Parliament for above fifty years, and I never even have heard a surmise against the purity of the members, except in some few cases of private bills promoted by joint-stock companies. I had been considerably upwards of a quarter of a century in Parliament before I even heard such a thing whispered; and I am as certain as I am of my own existence that during the whole of that period not one act of a corrupt nature had ever been done by any one member of either House. I question if any one election had ever taken place during the same time in which many electors had not been influenced by some corrupt motive or other in the exercise of this sacred trust."1

Parliament was thus reformed by the force of public opinion before the political reformation which took place in 1832, and the same power gradually purified the administration of the government. It came gradually to be considered that ministers should not use their patronage as an instrument for returning their adherents to Parliament or influencing them when there; the public servants were permitted to vote as conscience or inclination dictated, without fear of dismissal; and contracts were no longer systematically jobbed as a means of rewarding political services. In fine, England ceased to present the painful spectacle of a government employing the powers with which it had been endowed for the common good, to corrupt the people or the persons whom they have chosen as their representatives.

par

Unhappily government was not the only bidder, nor " liamentary interest the only marketable ware." 2 The virtue of a community is ordinarily in the inverse ratio of the temptations to which it is habitually exposed, not be

1 Brougham on the British Constitution, ch. iv. sec. vii.

Some black sheep would seem, as this essay intimates, to have found their way into the House of Commons after the popular flood-gates were thrown open by the passage of the Reform Bill; and Mr. Tremenheere candidly admits, in a work on the Constitution of the United States published in 1854, that the history of English railway legislation "has left stigmas behind it which we should be glad to forget; " but he adds what is, I believe, true, that the "corrupt elements are exceptions." Tremenheere on the Constitution of the United States, 143, 144.

2 See Dodington's Diary, 257, 308.

cause all men yield under pressure, but because many are not strong enough to resist ; and when a vice has become common, mankind are no longer deterred from practising it by the sense of shame. When once it was ascertained that bribery was the usual, and not infrequently the only, practicable avenue to the House of Commons, there were few who hesitated to commit a breach of morals which the majority were ready to condone. Gentlemen of high degree, whom no one would have ventured to approach with a dishonorable hint or solicitation, did not hesitate to sanction the use of every art to debauch the honest voter and enlist the profligate. In many boroughs the electors did as the owners bade; but when they were interested or spirited enough to invite a contest, the scene which ensued was one which required the pencil of a Hogarth, and which the pen cannot readily portray. The doors of the public-houses were thrown wide in every quarter to the thirsty; every itching palm was filled with gold; the tradesman was threatened with the loss of custom, and the tenant who cast an independent vote ran the risk of an eviction, or incurred a disfavor which might be equivalent to ruin. Happily an election was not held every year; but it recurred often enough to render the exercise of the right of suffrage, which should be the political education of the freeman, a means of debasing the people, rather than elevating them. But for the native honesty of the English race, the evil might have been greater than it actually proved; but it went far enough to infect the lower classes with a greed for petty gains, and to indispose them to render any service, however trifling, without looking for pay.

The disfranchisement of the close and "rotten" boroughs, and the extension of the suffrage which took place in 1832, and subsequently in 1867 under the auspices of Mr. Disraeli, did much toward restoring the purity of the elective franchise. If these reforms and the stringent acts passed by Parliament have not eradicated the bribery in which the best and noblest in the land have so long indulged, which lately pervaded the counties and had a controlling influence in many of the smaller towns, it is because the wealthy and cul

tured classes incline to a practice which increases their influence, and in their estimation simply proves the venality of the voters, without reflecting on the candidate. Such casuistry may blind the conscience, but can never be a justification. The part of the tempter is more consonant with the pride which is natural to man than that of the tempted, but it certainly is not less criminal; and although there is some difference between the corrupt solicitation of a chancellor or of a member of the House of Commons, and buying one's way into Parliament from a borough which is on sale, both are contrary to rules of right, which always vindicate themselves. when broken. Bribery will come to an end in England when society shall unsparingly condemn a vice which soils the hand that gives as well as that which is held forth to receive.1

These considerations have met with a like disregard in the United States, where shrewd capitalists and great incorporated companies have used money unscrupulously to obtain the grant of franchises, or to guard those already obtained from legislative interference. The employment of such means has been deemed excusable in some quarters, on the ground that fire must be fought with fire, and that if wealth is shut out from a direct participation in the government, it will make its influence felt indirectly; but it is suicidal in the long run, by rendering the masses distrustful of their rulers, and weakening the moral sense, which is the only sure guaranty for property. Banks and railways are good things in themselves, but too dearly purchased at the cost of scandals like that of the Crédit Mobilier. If such practices had no other evil consequence than that of rendering mankind doubtful whether honesty is the best policy, they would still be a sin that Y ought to weigh heavily on the consciences of those who have sown the seeds of corruption in the halls of Congress and the State legislatures. There is such a thing as the remorse of virtue; and men who see compliance rewarded in some instances with cash in hand, in others with professional employment, in others again with political preferment, while they

1 See 1 May's Constitutional History of England, 359, 367.

are left to poverty or neglect, may be weak enough to think that postponing success in life to honor is simply a want of worldly wisdom; or if they do not moot the point, the community will do so for them, and when such doubts assail the public mind, demoralization is not far distant.1

1 See the London Spectator of Oct. 2, 1880, the Philadelphia Times of March 26, 1880, and the Evening Telegraph of March 28 of the same year, for the demoralizing effect of bribery on the English people and the legislative assemblies of the United States. "Ce qu'il faut craindre, d'ailleurs, ce n'est pas tant la vue de l'immoralité des grands que celle de l'immoralité - menant à la grandeur. Dans la démocratie, les simples citoyens voient un homme qui sort de leurs rangs et qui parvient en peu d'années à la richesse et à la puissance. Ce spectacle excite leur surprise -et leur envie-ils recherchent comment celui qui était hier leur égal est aujourd'hui revêtu du droit de les diriger. Attribuer son élévation à ses taleus ou à ses vertus est incommode; car c'est avouer qu'eux-mêmes sont moins vertueux et moins habiles que lui. Ils en placent donc la principale cause dans quelques-uns de ses vices, et souvent ils ont raison de le faire. Il s'opère ainsi je ne sais quel odieux mélange entre les idées de bassesse et de pouvoir, d'indignité et de succès, d'utilité et de déshonneur." - La Démocratie en Amérique, ch. v. pp. 89.

LECTURE XIII.

The English Constitution (continued). - Impeachment in Parliament and in Congress. - Disuse of the Veto Power by the Crown, and its Frequent Exercise by the President. Relative Independence of the Judiciary in England and in the United States. — Advantages and Disadvantages of a Written Constitution compared with those of a Constitution resting only on Precedent.

It may be contended, and there is much to justify such an inference, that our government is more evenly balanced and attended with stronger safeguards than the English government as now constituted. The senate is not, like the House of Lords, the exponent of a privileged class, weak in numbers and inferior in wealth and influence to the landed gentry and great manufacturers who are represented in the House of Commons; nor is it, like the senate of the several States, a duplication of the Lower House, distinguished merely by a little more stability of tenure. It represents the States themselves, those great political corporations which, properly regarded, are such important stays in the framework of our government. It is consequently less within the reach of the popular gales that blow so fiercely in a merely democratic assembly, and may keep the even tenor of its way when the waves of faction are running high in the House of Representatives.

The Senate has a peculiar importance, in view of one of the duties imposed upon it by the Constitution. We have seen that the executive function is really, as well as nominally, exercised in this country by a chief magistrate who holds his office from the people and may administer it in the way which he thinks most likely to promote their interest, with such deference to the views of Congress as a statesman should pay to the opinion of the department of the government

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