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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
previously ,, ** 4 jydgmeqb be profliourice ^ siilw ^ qu ^ iiUy * k tjfeat is not ( determined ( ptpd th § expression of . Buch determination is a pledge ) to obtain these requisites , ia condemned beforehand * Let no such man be trusted / It is trusting away the chance of good government . There is nothing in these remarks incompatible with the ab * stract truth and general application of the author ' s argument ; but he has not insisted on the exception , and there are many by
whom his reasonings will be misapplied and abused . The advantages of publicity , and the evils of a very numerous body of representatives , are well exhibited in the fourth and fifth Bections . The author is disposed to regard a rather more mature age than is required in this country as a qualification for a legis * - lator . He ably contends , also , for freedom from the occupation of a trade or profession :
* AH experience proves , that a numerous legislative assembly is an evil : the smaller the number of members , if they can do the work , the better ; and to obtain this advantage , it is essential that every member should attend during the appointed hours of meeting-, and tatoa an active and efficient pan in the business . To give any individual the power of absenting himself habitually , occasions the necessity of an addition to the number of members otherwise sufficient . But this is not the most
permoious effect . Unless he is present during the whole of the sittings he can be no competent judge of the questions which he has to decide ; and the chances are , that his vote will do mischief , inasmuch as it must be given in a state of ignorance and misapprehension . Is it in the faintest degree conceivable , that the most gifted individual , after having been exhausted by the labours of a profession , after having had his faculties jaded or perplexed by the intricacies of the law , or by the calculations and anxieties of commerce , can be in a condition of mind
fitted to take an adequately cool , keen , and comprehensive survey of a momentous political question , to weigh the evidence , conflicting and multifarious , and to estimate all the circumstances which ought to enter into the determination ? 4 To have a great number of members who cannot or will not take a fair share of the business of the assembly , merely that they may drop in at the close of a debate , to dispose of questions by an ay or no ; quet *
tions which they thus cannot be in a proper intellectual condition to decide , seems an expedient to determine that by a mob which ought to be determined by a senate ; to fling to chance , Qr caprice , or prejudice , what ought to be intrusted to careful and mature deliberation . It is no wonder , that under a system admitting of such practices , the constituent bodies have fancied it to be their business to instruct those whom they depBte . Such practices , in fact , take away all force from the arguments adduced to show that instructions are inappropriate and injurious . 1
Jf the moat thought teas mind will dwell a few moments on the subject , itcanaot fail toperceiv * both the importance and the difficulty . of tiw ft * sk which the legislator underta ke * , ItftiroporfciriCtf Aiee < kJM * iMu » - trnu * m . FowetU *? ## gtwerawpf it to cx « Mt # lMip ^ a # » v $ h « m ift JM > Aaceiy
Untitled Article
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1835, page 323, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2645/page/31/
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