Page:A Few Plain Observations Upon the End and Means of Political Reform.djvu/21

 and consequently mob-governed, assemblage of delegates would swallow up and supersede the constitutional authorities of the state.

I repeat, my dear Sir, that it is impossible, as it is also intolerable, that the work should begin from the People.—Every such attempt must be considered as a wild and wanton inversion of axioms of political wisdom which time and experience have consecrated; and although it might begin with an apparent promise of good, would inevitably produce (as such attempsattempts [sic] invariably have produced) revolution and ruin.

From whom then must the measure of Parliamentary Reform originate, if not from the people?

The proposition which I am about to