(2) The prescribed oath, taken by every deputy, is thus: "I swear fidelity to the grand duke, obedience to the law, punctual observance of the constitution, and to further the common weal only, in the meeting of the deputies, according to my own, best conviction, uninfluenced by any charge" (instruction.)

IV. The doctrine of instruction, as it is now presented by its advocates in the United States, stands, I believe, thus: The representative ought as much as he is able truly to represent the wishes of his constituents, and if on any important question the views and desires of the majority of his constituents are made known to him in any manner which convinces him that it is really the voice of the majority, he ought either to obey, or, if he cannot conscientiously do so, to resign. An attempt is thus made to give to the representative a character between that of a representative and a deputy, the difference between whom, we shall presently consider more accurately. The chief arguments urged in favor of the above doctrine, and in fact, as far as my knowledge extends, the only ones, are these: That, could the people meet, as in ancient times, in the market, they would act for themselves, each according to his interest, and views, and that now, when the number of population or extent of country prevents them from meeting in a general and primary assembly, it is clear that those, who are sent for the mere sake of expediting the business, instead of the people's convening themselves, must speak as the people themselves would have spoken. The representatives are the speaking trumpets of their constituents, and no more. Secondly, which in fact is but the above in other terms, the representative is the V servant of his constituents, and how can he be called a servant, if he does not their will. See Tucker's Black

stone, Appendix, 192, et seq., where judge Tucker quotes with entire approbation a passage from Burgh's Political Disquisitions, and from which it appears that both of them had in mind, when speaking of popular liberty, what was called in the first part of this work democratic absolutism, seeking for the essence of liberty in the entirely unrestrained execution of the will of the people, which is in practice, as matter of course, of the multitude or the majority; but not in guarantees, checks and organic laws, opposite to the will of the power, whoever may be its holder. The question does not, indeed, seem to be solved, according to their own argument, in this manner; for the term people is in this case as in so many others, taken in different meanings in the same argument. First, when it is maintained that the representative is the representative of the people, the word is used as meaning the aggregate of all men of a certain society; a groundwork is thus obtained for the right of instruction; but when it comes to the most important point of the right of instruction, namely, the guidance of the individual representative, the word people does not mean any longer the aggregate of all the citizens as imagined in the market, but the small part only who elected the respective representative. If the representative is merely a speaking trumpet of the people, who can no longer assemble, it appears to me perfectly clear, that consistency would actually demand that he should ( speak say three hours for a measure and one against it, if he has been elected by six thousand votes against two thousand, for these two thousand would or might have spoken in the general assembly, and laid their views before the assembly. I beg to observe that this is not advanced in a sportive sense, but gravely. If we shall have absolute democracy with agents, who do not speak for the minority, this minority loses all right which it had in the primary assembly.

Those who build the theory of instruction upon the fact that the representatives are the servants of the people, do not inform us who are meant by the people, whether the voters only, that is the majority of the voters, and not the people at large, of whom many may not have the right to vote, but certainly are members of the state, and ought to be represented, for instance, where freeholders or householders alone possess the elective franchise.

Now at no time has the doctrine been maintained that the laws of the assembled citizens should be adopted according to a balance and calculation of the individual, and selfish interests of each individual; but, the frequent practice to the contrary notwithstanding, it has always been maintained that even when the citizens assembled in the market they were expected to judge of general measures with reference to general welfare, according to the light which they might receive then and there. The contrary has always been considered as detestable meanness, or even selfish treason, and acts of egotism were positively punished in Athens on the ground of egotism. The more corrupt the times in those republics founded upon direct and absolute democracy were, the more frequent and loud we find the demagogues in their protestations that they act for the public benefit only. Where has there ever yet been a man who recommended a measure except on the real or pretended ground of public, that is general benefit? If the Athenian citizen had not been expected to vote with reference to this public and general advantage, but with reference to his tribe, section or street, I do not see where we can stop until we come down to the individual himself, and what becomes of public spirit, country, and all that is good and glorious in political life? No people ever were farther from such views than the ancients. But if the representative has to obey the so called instruction of the people, that is the instruction of the majority of voters, which may indeed be a small minority of the people, the result would be far worse than the one resulting from absolute democracy founded upon mere individual selfishness; because in the ancient forum each voter heard at least what was urged for and against the subject in question, not indeed elicited by debate or deliberation proper, but at least in the various discourses delivered to them; while in our case the instruction is believed to be absolute, the vote cannot be affected by the light which may be thrown upon the matter, and a representative instructed to vote against war, because it would ruin the wealth of his manufacturing or commercial constituents, would have no right to vote for war, though he had become convinced, since assembled with his fellow-representatives, that war alone might save the country from servitude or disgrace. The citizen in the market of the ancient city state would have had, in a corresponding case, the enviable privilege of voting patriotically for a war which he nevertheless knew would make him individually a poor man, or expose the quarter of the city in which he happened to live to fearful ravages.

V. If we resort to representatives only because we cannot any longer meet in the market ourselves, the whole representative system amounts to nothing more than a

second hand contrivance, something which may be good enough, and with which we must put up, since, unfortunately, we cannot any longer have the true and essential thing itself, the ancient pure, real, and visible market-democracy; a political pis-aller at best; something indirect and circuitous.

Yet in reality the representative system is a flower of civilisation, such as neither antiquity nor the middle ages either enjoyed or suspected, something direct and positive in itself, an institution having its own full, distinct and independent character, the excellence of which is not to be measured by the indirect standard in how far it may approach to something beyond it, which would be the best could we but have it; but which for some reason or other we must needs resolve to give up for ever. The representative system seems to me one of the very greatest political institutions, which adorn the pages of the history of civilisation, for through it alone can be obtained real civil liberty, broad, extensive national liberty, founded upon equally extensive political societies, and not on narrow city-communities.

We might ask, indeed, Why not return to the ancient state of things? Why not split into a number of city-states again? If direct democracy is the only political truth, and the other systems but approximations to it, more or less successful semblances of this truth, why do we not strive for this real good, and why are we satisfied with shadows. Increased population in modern times cannot be the chief reason which prevents us from doing so. Very few parts of the United States, for instance, are now as peopled as Etruria, Sicily, Greece, her Archipelago, Grecia Magna, the coasts of Asia Minor and Phœnicia were, when all these