On neither of these points is it necessary that much
should be said at this stage of our inquiry.
The want of an amount power in the government, adequate to
preserve order and allow of progress in the people, is incident rather
to a wild and rude state of society generally, than to any
particular form of political union. When the people are too much
attached to savage independence to be tolerant of the amount of
power to which it is for their good that they should be subject, the
state of society (as already observed) is not yet ripe for
representative government. When the time for that government has
arrived, sufficient power for all needful purposes is sure to reside
in the sovereign assembly; and if enough of it is not entrusted to the
executive, this can only arise from a jealous feeling on the part of
the assembly towards the administration, never likely to exist but
where the constitutional power of the assembly to turn them out of
office has not yet sufficiently established itself. Wherever that
constitutional right is admitted in principle, and fully operative
in practice, there is no fear that the assembly will not be willing to
trust its own ministers with any amount of power really desirable; the
danger is, on the contrary, lest they should grant it too
ungrudgingly, and too indefinite in extent, since the power of the
minister is the power of the body who make and who keep him so.
Pages:
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130