Those
two or three will have a greater interest in misleading the body, than
any other of its members are likely to have in putting it right. The
bulk of the assembly may keep their hands clean, but they cannot
keep their minds vigilant or their judgments discerning in matters
they know nothing about; and an indolent majority, like an indolent
individual, belongs to the person who takes most pains with it. The
bad measures or bad appointments of a minister may be checked by
Parliament; and the interest of ministers in defending, and of rival
partisans in attacking, secures a tolerably equal discussion: but quis
custodiet custodes? who shall check the Parliament? A minister, a head
of an office, feels himself under some responsibility. An assembly
in such cases feels under no responsibility at all: for when did any
member of Parliament lose his seat for the vote he gave on any
detail of administration? To a minister, or the head of an office,
it is of more importance what will be thought of his proceedings
some time hence than what is thought of them at the instant: but an
assembly, if the cry of the moment goes with it, however hastily
raised or artificially stirred up, thinks itself and is thought by
everybody to be completely exculpated however disastrous may be the
consequences. Besides, an assembly never personally experiences the
inconveniences of its bad measures until they have reached the
dimensions of national evils.
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