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The mischievous effects of the mutability in the public councils arising from a rapid succession of new members would fill a volume: every new election in the States is found to change one-half of the representatives.

From this change of men must proceed a change of opinions and of measures, which forfeits the respect and confidence of other nations, poisons the blessings of liberty itself, and diminishes the attachment and reverence of the people toward a political system which betrays so many marks of infirmity." Jefferson himself, the greatest Democrat whom the democracy of America has yet produced, pointed out the same evils.

"The instability of our laws," said he in a letter to Madison, "is really a very serious inconvenience.