CHAPTER II.

The Subject of Instruction with particular Reference to the United States.The ancient Articles of Confederation founded upon the Deputative System. The Articles of Confederation compared to the Constitution of the former United Provinces of the Netherlands, the Swiss Act of Mediation, the present Constitution of the Swiss Confederation and the Germanic Confederacy. The Constitution of the United States boldly changed the former deputative Character of the Confederacy into a representative.-Senators are not Ambassadors.-In Leagues the strongest Member of those on Terms of Parity according to the Letter, must sway.-Hegemonia in Greece, Phœnicia, the Low Countries, &c -Relation of the State Legislatures to the respective Senators elected by them.-The History of Instruction in modern Times, as connected with the Representative System.

XI. In order to show completely the relation of moral responsibility in which I hold a representative to stand to his constituents, it will be necessary to treat of the subject of Pledges. Before we proceed to it, however, I must say a few words on the right of instruction, with peculiar reference to the relation in which the senators of the United States stand to the respective legislatures by whom they are elected.

Very rarely, indeed, has the doctrine of instruction been acted upon in the United States by the primitive constituents of a representative in congress. The whole discussion as a practical question seems to have reference to the senators exclusively, and the reason can easily be perceived. As to the representatives the case is too clear; they are real representatives of the people, not deputies, forming a national representation, not

states-general; and whatever the theory may be, or jealousy or love of power may prompt some to assert, sound instinct, produced by long valuable political tradition in the Anglican race, and good common sense do not suffer the people at large to view their representative in any other light than that of a representative, and not in that of a circumscribed, or fettered deputy. It is different with regard to the senators; their election, as well as the formation of the senate differ materially from those of the representatives, and it is necessary, therefore, that we should ascertain the precise character of the senate of the United States. Thus alone we shall be able to judge correctly of the right of instruction respecting its members.

The confederacy of the United States under the ancient Articles of Confederation of 1778, was nothing more than a league of entirely independent states, (politically independent, though united by feeling and sympathy,) unconnected except by whatever might be agreed upon by their deputations, according to certain principles, primarily adopted; but not by any system, nor government proper; similar to the Union of the former United Provinces of the Netherlands, or of the present Swiss Cantons. In some respects the American Confederacy was of a closer union, in others it was a looser one, but, if I mistake not, congress were, in their nature and character, states-general, and nothing else. The members of congress were deputies, and no more. This appears clearly from the Articles of Confederation themselves, and, among other points, from these: The states appoint the delegates as they think best, and may recall them, in order to send others, (art. 5. 1); their number is left to the option of the

states, though for the sake of expedition of business, and other reasons, the minimum of two, which became the prototype for the later number of senators under our present constitution, and the maximum of seven were fixed, (5. 2); each state to maintain her delegation, because she alone was interested in it, (5.3); each state to have but one vote, as a matter of course, and as it was the common principle in the feudal estates, respecting communities, professions, provinces, classes, and estates, because their deputies represented their respective bodies as a whole, and only them. If the deputies of any state were equally divided the state lost the vote. Upon all the material points of the confederacy nine assenting states were necessary, (Art. 9, § 6.)

Let us compare these features to the corresponding ones in the most prominent confederacies of modern times. The Netherlands, as I mentioned before, never elevated themselves to enlarged social or national representation; their governments, provincial or general, never became enlarged social governments, but remained chains of more or less connected independences. The single cities even had supreme or "sovereign rights," and a natural consequence was on the one hand that no resolution of the provincial states was considered binding unless it passed by unanimous concurrence, and on the other hand, the utmost inequality of representation existed; the cities formed the powerful aristocracy, the farmer was almost entirely disregarded. (1) The reader will remember an instance I mentioned when speaking of the love of power in the first part. We must always keep in mind, that the principle of the feudal times was mutual exaction of liberty, or at least,

separate conquest of liberty; the motto, get as much as you can, without reference to proportion, to general fairness, to common welfare. The principle of modern liberty, of socialized states, is public liberty, public, that is, common and mutual guarantee, public check, universal justice. The oath of fidelity by the stadt-holder and soldiers was taken to the "confederate states of the Low Countries, that is, to the higher and the inferior orders of nobles, and to the magistrates of the towns of Holland," &c. Thus the soldiers were obliged, in 1651, to take the oath of fidelity to the States-General, the provincial states and the senates of the cities. Nothing can show more clearly the difference which I have endeavored to exhibit between the feudal principle of independence and consequent deputative system, on the one hand, and the modern social states-principle of civil liberty and civil guarantee, and consequent representative system. The effects of this system were consistent; the states-general of the United Provinces could decide upon war and peace, treaties of commerce, and all taxes and impost by unanimous concurrence only.

I have, on a former occasion, briefly touched upon the principle of unanimity and majority in voting; we shall now be able to understand, what otherwise appears so absurd, that a single man should have had the right of vetoing the procedure of an assembly, as it is frequently expressed, in the former estates. The expression is not accurate. The term veto expresses the idea of nullifying the action of some united body; but the former deputies were not such; unanimity was with them as natural, according to the principle which gave them existence, as it is now with a congress of

ambassadors; each party is bound only so far as it has assented, because entirely independent; and defeating a general result by a single dissent was as little a veto with those ancient estates, as it would be with ambassadors at present. If the principle of unanimity was, nevertheless, in many minor cases abandoned, it was because the mere furtherance of business required it. But the principle appears more or less in all the most important estates (cortes, diets, &c.) in the middle ages, strongly at first, and less so, the more the various countries became nationalized, and the interest of the different parts began more and more mutually to affect one another. The salutary majority principle could only become known and well introduced with the complete victory of representation over deputation.

The pensioner of Holland, the chief officer of the chief province, and, indeed, virtually, the executive and chief magistrate of the whole United Provinces, took place after the deputies, because the latter represented independences, corporations with "sovereign rights." The members of the states-general came to no resolution without instruction and specific authorization from home; the provinces sent two or more members at pleasure, but the votes were given by provinces, not by the single voices of members; the time of service for deputies was differently regulated in the various provinces, as a matter of utter indifference to the statesgeneral, some were for life. (2) I have mentioned already the amended constitution of the Netherlands of 1815, which declares each member of the states-general to be a national representative, and gives him, consequently, a vote belonging to his moral, individual self, as representative, not to his deputed authority as mere