a single regard to the public good; while, by leaving him to act under these restraints, according to his own discretion, they derive the advantage of that superior intelligence which his position implies and his opportunities confer.

SECTION IV.

On the Publicity of the Proceedings of the Legislative Body.

ONE of the strongest principles of our nature is the fear of the disapprobation of our fellow-men: this, of itself, is frequently sufficient to prevent unworthy conduct. Were an individual certain that his behaviour in any affair would become thoroughly known to the world, the world would have little reason to find fault with it.

The principle assumes a still more powerful influence when the public appear to have a special right to pass sentence on a person's conduct. When there is any manifestation of meanness, or lax integrity, or treacherous deceit, in private transactions between one individual and another, every witness of it, although totally free from any direct interest in its consequences, feels the com

mon right of humanity to cast his censure upon it, without, however, feeling under any particular obligation to make the offenders themselves sensible of his opinion: but when there is a want of uprightness and good faith in the management of a public trust, we conceive ourselves more expressly called upon to mark our indignant disapprobation, to make that disapprobation generally known, and to convey it to the party who has been guilty of the wrong. Private vices, so long as they keep within the limits which exclude the cognizance of the judicial tribunals, are scarcely considered as matters for public animadversion; but vices in the administration of the affairs of the community, are properly regarded as fair objects of open assault. In these latter cases, consequently, the fear of public censure has far more force than in the former.

The salutary effects of publicity, on the management of trusts, may be gathered in the most convincing manner from the gross abuses which have invariably prevailed, when such concerns have been managed in secrecy. The disclosures recently made on this point may rouse contempt and indignation, but they can hardly excite surprise in the breast of any one who has reflected on the analo

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gous instances which a short experience of the world is sufficient to furnish.

On the general principle, then, of the salutary tendency of publicity, established as it is by uniform experience regarding the power of public disapprobation, and confirmed by the most flagrant instances of abuse where trusts have been managed in secrecy, it may be at once laid down, that the management of the greatest public trust in the country should be perfectly open to general scrutiny.

Independently, however, of this general reason, there are special grounds for publicity in the case of a legislative assembly. It is obvious, that in order to effect any thing like responsibility on the part of the representative to the constituents, the latter must become acquainted with the acts of the former in his official capacity. The very basis of the representative system would be subverted, if the legislative assembly were to become a secret conclave.

If responsibility is essentially requisite to secure the advantages of good legislation, if the representative system would be a mere nullity without it, the necessary arrangements must be adopted to render it effectual; and every one will see at a

glance that it cannot be rendered effectual, without publicity being given to what the representative does. Should the opportunities of information on this point be defective, the constituents cannot form a correct judgment, cannot fairly appreciate the conduct of the man whom they have deputed, and cannot therefore treat him according to his merits.

If, then, the very purpose of political representation demands that the constituent body should have a knowledge of his acts, it also demands that the knowledge should be not partial or imperfect, but complete, embracing not only the direction of his vote on any proposition, but the grounds on which it was given; and this can be attained only by the unreserved publication of all that was said and done on the occasion. To enable any set of constituents to judge accurately of the conduct of their representative on any question, it is necessary that the whole proceedings on that question should be laid before them. An account of merely what their own representative did and said would not suffice; they must see how his associates conducted themselves, what arguments he withstood, to what characters he was opposed, to what inducements he was subjected.

This is an all-sufficient, an imperative reason,

why the proceedings of the legislature should be perfectly public.

There are, however, other good effects of publicity which deserve to be considered. We must recollect, that while by the openness of parliamen

tary proceedings the constituents of every member are made acquainted with his conduct, the eye of the public is also turned upon him.

Were the representative liable to the scrutiny. of his constituents alone, his conduct might be governed by a vicious preference of their local and partial interests, and by an undue subservience to their known political sentiments. When, however, he is subject to the supervision of the whole nation, the conduct of his constituents, as well as his own, feels the influence of public sentiment; and not only are both parties withheld from the pursuit of palpably sinister advantages, but the constituents are, in some measure, restrained from unjustly censuring their representative. By the enlargement of the tribunal before which he appears, the legislator becomes advantageously emancipated from any strong inducement to servile acquiescence in the opinions of those who depute him, and strengthened in an upright and liberal course. In the public at large he finds a powerful support in the prosecution of far