From Poland the author descends to the Six Nations, the federal
council of which was composed of forty-two members, each of whom had
an absolute veto upon every measure. Nevertheless, this confederacy,
he says, became the most powerful and the most united of all the
Indian nations. He omits to add, that it was the facility with which
this council could be wielded by the French and English in turn, that
hastened the grinding of the Six Nations to pieces between those two
millstones.
Rome is Mr. Calhoun's next illustration. The _Tribunus Plebis_, he
observes, had a veto upon the passage of all laws and upon the
execution of all laws, and thus prevented the oppression of the
plebeians by the patricians. To show the inapplicability of this
example to the principle in question, to show by what steps this
tribunal, long useful and efficient, gradually absorbed the power of
the government, and became itself, first oppressive, and then an
instrument in the overthrow of the constitution, would be to write a
history of Rome. Niebuhr is accessible to the public, and Niebuhr knew
more of the _Tribunus Plebis_ than Mr.
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