And yet what reason is there,
that a majority of the House of Representatives, sacrificing the
interests of the society by an unjust and tyrannical act of legislation,
should escape with impunity, more than two thirds of the Senate,
sacrificing the same interests in an injurious treaty with a foreign
power? The truth is, that in all such cases it is essential to the
freedom and to the necessary independence of the deliberations of the
body, that the members of it should be exempt from punishment for acts
done in a collective capacity; and the security to the society must
depend on the care which is taken to confide the trust to proper hands,
to make it their interest to execute it with fidelity, and to make it as
difficult as possible for them to combine in any interest opposite to
that of the public good.
So far as might concern the misbehavior of the Executive in perverting
the instructions or contravening the views of the Senate, we need not be
apprehensive of the want of a disposition in that body to punish the
abuse of their confidence or to vindicate their own authority. We may
thus far count upon their pride, if not upon their virtue.
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