Representative assembly

“ Besides, an assembly never personally experiences the inconveniences of its bad measures until they have reached the dimensions of national evils. Ministers and administrators see them approaching, and have to bear all the annoyance and trouble of attempting to ward them off.
The proper duty of a representative assembly in regard to matters of administration is not to decide them by its own vote, but to take care that the persons who have to decide them shall be the proper persons. Even this they can not advantageously do by nominating the individuals. ”

“ Indeed, the best use of a representative assembly, arises from the cordial affection and unreserved confidence which subsists between it and the collective body of the people. It is by such kind and candid intercourse alone, that the wants and desires of the people can be made known, on the one hand, or the necessities of the public communicated or reconciled to them, on the other. In what did such a confidence in one assembly end, in Venice, Geneva, Biscay, Poland, but in an aristocracy and an oligarchy? ”

“ And yet many people imagine that a disorganized collection of delegates of various sections can rule a nation? Such an assembly would be as much a mob as any primary assembly of the people, and would in no sense be a representative assembly. The fact is that the growing intensity of the evils which beset representative institutions throughout the civilized world to-day is due to imperfect expression of these two principles. Representative assemblies are not properly organized into two coherent parties, nor is each party allowed free play to select its most popular leaders. ”

“ Representative assemblies are often taunted by their enemies with being places of mere talk and bavardage. There has seldom been more misplaced derision. I know not how a representative assembly can more usefully employ itself than in talk, when the subject of talk is the great public interests of the country, and every sentence of it represents the opinion either of some important body of persons in the nation, or of an individual in whom some such body have reposed their confidence. ”

“ Instead of the function of governing, for which it is radically unfit, the proper office of a representative assembly is to watch and control the government; ”

“ For a Representative assembly is normally chosen only by a part of the nation, and each law is approved only by a part of the assembly: and it would be ridiculous to say that a man has assented to a law passed by a mere majority of an assembly against one member of which he has voted. ”

“ Normally, a representative assembly is a school of statesmanship which is drawn upon for filling the great posts of administration. Not only is this the case under the parliamentary system in vogue in England, but it is equally the case in Switzerland whose constitution agrees with that of the United States in forbidding members of Congress to hold executive office. But somehow the American Congress fails to produce capable statesmen. ”

“ Bagehot held that a representative assembly which, like the House of Representatives in the United States, cannot effect any great and notable change by its resolutions, is bound to be something of a cipher, and that the people will never care enough about what such an assembly does, to take the pains requisite for selecting the best men. Nay, more, the best men themselves will not fix their ambition on becoming members of an assembly which exerts so little conspicuous influence on the course of national events. ”

“ It is as essential that the general sense of the House should accord in the main with that of the nation as is that distinguished individuals should be able, without forfeiting their seats, to give free utterance to the most unpopular sentiments. There is another reason, of much weight, against the gradual and partial renewal of a representative assembly. It is useful that there should be a periodical general muster of opposing forces to gauge the state of the national mind, and ascertain, beyond dispute, the relative strength of different parties and opinions. ”

“ With us, when we elect popular representatives, we send them to a council in which each man individually is a subject, and submitted to a government complete in all its ordinary functions. With you the elective Assembly is the sovereign, and the sole sovereign; all the members are therefore integral parts of this sole sovereignty. But with us it is totally different. With us the representative, separated from the other parts, can have no action and no existence. The government is the point of reference of the several members and districts of our representation. ”

“ If that, as yet considerable, majority of the House of Commons who never desire to move an amendment or make a speech would no longer leave the whole regulation of business to those who do; if they would bethink themselves that better qualifications for legislation exist, and may be found if sought for, than a fluent tongue, and the faculty of getting elected by a constituency, it would soon be recognized that, in legislation as well as administration, the only task to which a representative assembly can possibly be competent is not that of doing the work, but of causing it to be done ”

“ Thouret, in the name of the new committee of constitution, presents to the National Assembly a report on the basis of proportional representation.
Gentlemen, the work that your new committee has the honor of submitting to you, is based, through a double report, on two major parts of the Constitution.
On the one hand, you are organizing representative government, the only kind suitable for a free people; but its justice and stability depend on the establishment of proportional equality in representation, and of a fixed and simple order in elections. ”

“ The above regulation to apply also to the case of citizens imprisoned at the time of being named representatives.
Art. 38. Every representative of the people is to receive a remuneration, which he is not at liberty to renounce.
Art. 39. The sittings of the Assembly are to be public. Nevertheless, the Assembly may form itself into a secret committee, on the requisition of a number of representatives, as settled by the rules. Each representative has the right of initiating parliamentary measures, which he will do according to the forms determined by the regulations. ”

“ When the time for that government has arrived, sufficient power for all needful purposes is sure to reside in the sovereign assembly; and if enough of it is not intrusted to the executive, this can only arise from a jealous feeling on the part of the assembly toward the administration, never likely to exist but where the constitutional power of the assembly to turn them out of office has not yet sufficiently established itself. ”

“ In that Assembly we see the first-born child of the British Parliament, the eldest brother, so to speak, of the legislatures of the United States and of the English colonies of to-day. This Assembly was composed of a council and a body of twenty-two representatives from the eleven plantations, elected by the freeholders, imposing taxes and passing laws, meeting either annually or at frequent intervals." [59-1] In this manner were our notions of representative government transplanted.
A representative is not necessarily chosen by the people he represents. ”

“ An Assembly, composed in 1965 of 372 members, meets four times a year and is the basic representative body. The delegates are elected from among the craft units within each of the seven districts on the basis of one delegate for each 75 members of a craft. The Assembly in turn elects from its membership an Executive Board on the basis of one board member for each 500 members, augmented by principal officers and by nonvoting business agents, 31 of whom are elected from the seven districts and others who are appointed by the Assembly. ”

“ What we find in the leagues is a sort of compromise between the principle of a primary assembly and the principle of a representative chamber. In both leagues the nominal sovereign was a primary assembly, in which every individual citizen had the right to vote. ”

“ A majority in a single assembly, when it has assumed a permanent character—when composed of the same persons habitually acting together, and always assured of victory in their own House—easily becomes despotic and overweening if released from the necessity of considering whether its acts will be concurred in by another constituted authority. ”

“ This portion of the assembly would also be the appropriate organ of a great social function, for which there is no provision in any existing democracy, but which in no government can remain permanently unfulfilled without condemning that government to infallible degeneracy and decay. ”

“ Of the Office of the Sovereign Representative The office of the sovereign, be it a monarch or an assembly, consisteth in the end for which he was trusted with the sovereign power, namely the procuration of the safety of the people, to which he is obliged by the law of nature, and to render an account thereof to God, the Author of that law, and to none but Him. But by safety here is not meant a bare preservation, but also all other contentments of life, which every man by lawful industry, without danger or hurt to the Commonwealth, shall acquire to himself.
And this is intended should be done, not by care applied to individuals, further than their protection from injuries when they shall complain; ”

“ Section 14. Privileges and immunities are accorded to the representatives of Members not for the personal benefit of the individuals themselves, but in order to safeguard the independent exercise of their functions in connection with the United Nations. Consequently a Member not only has the right but is under a duty to waive the immunity of its representative in any case where in the opinion of the Member the immunity would impede the course of justice, and it can be waived without prejudice to the purpose for which the immunity is accorded. ”

“ We who remain free number a hundred and twenty Republican Representatives. Let us install ourselves in this hall. Let us install ourselves in the fulness and majesty of the Legislative Power. Henceforward we are the Assembly, the whole of the Assembly! Let us sit there, deliberate there, in our official sashes, in the midst of the People. Let us summon the Faubourg St. Antoine to its duty, let us shelter there the National Representation, let us shelter there the popular sovereignty. ”

“ Argentina would not only continue cooperating by providing support to Guatemala through backing an extension of the Commission’s mandate, but also with an expression of solidarity. That was an “ethical commitment based on conviction”, she said, adding that democracy was only possible when human rights were upheld. ⁠The representative of Germany said he believed that the Commission was a vital mechanism to deal with corruption and impunity, both of which had been devastating to Guatemala. ”

“ A majority can permit a member to speak oftener or longer whenever it is desired, and the motion granting such permission cannot be debated. However, if greater freedom is wanted, it is only necessary to consider the question informally, or if the assembly is large, to go into committee of the whole. ”

“ If, therefore, the legislature assumes executive and judiciary powers, no opposition is likely to be made, nor, if made, can be effectual, because in that case they may put their proceedings into the form of an act of assembly, which will render them obligatory on the other branches. ”

“ If we can ascertain those of the members of the council, elected by the assembly, we shall have a clue to the temper of the assembly itself. We may know the tree by its fruit. If we find that body electing to a place in the council men of very decided political character, we shall have a right to believe that those associated with them by the vote of the same body were, at least, not zealous members of the opposite party. ”

“ And the main political fact of recent years has been the growing unimportance of representative assemblies, constructed on the old lines, and a tendency to delegate power to the executive, without requiring a constant oversight by an elected body. ”

“ While any member has the right to insist upon a rising vote, or a division, where there is any question as to the vote being a true expression of the will of the assembly, the chair should not permit this privilege to be abused to the annoyance of the assembly, by members constantly demanding a division where there is a full vote and no question as to which side is in the majority. ”

“ The whole is applicable, we think, fully, even to “Congress” itself. Write “our General Legislature” in place of “Parliament,” “assembly” instead of “congress,” for “Bristol” read “Virginia,” and we see no difficulty whatever.
Our general legislature is not an assembly of ambassadors from different and hostile interests, which interests each must maintain as an agent, and advocate against the other agents and advocates; but our general legislature is a deliberative [Mr. B. has italicized deliberative] assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole. ”

“ While in extreme cases there is no difficulty in deciding the question as to whether the practice of Congress determines the common parliamentary law, yet between these extremes there must necessarily be a large number of doubtful cases upon which there would be great difference of opinion, and to avoid the serious difficulties always arising from a lack of definiteness in the law, every deliberative assembly should imitate our legislative bodies in adopting Rules of Order for the conduct of their business. [1]
Plan of the Work. ”