But this was not the real design of the tribunate.
It was a concession wrung not from the politically privileged order, but from the rich landlords and capitalists; it was designed to ensure to the commons equitable administration of law, and to promote a more judicious administration of finance.

This design it did not, and could not, fulfil.

The tribune might put a stop to particular iniquities, to individual instances of crying hardship; but the fault lay not in the unfair working of a righteous law, but in a law which was itself unrighteous, and how could the tribune regularly obstruct the ordinary course of justice?
Could he have done so, it would have served little to remedy the evil, unless the sources of impoverishment were stopped--the perverse taxation, the wretched system of credit, and the pernicious occupation of the domain-lands.

But such measures were not attempted, evidently because the wealthy plebeians themselves had no less interest in these abuses than the patricians.

So this singular magistracy was instituted, which presented to the commons an obvious and available aid, and yet could not possibly carry out the necessary economic reform.