Page:The American Democrat, James Fenimore Cooper, 1838.djvu/119

Rh and arrangement, are to be expected from extra-legal, voluntary and immethodical means. We ought not, consequently, to give an authority to those opinions of the people informally expressed, that the constitution would seem to show cannot be rendered available, when formally expressed.

The term representative implies full power to act, or, at least, full power to act under the limitations that environ the trust. A delegate is less gifted with authority, and is understood to act under instructions. These are ancient distinctions, and, existing as they did at the time the constitution was framed, they are entitled to respect, as explaining its intention. A representative is a substitute; a delegate an ambassador. It is, moreover, an admission of imbecility to suppose that the institutions infer a right to instruct, when no such right is expressed. All the machinery of the state is opposed to it, while in other countries, as in Switzerland, where the delegate acts under instructions, the machinery of the state is framed to meet such an end.

Upon the whole, when we take into consideration the received signification of terms, as they were understood when the constitution was framed; the legal effect of legislative acts, which are binding, though the entire constituency instruct to the contrary; the omission in the constitution to point out any legal means of instructing, and the practical difficulties in obtaining instructions that shall be above the reproach of being ex parte and insufficient; the permanent obligations of the constitution; the doubt and indecision instructions would introduce into a government, that was expressly framed to obviate these weaknesses; the dangers that constantly arise from the activity of the designing, and the supineness of the well-meaning; the want of unity, and of fixed principles, it might