Nor is it possible for the
people to estimate the SHARE of influence which their annual assemblies
may respectively have on events resulting from the mixed transactions of
several years. It is sufficiently difficult to preserve a personal
responsibility in the members of a NUMEROUS body, for such acts of the
body as have an immediate, detached, and palpable operation on its
constituents.
The proper remedy for this defect must be an additional body in the
legislative department, which, having sufficient permanency to provide
for such objects as require a continued attention, and a train of
measures, may be justly and effectually answerable for the attainment of
those objects.
Thus far I have considered the circumstances which point out the
necessity of a well-constructed Senate only as they relate to the
representatives of the people. To a people as little blinded by
prejudice or corrupted by flattery as those whom I address, I shall not
scruple to add, that such an institution may be sometimes necessary as a
defense to the people against their own temporary errors and delusions.
As the cool and deliberate sense of the community ought, in all
governments, and actually will, in all free governments, ultimately
prevail over the views of its rulers; so 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.
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