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the . sittings of the Assembly , and who was in reality the reporter a « d preserver qf the finest speeches of this great orator : he wrote them down nastily , and afterwards revised them witn the speaker himself , before their publication . It was during this period of his life that M . Dumont acquired his profound knowledge upon , the highest questions relating to politics and legislation ; his mind never lost sight of them after ; and on his return to
England , where he was bound in the strictest friendship with Sir Samuel Rormlly , and lived on intimate terms with the families of Lord Lansdown , Lord Holland , &c , every where sought and cherished , he well employed the free and independent state which he enjoyed , by giving up himself completely to that new kind of labour and of study which in due time procured
him so high a reputation , and gave him so eminent a place among the influential writers of his age . From the manuscripts of Jeremy Bentham he drew out , with , the approbation of that learned jurisconsult , a series of works distinguished by a method and clearness entirely his own ; and which cannot be too often read and thought upon , by all men who study the science of law , or of social philosophy .
So great was the celebrity which M . Dumont acquired by his first publications , that , on occasion of his revisiting St . Petersburgh , at the commencement of Alexander ' s reign , the most brilliant offers were made him , in order to tempt him to co-operate in revising the laws of Russia , and reducing them to a perfect code . INotwithstanding the prospect of honour and of gain thus opened to his view , he declined the undertaking , from the fear of peing obliged to sacrifice his own opinions to the necessities of the country and of the period ; a trait of character which will ever be remembered to his honour .
The fall of the French empire restored Geneva to independence . This unexpected happiness , so warml y welcomed by its natives , was no soofie known to M . Dumont , than lie hastened to return to a country which he had constantly remembered with affection . He justly apprehended that his services might be useful in the political and civil re-organization about to take place . A seat was allotted him in the Sovereigu Council ; being caHed to fill it in the year 1814 , he realized all the expectations that had been built upon his talents as an orator , his experience in parhamentafy debates , and his knowledge of legislation . The Constitution , such as it had been
promulgated , laid the basis of the structure ; but it was a labour of delicacy and of difficulty to get it to work properly and rationally , in . the midst of the notions then afloat . M . Dumont proposed and drew up the form of regulating the Assembly , which was afterwards adopted by a great majority , and which the experience of fifteen years has stamped as a model pf wisdom and of reason . * It is not at Geneva alone that this plan of regulation has
* The city and republic of Geneva is governed by a Representative Council , four Syndics , and a Council of State . The latter body consists of twenty-eight members , who , with the Syndics , form part of the Council of Representatives . In these is vested the Executive power . They are not elected like the rest of the 278 of which the Assembly is composed , but j ^ re subject to the scrutiny or objection * of th e * Representative Council . If these demand it , every member ( after the Syndics or Magistrates for the year are elected ) is balloted for , and should there be 126 votes against him , he i& rejected from the Council of State , aud becomes a simple Representative .
Every housekeeper in Cfeneva has the right of voting fur Representatives , provided he Ib a native of the Catiton , aiid pajs a direct contribution to the State of twenty - five florins ( each about Ad , English ) . Every elector names thirty eligible persons ;
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82 S Memoir of M . Dumont .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1829, page 828, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2579/page/12/
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