Excerpt from The North American Review
The constitution takes no notice of the man who is present but abstains from acting. It is only those who are present acting and doing business that it regards. Members present doing nothing imperil no right, and do no injury to any one; but members present who attempt to make laws affecting the rights and liberties of the whole people may do infinite mischief to millions. Therefore the constitution requires that a majority of the House shall do whatever is done.
Our government is founded upon the immovable conviction in the minds of our people that freedom is their birthright, that governments are instituted to secure it, and that to be rightful they must exist by the consent of the governed. In every line of our organic laws jealousy of power is written, and in all questions of doubt our creed is: He who stands still stands best. When affirmative action is to be taken, when the status quo is to be abandoned, it must be done by the consent and cooperation of the greater part. Our whole history is an indictment against excesses in the legislation and administration of other governments. The Declaration of Independence proclaimed to the world that we held that we were endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights. These we cannot permit any government to take from us, nor can we voluntarily surrender them. Here is defined a boundary beyond which no government can go.
When the constitution was formed, governing power was divided and subdivided among many agencies, and closely laced within the corsets and stays of federal and State constitutions. The constitution lays down clearly and explicitly the principle of majority rule, - not a majority of a minority, but a majority of the whole, - and this principle is as clearly and explicitly ignored by the parliamentary assemblies of Europe. No government in Europe stands upon the inalienable right of its citizens or subjects. None of them stand upon the equal rights of all before the law. England for many generations has been looking through a glass darkly at the freeman with equal rights and privileges. France catches a meteoric glimpse occasionally, when it throws her into transports and leaves her in blood. Switzerland sees a little spot and retains that little by the aid of the friendly mountains that surround and protect her in her enjoyment.
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