For we have said (Chap. VIII. Sec.
17), that the supreme council's function is to pass and repeal laws, and
to choose the ministers of the dominion. But the laws, or general
constitution of the whole dominion, ought not to be changed as soon as
instituted. If, however, time and occasion suggest the institution of
some new law or the change of one already ordained, the question may
first be discussed in the senate, and after the agreement of the senate
in the matter, then let envoys next be sent to the cities by the senate
itself, to inform the patricians of every city of the opinion of the
senate, and lastly, if the majority of the cities follow that opinion,
it shall then remain good, but otherwise be of no effect. And this same
order may be observed in choosing the generals of the army and the
ambassadors to be sent to other realms, as also about decrees concerning
the making of war or accepting conditions of peace. But in choosing the
other public officials, since (as we showed in Sec. 4) every city, as
far as can be, ought to remain independent, and to have as much more
right than the others in the dominion, as it exceeds them in power, the
following order must necessarily be observed. The senators are to be
chosen by the patricians of each city; that is, the patricians of one
city are to elect in their own council a fixed number of senators from
their colleagues of their own city, which number is to be to that of the
patricians of that city as one to twelve (Chap.
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