Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/206

 198 senate must, in the first place, corrupt itself; it must next corrupt the state legislatures; it must then corrupt the house of representatives; and, lastly, it must corrupt the people at large. Unless all these things are done, and continued, the usurpation of the senate would be as vain, as it would be transient. The periodical change of its members would otherwise regenerate the whole body. And if such universal corruption should prevail, it is quite idle to talk of usurpation and aristocracy; for the government would then be exactly, what the people would choose it to be. It would represent exactly, what they would deem fit. It would perpetuate power in the very form, which they would advise. No form of government ever proposed to contrive a method, by which the will of the people should be at once represented, and defeated; by which it should choose to be enslaved, and at the same time, by which it should be protected in its freedom. Private and public virtue is the foundation of republics; and it is folly, if it is not madness, to expect, that rulers will not buy, what the people are eager to sell. The people may guard themselves against the oppressions of their governors; but who shall guard them against their own oppression of themselves?

§ 718. But experience is, after all, the best test upon all subjects of this sort. Time, which dissolves the frail fabrics of men's opinions, serves but to confirm the judgments of nature. What are the lessons, which the history of our own and other institutions teach us? In Great-Britain, the house of lords is hereditary; and yet it has never hitherto been able successfully to assail the public liberties; and it has not unfrequently preserved, or enforced them. The house of commons is now chosen for seven years. Is it now less an organ