sion for the purpose. The privilege of voting, as we have already seen, is conferred upon all persons who are of sufficient competency by their age, and of sufficient ability to take care of themselves. The ancient Greeks and Romans had not only very imperfect notions of the value of representation, but the number and power of their popular assemblies were so great, and they were so liable to disorder, as to render it a very provident measure with them, to be guarded in diffusing the privileges of free citizens. Not a tenth part of the people of Athens were admitted to the privilege of voting in the assemblies of the people; and, indeed, nine tenths of the inhabitants throughout all Greece were slaves. (a) In Sparta, the number of votes was fixed at ten thousand. In Rome, this privilege was for many ages confined to the Pomaria of the city, (b) and it continued to be so con

(a) Mitford's Greece, i. 354, 357. In the treatise of G. F. Schömann, a profound German scholar, De Comitiis Atheniensium, published in Latin in 1819, and translated into English, at Cambridge, in England, in 1838, the democratical government of Athens is discussed with masterly erudition. He states that during the vigor of the Athenian democracy, every citizen of the age of eighteen had a right to hold offices, and to give a vote at the assemblies of the people. That the most crowded assemblies rarely exceeded 8,000, though Attica contained 20,000 citizens; pp. 65, 69, 128. That all were reckoned citizens whose parents were both such; p. 66. To assume unlawfully the rights of a citizen, was punished by being sold into slavery; p. 74. The assemblies of the people were convened by magistrates (Prytanes and Strategi), and the chairmen or presidents (Prytanes and Proedri) presided at them, and proposed the subjects to be discussed, and had the bills, which had been previously prepared and sanctioned by the senate (for the fundamental law allowed none others to be considered), recited, and gave permission to the orators to speak, though the liberty of addressing the people on the subject from the Bema was open to all. The chairman also put the question to vote, whether to adopt or reject the proposition. The assembly had the right to vary or alter it; pp. 53, 81, 90, 101, 104, 107, 130, 245. The people generally voted by show of hands, and sometimes by ballot; p. 127. They voted by tribes (of which there were ten), but a majority of the whole assembly, collectively, decided.

The structure and history of the Athenian democracy has much to warn, and very little to console, the friends of freedom. From the incurable defect, among others, of assembling the people to make laws in masses, and not by representation, and from the want of a due and well-defined separation of the powers of government into distinct departments, that celebrated republic became violent and profligate in its career, and ended in despotism and slavery. The general assemblies of the people, without any adequate checks, assumed and exercised all the supreme powers of the state, legislative, executive, and judicial.

(b) Thirty-five tribes voted in the comitia held in the city of Rome; but the city tribes (Plebs urbana) consisted only of four within the walls of the city, and the Liberti were inscribed in the city tribes. The other thirty-one tribes were rural tribes, who occupied the lands for a considerable district of country around the city, and they were the ruling and influential body. See Lond. Q. Review, No. 112, for June, 1836,

fined, and to be tolerable in its operations, until the mem* 233 orable social war *extended it to all the inhabitants of Italy, south of the Rubicon and the Arnus. As no test of property or character was required, and as the people assembled within the walls of Rome in immense masses, and not merely to vote, but to make laws, this great innovation produced the utmost anarchy and corruption, and has justly been regarded as precipitating the fall of that commonwealth. (a)

The English nation, in common with the other feudal governments of Europe, anciently enjoyed the blessings of popular representation, and the knights, citizens, and burgesses were intended to represent the farmers, merchants, and manufacturers, being the several orders and classes of people of which the nation was composed. (b) But the mutations of time and commerce, in the Review of Professor Druman's History of Rome. But the Roman slaves were not represented, and Rome exercised the right of absolute sovereignty over the dominions of its auxiliaries. The Roman citizens, who exclusively exercised as voters the powers of government, bore, therefore, a very small proportion in numbers to the gross amount of the inhabitants. The Roman mode of passing laws, and voting in their comitia, was orderly, and under great checks, during the best periods of the government. When a law was proposed and discussed, and the religious rites duly performed, and no intercession made, the people proceeded to vote, and every citizen was ordered to repair to his century. The method of voting was originally viva voce, but after the year of the city 614, it was by ballot by the leges tabellariæ, which applied equally to the election of magistrates, to public trials, and to making and repealing laws. The people were made to pass in order over some narrow planks, called pontes, into the septa, or enclosures, where certain officers delivered to every voter two tablets, one for and one against the proposition, and each person threw into a chest which of them he pleased, and they were pointed off, and the greatest number of points, either way, determined the sense of the century, and the greatest number of centuries passed for the voice of the whole people, who either passed or rejected the law. See Heineccius, Antiquit. Rom. Jur. lib. 1, tit. 2, sec. 3-11, Opera, iv., where the ancient learning on the subject is collected. And see Hooke's Rom. Hist. b. 1, c. 7, sec. 4, note. Cicero condemned the secret vote by ballot, as being a cover for corrupt and hypocritical votes. His object was to obtain or measure the moral value of the votes by a consideration of the persons who gave them. Cic. de Legibus, b. 3. Mr. Barnham, the translator of Cicero's treatises, De Republica and De Legibus, in his note to b. 3, De Legibus, learnedly discusses the superior value and safety of open voting by poll; but the orderly and specific mode of voting by ballot seems to render the latter preferable in that point of view. [See as to notes (a) and (b) Fustel de Coulanges, La Cité Antique.]

(a) Montesquieu's Esprit des Lois, i. lib. 2, c. 2; Grand. et Decad. des Rom. c. 9. Augustus allowed the Decurions, or privileged citizens, in the provincial chartered cities in Italy, to vote at home for Roman magistrates, and to send in writing their ballots under seal to the polls at Rome. This, says Suetonius, was conferring upon them, in a degree, the privileges and dignity of Rome itself. Sueton. Aug. c. 46.

(b) 1 Black. Comm. 174; Millar on the English Constitution, b. 2, c. 6, sec. 1. In

depopulating ancient boroughs, and in establishing new cities and great manufacturing establishments, without any direct parliamentary representation, insensibly changed the structure of the House of Commons, and rendered it, in theory at least, a very inadequate and imperfect organ of the will of the nation. Archdeacon Paley observed, * many years ago, (a) that * 234 about one half of the Commons were elected by the people, and the other half came in by purchase, or by the nomination of single proprietors of great estates. So extremely unequal was the popular vote at elections in England, that less than seven all the northern nations, says Turner, in his learned History of England during the Middle Ages, i. 416, great councils were attached to the ruling chief, from their first emerging from the woods of Germany. The destruction of the Anglo-Saxon nobility, in their revolts against William the Conqueror, and the confiscation of their property among his Norman barons, had annihilated the members of their ancient witenagemotes, but did not terminate the institution. The Norman barons were as independent as the Saxon witena, and they surrounded the sovereign in a national council, as well after the conquest as before. But though the national councils, which were common to the Celtic and Teutonic tribes, may have contained within them the germ of the English Parliament, yet the modern antiquarians generally conclude that the Anglo-Saxon witenagemote had no representation of the ceorls, or inferior freemen. It ocnsisted of the monarch, the aristocracy, and the clergy, with very little of the real liberty of deliberation and voting. Hallam on the Middle Ages, c. 8, pt. 1; Turner's Hist. of the Anglo-Saxons, iii.; Palgrave's Hist. of England, i.; Sir Wm. Betham's Dignities, Feudal and Parliamentary. The latter writer concludes, from a careful examination of an immense mass of ancient documents, that there existed no deliberative legislative assembly in England prior to the reign of Henry III. That was the era of the establishment of magna charta, which declared that no taxation (the three feudal aids excepted) was to be imposed but by Parliament, which was to consist of the higher clergy and nobility, and of the tenants in chief under the crown. This was the era of the introduction of popular representation in England, and of the establishment of the House of Commons in the time of Henry III. and Edward I. Lands held by feudal tenure were held on the condition of performing certain services; and being performed or rendered, the feudatory could not rightfully be assessed further without his consent. The royal towns obtained charters of privileges by which they were relieved from arbitrary taxation on paying or rendering the stipulated assessments. When the wants of the crown increased, and further aids were necessary, it was deemed expedient for the king and his council of peers to consult the wishes, and take the consent of the small country freeholders, and the inhabitants of the cities and boroughs; and knights, citizens, and burgesses were accordingly summoned to appear by representation in the great council or legislature under the feudal system. The first edict for the election of a representation of the commonalty of the realm of knights, citizens, and burgesses, from counties, cities, and boroughs, was issued under the usurpation of Simon Montfort, in the 49th of Hen. III. The great council of the nation had hitherto consisted of the prelates and barons, assisted by the officers of the state, and the judges. [See Stubbs's Select Charters, Clarendon Press, 1870. Freeman, Growth of the English Constitution.]

(a) Moral Philosophy, 369, ed. 1786.

thousand voters returned nearly one half of the House of Commons. (b) But notwithstanding the great imperfection of the constitution of the English House of Commons, if it were to be tested by the arithmetical accuracy of our own political standards, nevertheless, in all periods of English history, it felt strongly the vigor of the popular principle. While on the continent of Europe the degeneracy of the feudal system, the influence of the papal hierarchy, the political maxims of the imperial or civil law, and the force of standing armies, extinguished the bold and irregular

(b) In 1831, it was asserted, that out of six hundred and fifty-eight members, of which the English House of Commons consisted, the number of four hundred and eighty-seven were elected by one hundred and forty-four peers, and one hundred and twenty-three commoners. In 1832, the English House of Commons was reformed by three several statutes, passed to amend the representation of the people of England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Under the first of these statutes, fifty-six English boroughs were totally disfranchised, and thirty boroughs were reduced each to the right of returning only one member. Twenty-two new boroughs were created, with a right to each of returning two members; and Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, and Sheffield were among the towns invested with that privilege. Sixteen other new boroughs were created, with the right to each of returning one member. Thirty-four shires were subdivided in respect to members of Parliament, so as to give an increase of sixty-three knights. The qualifications of electors, consisting of freeholders, lessees, and copyholders, were altered, and the name of every voter required to be previously registered. The number of members of the reformed House of Commons consists in the aggregate of 658, the same number as before the reformed bill, viz. 417 members for England, 29 for Wales, 53 for Scotland, 105 for Ireland. By the English Reform Act of 2 & 3 Wm. IV. c. 45, the qualifications of electors of the commons house of Parliament, for knights of the shires, were substantially as follows: That they must have a freehold or copyhold estate in possession, or as lessee or assignee in possession of the unexpired residue of a term of sixty years, of the clear yearly value in either case of not less than £10, above all rents and charges thereon; or of the unexpired residue in possession of a term of twenty years, of the clear yearly value of £50 above all rents and charges; or be a tenant in occupation of lands, liable to a yearly rent of £50. The elector must also have been duly registered, and, to be entitled to the registry, he must have been in the actual possession of the house, or of the rents and profits thereof, for six months previous to the last day of July in each year. The elector for citizens and burgesses must occupy, as owner or tenant, a house or building, either separately or jointly, with land within the borough, of the clear yearly value of £10, and rated to the poor-rate, and been duly registered, and a resident for six months previous to the last day of July in each year. The regula tions respecting the registry and the revision of the lists are specific and minute, to guard more effectually against the destructive evil of fraudulent and spurious votes. No person is entitled to vote unless his name appears on the register of electors, and his qualifications cannot be questioned at the polls, except on three points: (1.) His identity with the person registered; (2.) as to having voted already at the election; (3.) that he continues to possess the registered qualification.

1 See Essays on Reform (Macmillan & Co., 1867), App. 327.

freedom of the Gothic governments, and abolished the representation of the people, the English House of Commons continued to be the asylum of European liberty; and it maintained its station against all the violence of the Plantagenet line of princes, the haughty race of the Tudors, and the unceasing spirit of despotism in the house of Stuart. And when we take into consideration the admirable plan of their judicial polity, and those two distinguished guardians of civil liberty, trial by jury and the freedom of the press, it is no longer a matter of astonishment that the nation, in full possession of those inestimable blessings, should enjoy greater security of person and property than ever was enjoyed in Athens or Sparta, Carthage or Rome, or in any of the common wealths of Italy during the period of the middle ages.

I proceed next to consider the privileges and powers of the two houses of Congress, both aggregately and separately. The Congress is to assemble at least once in every year, and such meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they by law appoint a different day. (c)

4. Privileges of the Two Houses. *Each house is made * 235 the sole judge of the election return and qualifications of its members. (a)1y1 The same power is vested in the British House of Commons, and in the legislatures of the several states; and there is no other body known to the Constitution, to which such a power might safely be trusted. It is requisite to preserve a pure and genuine representation, and to control the evils of irregular, corrupt, and tumultuous elections; and as each house acts in these cases in a judicial character, its decisions, like the decisions of any other court of justice, ought to be regulated by known principles of law, and strictly adhered to, for the sake of uniformity and certainty. A majority of each house constitutes a quorum to do business, but a smaller number may adjourn from day to day, and compel the attendance of absent members, in