if the executive is weak, the country is
distracted by mere struggles for place; if strong, it makes itself
despotic, at the cheap price of appeasing the representatives, or such
of them as are capable of giving trouble, by a share of the spoil; and
the only fruit produced by national representation is, that in
addition to those who really govern, there is an assembly quartered on
the public, and no abuse in which a portion of the assembly are
interested is at all likely to be removed. When, however, the evil
stops here, the price may be worth paying, for the publicity and
discussion which, though not an invariable, are a natural
accompaniment of any, even nominal, representation. In the modern
Kingdom of Greece, for example,* it can hardly be doubted, that the
placehunters who chiefly compose the representative assembly, though
they contribute little or nothing directly to good government, nor
even much temper the arbitrary power of the executive, yet keep up the
idea of popular rights, and conduce greatly to the real liberty of the
press which exists in that country. This benefit, however, is entirely
dependent on the co-existence with the popular body of an hereditary
king. If, instead of struggling for the favours of the chief ruler,
these selfish and sordid factions struggled for the chief place
itself, they would certainly, as in Spanish America, keep the
country in a state of chronic revolution and civil war.
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