Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v4.djvu/637

Rh, by standing up and speaking that one word, Veto. No reasons were required of them; no one dared oppose them; their Veto was supreme! As originally designed, it was emphatically the people's measure, for the people's protection; the necessary balance-wheel, to equalize the powers of the government, which had hitherto been engrossed by the rich, and give the people that interposing check, which the alarming tyranny of the Patricians made necessary. It was the first attempt at a democratic, i.e. a people-ruling institution, and in all its features, save that of unlimited power, shewed the humility of its origin. The tribunes must be not only of the Plebeian order, but they had no insignia of office, save a kind of beadle, who went before them; were not allowed to use a carriage, had no tribunal, but sat on benches. Their doors were open night and day for the people to prefer their requests or complaints. They were not allowed to enter the senate, and were not even dignified with the name of magistrate. As designed by Sicinius, it was the mere unadorned majesty of the people's voice, assimilated to the lowly pretensions of the people—the visible exponent of their will. These popular traits did not, however, long remain. The grasping ambition of some, the restlessness for change in others, soon abused the power; the tribunes became themselves a greater evil than they remedied, and their authority was more tyrannous than the edicts of those they were created to oppose.

Veto became a word of despotic power. The decrees of the senate, the ordinances of the people, the entire arrangements of government, bowed to its supremacy; and such was the force of the word, that not only could it stop the proceedings of all the magistrates, which Cæsar well calls "extremum jus tribunorum," but whoever, senator or consul. Patrician or Plebeian, dared oppose it, was immediately led to prison to answer for his crime. And so sacred were the persons of the tribunes, that whoever hurt them was held accursed, and his goods were confiscated. Sylla was the first who resisted the gross encroachments of the tribunes; but on his death they regained their influence, and henceforth it became but the tool of ambitious men, who used it almost to the ruin of the state. Such was its abuse, that, as Cicero says, the popular assemblies became the scenes of violence and massacre, in which the most daring and iniquitous always prevailed. The perversion of the original design of the veto was now completed by the arts of the emperor Augustus, who got the tribuneship conferred on himself, which concentrated in his person the entire and uncontrolled disposition of the state. This was the first instance of the combination of royal and veto power, and its assumption was all that was wanting to make the king a tyrant. From this time it was conferred upon the emperors, though the tribunes still continued to be elected, without, however, the exercise of tribunitian power, until the time of Constantine, when the office was abolished.

The early operation of the veto power in Rome was good, the subsequent disastrous. At first, it protected the people, gave them a voice in the legislative assemblies, and secured their liberties; ultimately, it oppressed the lower orders, excluded them from the councils of the nation, and made them the passive instruments of power-lusting demagogues. The first civil blood shed at Rome was the blood of Tiberius; the tribune battling, imprudently indeed, against the oppressions of the nobility. The

At first sight, then, it appears strange that the framers of our Constitution, when they were originating a new government, which should combine the experience of the past, without borrowing any of its defects, should bring in such a power, the operation of which had proved so baneful, and which had already been so strongly reprobated. But such was the fact. The war of the revolution over, the Articles of Confederation alone bound the states together, and the reaction which took place in several places urgently demanded some new form of compact more adequate for the purposes of government, and more consonant with the altered condition of affairs. Upon the 25th May, 1787, the Federal Convention met in the city of Philadelphia. Having organized themselves by the choice of proper officers, and the adoption of necessary rules, Mr.