Considerations on Representative Government

All speculations concerning forms of government bear the impress, more or less exclusive, of two conflicting theories respecting political institutions; or, to speak more proper...

The form of government for any given country being (within certain definite conditions) amenable to choice, it is now to be considered by what test the choice should be directed...

It has long (perhaps throughout the entire duration of British freedom) been a common form of speech, that if a good despot could be insured, despotic monarchy would be the best...

We have recognized in representative government the ideal type of the most perfect polity for which, in consequence, any portion of mankind are better adapted in proportion to t...

In treating of representative government, it is above all necessary to keep in view the distinction between its idea or essence, and the particular forms in which the idea has b...

The defects of any form of government may be either negative or positive. It is negatively defective if it does not concentrate in the hands of the authorities power sufficient...

It has been seen that the dangers incident to a representative democracy are of two kinds: danger of a low grade of intelligence in the representative body, and in the popular o...

Such a representative democracy as has now been sketched--representative of all, and not solely of the majority--in which the interests, the opinions, the grades of intellect wh...

In some representative constitutions, the plan has been adopted of choosing the members of the representative body by a double process, the primary electors only choosing other...

It would be a great mistake to make the discussion turn on sentimentalities about skulking or cowardice. Secrecy is justifiable in many cases, imperative in some, and it is not...

After how long a term should members of Parliament be subject to re-election? The principles involved are here very obvious; the difficulty lies in their application. On the one...

Should a member of the legislature be bound by the instructions of his constituents? Should he be the organ of their sentiments, or of his own? their ambassador to a congress, o...

Of all topics relating to the theory of representative government, none have been the subject of more discussion, especially on the Continent, than what is known as the question...

It would be out of place in this treatise to discuss the question into what departments or branches the executive business of government may most conveniently be divided. In thi...

It is but a small portion of the public business of a country which can be well done or safely attempted by the central authorities; and even in our own government, the least ce...

A portion of mankind may be said to constitute a nationality if they are united among themselves by common sympathies which do not exist between them and any others--which make...

Portions of mankind who are not fitted or not disposed to live under the same internal government may often, with advantage, be federally united as to their relations with forei...

Free states, like all others, may possess dependencies, acquired either by conquest or by colonization, and our own is the greatest instance of the kind in modern history. It is...