The division of governments into departments, and the division, again,
of the legislative department into two chambers, are essential
provisions in our system. This last, although not new in itself, yet
seems to be new in its application to governments wholly popular. The
Grecian republics, it is plain, knew nothing of it; and in Rome, the
check and balance of legislative power, such as it was, lay between the
people and the senate. Indeed, few things are more difficult than to
ascertain accurately the true nature and construction of the Roman
commonwealth. The relative power of the senate and the people, of the
consuls and the tribunes, appears not to have been at all times the
same, nor at any time accurately defined or strictly observed. Cicero,
indeed, describes to us an admirable arrangement of political power, and
a balance of the constitution, in that beautiful passage, in which he
compares the democracies of Greece with the Roman commonwealth. "O morem
preclarum, disciplinamque, quam a majoribus accepimus, si quidem
teneremus! sed nescio quo pacto jam de manibus elabitur. Nullam enim
illi nostri sapientissimi et sanctissimi viri vim concionis esse
voluerunt, quae scisseret plebs, aut quae populus juberet; summota
concione, distributis partibus, tributim et centuriatim descriptis
ordinibus, classibus, aetatibus, auditis auctoribus, re multos dies
promulgata et cognita, juberi vetarique voluerunt. Graecorum autem totae
respublicae sedentis concionis temeritate administrantur.
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