JB/044/092/001

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T 18

III. To the powers of a body chosen immediately by the people — by the
possession as they are of shares in the Supreme Constitutive Authority, added to with
coordinate powers of legislation, [as also with powers belonging to the
Executive Department.]

The footing on which this institution stands is altogether
different from that on which the two preceding institutions stand —
in both those instances, the institution had for its final cause
the supposed happiness and supposed interest of the persons in whose
hands this power is suffered to remain. But in the present instance
there seems sufficient reason to be assured that the institution had
for its end in view the greatest happiness of the greatt. number. In the
two former instances, abolition of the institution how manifestly so
ever, as well as intensely mischievous, is except it be by force
or intimidation morally impossible. But in this instance the institution
being the work of the greatest number acting in pursuit of
their own greatest happiness, the consequence is — that no sooner are they if once
convinced of the mischievousness of it, than concurrence agreement for in the
abolition of it, and thence the abolition itself, is matter of certainty —

Consider in the first place the place it occupies in the
business department of legislation: consider the effect of it.

In the instance of the Assembly of Representatives, a body is in such framed
sort framed that which in respect of unity of interests & affections with the body
of its constituents, members of the supreme Constitutive — in a word
in respect of the appropriate moral aptitude — its aptitude is regarded as
being at a maximum. To this consummately apt body of another
is now linked on — a body so framed that whatsoever be the
degree of its appropriate moral aptitude it can on no principle be
considered as standing at so high a part of the scale as the one
first mentioned. Yet to this less apt body a power is given of
reducing to nothing on every occasion the power of the more
apt body —
X If the power frame of its
structure presents a
greater probability of
appropriate moral aptitude
than that of the House of
Representatives, that is the
structure, & not that of
the House of Reprs that
ought to have been
adopted. So if it
presented an equal probability: it being less numerous & thence better adapted to dispatch,
and less expensive.

Identifier: | JB/044/092/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 44.
Date_1		Marginal Summary Numbering
Box	044	Main Headings	constitutional code
Folio number	092	Info in main headings field
Image	001	Titles
Category	copy/fair copy sheet	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	f18
Penner		Watermarks	iping 1804
Marginals		Paper Producer	bernardino rivadavia
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year
Notes public		ID Number	13877
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