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to pay his court to the Sovereign, or to receive his audience on occasions of state ceremony. In authentic Oriental history, there is no example of an harangue or public address to a constituted deliberative body. Oriental civilization has never yet reached the stage which is compatible with discussion concerning common interests, by a body of counsellors possessing equal rights, each of them entitled to give advice to the rest, and to express an independent opinion.* The qualities essential to oral discussion in a numerous assembly are, toleration of contradiction and censure, with such a power of self-command and suspension of the judgment, as enables a person to listen to, and understand, arguments hostile to his own views-to treat them with deference, and to give them a suitable answer. these qualities do not prevail throughout the assembly, the assertion of adverse opinions, and their comparison and examination, are rendered impossible; the speaker is interrupted by clamour, vociferation, denials, insults, and threats the entire assembly becomes a scene of turbulence and confusion, and intelligible debate is at an end. It is partly from the absence of the qualities just described, (which, even in highly-civilized countries, are not very common,) that no Oriental country has ever arrived at discussion in a public body. The absence of deliberative councils or assemblies in Oriental Kingdoms has arisen, however, in part, from the confirmed habit of adulation, and servile compliance with the wishes of the prince, which their despotic system has established. It is true of every Oriental ruler, what Tacitus says of Vitellius: "Ita formatis principis auribus, ut aspera quæ

*See Note A. at the end of the chapter.
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utilia, nec quicquam nisi jucundum et læsurum acciperet."*

The Greeks were, it seems, the first nation who formed a distinct conception of political management by a Body, and carried it into practical effect. Without this arrangement, a free or popular constitution, such as began to exist in their small city communities before the dawn of authentic history, could not have arisen. Originally, in the Grecian States, the assembly of free citizens was merely convened and consulted by the kings at their pleasure, and did not exercise any legal power; but, in process of time, it obtained a potential voice in the constitution, and its decisions acquired the force of law. This principle of corporate action, and of decision by a majority of voices, was not confined, in the Greek republics, to the general assembly of the citizens, but it was extended to courts of justice, and to smaller councils and administrative bodies, such as the Athenian senate and board of generals, the Spartan Gerusia and board of ephors.†

The principle of corporate action in political affairs was borrowed from the Greeks by the republic of Car

* Hist. III. 56. Compare the statements as to Artemisia and Coes, in Herod. VIII. 67-9, and IV. 97; also Dohsson, Tableau de l'Empire Othoman, tom. VII. p. 229, with reference to the council of the grand visier: "Les membres du conseil sont arrêtés par la crainte de contrarier les intentions du premier ministre. C'est en vain qu'il les exhorte, qu'il les presse de parler, qu'il invoque leur zèle pour le bien de la religion et de l'état; on lui répond qu'il est plein de lumières, qu'il possède la confiance et les pouvoirs du maître de l'empire, que c'est à lui à prononcer, à commander, et que l'obéissance est leur unique partage. S'il insiste, ils inclinent de nouveau la tête, et portent la main sur la bouche et sur le front." + See Note B. at the end of the chapter.

thage, a colony of the Asiatic Tyrians,* and also, perhaps, in later times, by the Jews. Being common to all the Hellenic commonwealths of Greece, Asia Minor, and

* It appears from Aristot. Pol. II. 11, that the assembly of citizens at Carthage had both power of debate and decision on questions brought before it by the magistrates. Also, that there was a Gerusia like the Spartan, and a council of 104 members. Compare Bötticher, Geschichte der Carthager, pp. 48-51. These institutions could not have been Phoenician, as Heeren supposes, Ideen, II. 1, p. 115, but were doubtless borrowed from those of the neighbouring Greek republics in Sicily and Italy. In like manner, the influence of Greek ideas and civilization had reacted from an early period upon the Phoenicians in their own country. See Movers, Die Phönizier, vol. I. pp. 82-3.

The Phoenician cities formed a league, of which Tyre was the leading member; and in it (at least in later times) was held a sort of diet, or federal council, having large powers of deliberation.— DIOD. XVI. 41. Tyre, however, and the other cities, were each under the government of hereditary kings, (Josephus cont. Apion. I. §§ 17, 18; Herod. VIII. 67; Diod. XVI. 42, 43; Arrian, Al. Exp. II. 24;) and although the influence of commerce (as Heeren conjectures, Ideen, I. 2, p. 20) may have created wealthy and powerful families, and thus have placed some checks upon the regal power -and although they may have acquired from their intercourse with the Greeks some practical notion of a free government, yet, in early times, the constitution of each city was doubtless purely monarchical, after the Oriental model. The detailed account, in Diodorus, XVI. 41-5, of the treachery of Tennes, the Sidonian king, at the time of the revolt against Ochus, shows that the government was, even at that late period, purely monarchical. The silence of Aristotle respecting Tyre, in his Politics, likewise proves that its constitution was not popular, like that of Carthage.

The Sanhedrim, or Synedrion, in the Jewish commonwealth, was a body consisting of seventy-two members, whose functions were chiefly judicial. How its decisions were formed does not appear. It is first expressly mentioned at the time of Antipater and Herod, or, at the earliest, in the time of the Seleucida. If it decided by a majority, (which is not probable,) its constitution had doubtless been influenced by the contagion of Greek notions.

*

Italy, it was adopted by the Romans, who, in the development of their empire, gave it all the solidity and definiteness which political and legal institutions acquired in their hands.

The principle of decision by a political body was known both to the Gauls and Germans in their semibarbarous state; whether as a native institution, or as derived from the imitation of the Greek and Roman usage, is uncertain. But the national assemblies of the Germanic and Gaulish tribes have exercised little influence upon posterity; it is principally through the municipal institutions of the free towns of the middle ages, and partly, also, through the councils of the church, that corporate action has descended from the Romans to the civilized nations of the modern world,

* Dionysius states that, according to the institution of Romulus, it was the province of the king to convene the senate, to assemble the people, to preside over their deliberations, and to carry into effect the decision of the majority.-A. R. II. 14. He adds, that the king gave only a single vote in the senate, and that the majority decided; which institution Romulus borrowed from Lacedæmon. See also what is stated of Lucius Junius Brutus, in VII. 36, 39.

Concerning the Roman mode of voting, see Dict. of Gr. and R. Ant. in Suffragium.

In the Roman law, a board or political body was termed a collegium. A collegium was either a subordinate body under the State, as the collegium augurum, or a fraternity, guild, &c., for a semi-public or political purpose. A similar body was also called universitas. Both these words are now, in English, limited to places of education.

+ See Note C. at the end of the chapter.

The expression to vote was borrowed from the practice of the councils of the church, according to Sarpi, 1. II. c. 30. (Courayer, tom. I. p. 212.)

and has become one of the most familiar ideas and habits of our political existence.*

§ 3. The principle of corporate action is, perhaps, the most important improvement which, since the dawn of civilization, has been introduced into practical politics, and it is the chief instrument of a popular constitution; but, like other political refinements, it is accompanied with many serious difficulties in the working. The complexity of the mechanism sometimes deranges and impedes its action.

In the case of judicial and administrative bodies, the plurality of memberst tends to insure a more careful and deliberate consideration of the question to be decided,‡ on account of the diversity of opinions which are likely to be brought to bear upon it, as well as of the variety of appropriate knowledge and information, and of individual character and disposition.

The number of counsellors concurring in the decision,

* As to the nature of a persona moralis, compounded of several individual persons, but acting as a corporation or political body, see Puffendorf, Law of N. and N. I. 1, §§ 13, 14. Compare Note D. at the end of the chapter.

† Ancient writers, both sacred and profane, concur in recommending plurality of counsellors. Thus, Proverbs, XI. 14: "In the multitude of counsellors there is safety." XVI. 22: "Without counsel, purposes are disappointed; but in the multitude of counsellors they are established." So Apollon. Rhod. IV. 1336: πoλéwv dé Tε μйriç dρeiwv. Pliny the Younger says, in reference to the influence of an assembly upon the speaker who addresses it: "In numero ipso est quoddam magnum collatumque consilium; quibusque singulis judicii parum, omnibus plurimum."-Epist. VII. 17, § 10. Compare, however, the remarks above, in ch. 6, § 8.

"Things will have their first or second agitation: if they be not tossed upon the arguments of counsel, they will be tossed upon the

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