Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/51

 CH. VIII.], but occasionally upon the people themselves, against their own temporary delusions and errors. The cool, deliberate sense of the community ought, in all governments, and actually will, in all free governments, ultimately prevail over the views of their rulers. But there are particular moments in public affairs, when the people, stimulated by some irregular passion, or some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men, may call for measures, which they themselves will afterwards be the most ready to lament and condemn. In these critical moments, how salutary will be the interference of a body of respectable citizens, chosen without reference to the exciting cause, to check the misguided career of public opinion, and to suspend the blow, until reason, justice, and truth can regain their authority over the public mind. It was thought to add great weight to all these considerations, that history has informed us of no long-lived republic, which had not a senate. Sparta, Rome, Carthage were, in fact, the only states, to whom that character can be applied.