When men exercise their reason coolly and freely on a variety
of distinct questions, they inevitably fall into different opinions on
some of them. When they are governed by a common passion, their
opinions, if they are so to be called, will be the same.
Fourth. It is at least problematical, whether the decisions of this body
do not, in several instances, misconstrue the limits prescribed for the
legislative and executive departments, instead of reducing and limiting
them within their constitutional places.
Fifth. I have never understood that the decisions of the council on
constitutional questions, whether rightly or erroneously formed, have
had any effect in varying the practice founded on legislative
constructions. It even appears, if I mistake not, that in one instance
the contemporary legislature denied the constructions of the council,
and actually prevailed in the contest.
This censorial body, therefore, proves at the same time, by its
researches, the existence of the disease, and by its example, the
inefficacy of the remedy.
This conclusion cannot be invalidated by alleging that the State in
which the experiment was made was at that crisis, and had been for a
long time before, violently heated and distracted by the rage of party.
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