It was hoped
that, being of a middle nature between subject and Government, they
would feel with a more tender and a nearer interest everything that
concerned the people, than the other remoter and more permanent
parts of Legislature.
Whatever alterations time and the necessary accommodation of
business may have introduced, this character can never be sustained,
unless the House of Commons shall be made to bear some stamp of the
actual disposition of the people at large. It would (among public
misfortunes) be an evil more natural and tolerable, that the House
of Commons should be infected with every epidemical frenzy of the
people, as this would indicate some consanguinity, some sympathy of
nature with their constituents, than that they should in all cases
be wholly untouched by the opinions and feelings of the people out
of doors. By this want of sympathy they would cease to be a House
of Commons. For it is not the derivation of the power of that House
from the people, which makes it in a distinct sense their
representative. The King is the representative of the people; so
are the Lords; so are the Judges. They all are trustees for the
people, as well as the Commons; because no power is given for the
sole sake of the holder; and although Government certainly is an
institution of Divine authority, yet its forms, and the persons who
administer it, all originate from the people.
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