Political Science Of The State

310 POLITICAL SCIENCE.
between capital and labor is so great, so incapable of being
settled, that the representatives of the two must be kept
apart ? But will this be a cure, will .it not rather be a pro-
vocative to more bitter strife which will end in an overthrow
of the constitution ? The position of Mr. Guizot, again, is
not a sound one. The chambers are not now and never were
elected, the one by men with land and capital, the other by
men without land or capital. There is an unbroken row of
fellow-men, starting from the poorest day laborer and ending
in the richest millionaire. You cannot divide it in twain any-
where, and if you could you would rend society. If an old
aristocracy actually exists, and the feelings of the nation,
their habits, their history, make them satisfied with it, very
.well. Compose your upper chamber of such materials, if
you are sure that no change will soon come. But in an age
like this, when the low are rising in-their power and claims
and the high falling in their influence, the foundations of a
newly constructed chamber would be tottering, if they rested
on aristocracy. The French chambers of peers and the sen-
ate crumbled to pieces at the first blow of revolution. Such
bodies will be apt to feel that they are stronger than they
really are; they will attempt backward movements until a
democracy is roused, and then they will abandon the field
without a struggle. The supports of an aristocracy must be
real and historical; artificial ones will prove of no avail.
The opposition made to two chambers, on the other hand,
upon the ground that it is not democratic, deserves no con-
sideration. One argument against it is that of the Abbe
Sieyes, that a people cannot have two wills at the same time
on the same subject. Hence, the legislative body which rep-
resents the people ought to be essentially one. One of the
houses, therefore, is a clog on the otherwise free movements
of the community. But the question is not in legislation what
is actually the will of the people, but what ought to be, what
would it be if they were in their representatives' place, in-
vested with their powers of hearing and deciding. The
people, by establishing a legislature to which the making of