Page:Constitutional Charter of the Kingdom of Poland, In the Year 1815.pdf/49

 would have been impossible, if the responsibility of the Ministers had been anything but a delusion, and if enormous taxes levied without the consent of the Diet, had not furnished means for transforming Government Officers into blind slaves of absolute power.

This responsibiliyresponsibility [sic] was a mere name, as we have already shown. A man was responsible for his obedience or disobedience to the orders of his Imperial Highness the Grand Duke, and never for disobeying the laws.

See the remarks already made upon Article 35.

The diets were held so seldom, and the time allotted to their duration was so short, that they became almost useless. It was impossible to bestow any adequate consideration upon the drafts of laws presented to the Chambers, in so short a time, and the National Representatives were reduced to the cruel alternative of rejecting the proposed alterations, or of adopting them without sufficient examination. The persons employed to revise these documents were very commonly incapable of performing the task;—hence perpetual alterations, (particularly in the civil law), and hence also the abuse of improving upon the law by Royal decrees, and thus usurping the administration of justice. It was still less possible that the Diet should extend its enquiries to all branches of the administration, and enact the requisite laws to govern its course. The Diet, moreover, which in all countries, where there is a national representation at all, should be considered as a permanent body, was viewed by the Government in the light of a fever or an illness; when a Diet was assembled precautions were doubled, and every possible means of influencing its deliberations was sought and adopted; its proceedings, even to the most trifling details, were all