Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/375

 CH. XXXVII.] senate, and not merely of two thirds of all present, is not better founded. All provisions, which require more, than a majority of any body to its resolutions, have (as has been already intimated) a direct tendency to embarrass the operations of the government, and an indirect one to subject the sense of the majority to that of the minority. This consideration ought never to be lost sight of; and very strong reasons ought to exist to justify any departure from the ordinary rule, that the majority ought to govern. The constitution has, on this point, gone as far in the endeavour to secure the advantage of numbers in the formation of treaties, as can be reconciled either with the activity of the public councils, or with a reasonable regard to the sense of the major part of the community. If two thirds of the whole number of members had been required, it would, in many cases, from a non-attendance of a part, amount in practice to a necessity almost of unanimity. The history of every political establishment, in which such a principle has prevailed, is a history of impotence, perplexity, and disorder. Proofs of this position may be easily adduced from the examples of the Roman tribuneship, the Polish diet, and the states general of the Netherlands, and even from our own experience under the confederation. Under the latter instrument the concurrence of nine states was necessary, not only to making treaties, but to many other acts of a less important character; and measures were often defeated by the non-attendance of members, sometimes by design, and sometimes by accident. It is hardly possible, that a treaty could be ratified by surprise, or