23. CHAPTER XXIII
OF NATIONAL ASSEMBLIES
In the first place, the existence of a national assembly introduces the
evils of a fictitious unanimity. The public, guided by such an assembly,
must act with concert, or the assembly is a nugatory excrescence. But it
is impossible that this unanimity can really exist. The individuals who constitute
a nation cannot take into consideration a variety of important questions
without forming different sentiments respecting them. In reality, all questions
that are brought before such an assembly are decided by a majority of votes,
and the minority, after having exposed, with all the power of eloquence,
and force of reasoning, of which they are capable, the injustice and folly
of the measures adopted, are obliged, in a certain sense, to assist in carrying
them into execution. Nothing can more directly contribute to the depravation
of the human understanding and character. It inevitably renders mankind timid,
dissembling and corrupt. He that is not accustomed exclusively to act upon
the dictates of his own understanding must fall inexpressibly short of that
energy and simplicity of which our nature is capable. He that contributes
his personal exertions, or his property, to the support of a cause which
he believes to be unjust will quickly lose that accurate discrimination,
and nice sensibility of moral rectitude, which are the principal ornaments
of reason.
Secondly, the existence of national councils produces a certain species
of real unanimity, unnatural in its character, and pernicious in its effects.
The genuine and wholesome state of mind is to be unloosed from shackles,
and to expand every fibre of its frame, according to the independent and
individual impressions of truth upon that mind. How great would be the progress
of intellectual improvement if men were unfettered by the prejudices of education,
unseduced by the influence of a corrupt state of society, and accustomed
to yield without fear, to the guidance of truth, however unexplored might
be the regions, and unexpected the conclusions to which she conducted us?
We cannot advance in the voyage of happiness unless we be wholly at large
upon the stream that carry us thither: the anchor that we at first looked
upon as the instrument of our safety will, at last, be found to be the means
of detaining our progress. Unanimity of a certain sort is the result to which
perfect freedom of enquiry is calculated to conduct us; and this unanimity
would, in a state of perfect freedom, become hourly more conspicuous. But
the unanimity that results from men's having a visible standard by which
to adjust their sentiments is deceitful and pernicious.
In numerous assemblies, a thousand motives influence our judgements, independently
of reason and evidence. Every man looks forward to the effects which the
opinions he avows will produce on his success. Every man connects himself
with some sect or party. The activity of his thought is shackled, at every
turn, by the fear that his associates may disclaim him. This effect is strikingly
visible in the present state of the British parliament, where men, whose
faculties are comprehensive almost beyond all former example, may probably
be found influenced by these motives sincerely to espouse the grossest and
most contemptible errors.
Thirdly, the debates of a national assembly are distorted from their reasonable
tenour by the necessity of their being uniformly terminated by a vote. Debate
and discussion are, in their own nature, highly conducive to intellectual
improvement; but they lose this salutary character, the moment they are subjected
to this unfortunate condition. What can be more unreasonable than to demand
that argument, the usual quality of which is gradually and imperceptibly
to enlighten the mind, should declare its effect in the close of a single
conversation? No sooner does this circumstance occur than the whole scene
changes its character. The orator no longer enquires after permanent conviction,
but transitory effect. He seeks rather to take advantage of our prejudices
than to enlighten our judgement. That which might otherwise have been a scene
of patient and beneficent enquiry is changed into wrangling, tumult and precipitation.
Another circumstance that arises out of the decision by vote is the necessity
of constructing a form of words that shall best meet the sentiments, and
be adapted to the pre-conceived ideas, of a multitude of men. What can be
conceived at once more ludicrous and disgraceful than the spectacle of a
set of rational beings employed for hours together in weighing particles,
and adjusting commas? Such is the scene that is incessantly witnessed in
clubs and private societies. In parliaments, this sort of business is usually
adjusted before the measure becomes a subject of public inspection. But it
does not the less exist; and sometimes it occurs in the other mode, so that,
when numerous amendments have been made to suit the corrupt interest of imperious
pretenders, the Herculean task remains at last to reduce the chaos into a
grammatical and intelligible form.
The whole is then wound up, with that flagrant insult upon all reason
and justice, the deciding upon truth by the casting up of numbers. Thus everything
that we have been accustomed to esteem most sacred is determined, at best,
by the weakest heads in the assembly, but, as it not less frequently happens,
through the influence of the most corrupt and dishonourable intentions.
In the last place, national assemblies will by no means be thought to
deserve our direct approbation if we recollect, for a moment, the absurdity
of that fiction by which society is considered, as it has been termed, as
a moral individual. It is in vain that we endeavour to counteract the laws
of nature and necessity. A multitude of men, after all our ingenuity, will
still remain a multitude of men. Nothing can intellectually unite them, short
of equal capacity and identical perception. So long as the varieties of mind
shall remain, the f6rce of society can no otherwise be concentrated than
by one man, for a shorter or a longer term, taking the lead of the rest,
and employing their force, whether material, or dependent on the weight of
their character, in a mechanical manner, just as he would employ the force
of a tool or a machine. All government corresponds, in a certain degree,
to what the Greeks denominated a tyranny. The difference is that, in despotic
countries, mind is depressed by an uniform usurpation; while, in republics,
it preserves a greater portion of its activity, and the usurpation more easily
conforms itself to the fluctuations of opinion.
The pretence of collective wisdom is among the most palpable of all impostures.
The acts of the society can never rise above the suggestions of this or that
individual, who is a member of it. Let us enquire whether society, considered
as an agent, can really become the equal of certain individuals, of whom
it is composed. And here, without staying to examine what ground we have
to expect that the wisest member of the society will actually take the lead
in it, we find two obvious reasons to persuade us that, whatever be the degree
of wisdom inherent in him that really superintends, the acts which he performs
in the name of the society will be both less virtuous and less able than
the acts he might be expected to perform in a simpler and more unencumbered
situation. In the first place, there are few men who, with the consciousness
of being able to cover their responsibility under the name of a society,
will not venture upon measures less direct in their motives, or less justifiable
in the experiment, than they would have chosen to adopt in their own persons.
Secondly, men who act under the name of a society are deprived of that activity
and energy which may belong to them in their individual character. They have
a multitude of followers to draw after them, whose humours they must consult,
and to whose slowness of apprehension they must accommodate themselves. It
is for this reason that we frequently see men of the most elevated genius
dwindle into vulgar leaders when they become involved in the busy scenes
of public life.
From these reasonings we seem sufficiently authorized to conclude that
national assemblies, or, in other words, assemblies instituted for the joint
purpose of adjusting the differences between district and district, and of
consulting respecting the best mode of repelling foreign invasion, however
necessary to be had recourse to upon certain occasions, ought to be employed
as sparingly as the nature of the case will admit. They should either never
be elected but upon extraordinary emergencies, like the dictator of the ancient
Romans, or else sit periodically, one day for example in a year, with a power
of continuing their sessions within a certain limit, to hear the complaints
and representations of their constituents. The former of these modes is greatly
to be preferred. Several of the reasons already adduced are calculated to
show that election itself is of a nature not to be employed but when the
occasion demands it. There would probably be little difficulty in suggesting
expedients, relative to the regular originating of national assemblies. It
would be most suitable to past habits and experience that a general election
should take place whenever a certain number of districts demanded it. it
would be most agreeable to rigid simplicity and equity that an assembly of
two or two hundred districts should take place, in exact proportion to the
number of districts by whom that measure was desired.
It will scarcely be denied that the objections which have been most loudly
reiterated against democracy become null in an application to the form of
government which has now been delineated. Here we shall with difficulty find
an opening for tumult, for the tyranny of a multitude drunk with unlimited
power, for political ambition on the part of the few, or restless jealousy
and precaution on the part of the many. Here the demagogue would discover
no suitable occasion for rendering the multitude the blind instrument of
his purposes. Men, in such a state of society, might be expected to understand
their happiness, and to cherish it. The true reason why the mass of mankind
has so often been made the dupe of knaves has been the mysterious and complicated
nature of the social system. Once annihilate the quackery of government,
and the most homebred understanding might be strong enough to detect the
artifices of the state juggler that would mislead him.