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tocracy obtained the entire ascendency over the people, and from that day began the decline of the Roman Empire.
But formidable as this vicinity to Rome, of powerful and warlike neighbours, was, to the welfare of the great majority of the Roman people, it was not the only obstacle they had to contend with. Constituted as their government was, as already stated, they had not the power of original legislation. This was invested in the Aristocracy; all that the people had power to do, was through the tribunes, appointed by themselves, to forbid the enactment of any law, which they deemed injurious to their welfare. They could not originate any new measures, however beneficial they might deem them to be to their condition. And the only method by which they could accomplish any thing of the kind, was by treaty with the governing power. Thus, when the State was attacked, or in danger of it, by enemies from abroad, they could refuse to enlist, or to defend it; or, as the price of so doing, demand, as they often did, the enactment, or the strict fulfilment of the Agrarian Law.
The Roman people seem not to have learnt; indeed it is a lesson learnt only within the last half century by any nation; that the legislative power of all nations, particularly, in the sense in which such power is now ordinarily understood, resides in the majority of those over whom it is exercised. It is
