form. The extreme right is always occupied by the party, claiming to be the most royalist, or as is the case now, super-royalist, that is, by the party who are for the old Bourbons; the extreme left, by those who claim to be the most liberal, or by republicans. Between them we have the right, the right centre, the centre, the left centre, and the left. Of whatever party the administration may be, these groups do not change their places. The ministers sit on distinct places appropriated to them. At one period, during the first French revolution, the Jacobins occupied the upper tiers, and were therefore called the Mountain party, while the Girondists occupied the lower seats, and were called the Valley. The American distribution of seats differs both from the present English and French arrangement. Each American member of a legislative assembly selects any one of the unappropriated seats, which he likes, and keeps it throughout the session. I know of no exception in the various state legislatures. All party colors are mixed; administration and opposition are not represented to the eye. Each member has a desk, with writing materials, drawers, &c., and the members sit on arm chairs. This different arrangement may have originated from the fact, that at the period when the like subjects were not yet settled by custom, there was such unanimous spirit respecting the administration of general Washington, that there existed no open, compact opposition. At present, the disposal of the seats, according to the choice of the first comer, has been adopted in most of the standing rules of the legislatures. At first glance, it might appear that the American method is preferable, inasmuch as it might be supposed that it does not aid at least in increasing undue party spirit, but upon the whole, the English arrangement strikes me as far the best, and the American as the least eligible. The sitting close together, according to parties, and especially without desks, are so many preventives of those interminable speeches, with which the smallest minded always beset assemblies most, while the expediting of business is much promoted by sitting close and in parties together. The desks are the most objectionable part in the American place, and ought to be totally abolished.

XIX. If there were any more truth in the pretended maxim, that the majority is always right, and that it is the foundation of republican liberty, than in the monarchical, that the king can do no wrong, that is, if it were any thing more than a political fiction, to designate the landmark, beyond which we cannot travel, every opposition would be factious or treasonable so soon as the sense of the majority has been ascertained, and an administration been formed accordingly. We have seen in the case of the trades' unions, that the majority may not only be grievously wrong, but they may naturally form the inferior body, and be disposed to oppress the superior-in that case, the most skilled and most industrious. Republican liberty lies far deeper than in a maxim, such as that the majority is always right-a position a thousand times contradicted by history. Republican liberty consists, among other things, in the unrestrained right of the minority, of a fraction, nay of an individual, to convert, if they can do so by lawful means, the majority; republican safety consists in the fact, that the will of those who have the power, even be they the representatives of an overwhelming majority, be modified by opposition; for right, if we speak of any continued course of action, is never absolutely on one side. We may go farther; the more overwhelming a majority becomes, the more necessary, steady, yet lawful opposition may become, and, in most cases actually does become, lest government approach to the vortex of absolutism. The history of all civilisation, and that of political not excepted, hardly presents any other picture than of a catenation of changes, produced by minorities, hardly visible in their origin, gradually swelling in number and power, and enlarging in thought, modified by experience, and ultimately growing into a majority, supplanting a former one, which has been gradually dwindling into a minority. A majority does not always even indicate public opinion, although it may show momentary general opinion, to which rumor belongs. By public opinion we must understand that opinion of the community which has been influenced either by the modifying correction of time, or the talent or knowledge of those who are peculiarly able to judge upon the subject in question. General opinion may be, and very often has been egregiously mistaken. Error, want of information, fear, excitement, revenge, thirst for gain, pride, superstition, fanaticism, false shame-all these may be common to most or all members of a community, and consequently influence general opinion, and mislead entirely. Public opinion indicates always some settled more or less digested opinion respecting subjects, which involve matters of right, the true appreciation of which consists in the due counterbalancing of a number of considerations. For this reason it is so important respecting these subjects; but as to matters of knowledge only a single individual may, and often has, justly set up his own thorough knowledge against the whole general opinion of his age and many antece

dent centuries. It might, perhaps, be appropriately expressed thus, that by general opinion we mean simply the aggregate opinion of many individuals, singly taken, an opinion, which is general to many individuals; by public opinion, we understand the opinion of the community as a connected and organized body, the ultimate result of mutually modifying our counterbalancing opinions of men as the members of a community mutually influencing and depending upon one another. (1) But even well-settled and clearly pronounced public opinion may be erroneous, greatly so. It cannot be denied, that it was public opinion at Athens that she should side with Philip. Yet Demosthenes was right. Public, at least general opinion, it was that cried out crucify, crucify.

On the other hand it will have appeared, from the remarks on public opinion in the first volume, that it is always entitled to the greatest respect, and that a citizen ought to follow it unless he have distinct and powerful reasons for not doing so, and that indeed he makes himself a very annoying member of the community if he opposes it from superstitious vanity or wrongheaded arrogance, or a factious member, if he does so from sordid interest or sinister ambition. A means, to judge with a degree of fairness between both parties, is to consider them as if both were recorded on the pages of the past, as if you met with them in history; disentangle yourself from the meshes of self-interest, and before all apply that plain yet very powerful test of asking yourself: would you frankly acknowledge your inmost motives for which, however, you must diligently or honestly search-before posterity?

To return once more to public opinion. We have