As the number of citizens who dispense the remuneration is extremely large in democratic countries, so the number of persons who can hope to be benefited by the receipt of it is comparatively small.

In aristocratic countries, on the contrary, the individuals who fix high salaries have almost always a vague hope of profiting by them.

These appointments may be looked upon as a capital which they create for their own use, or at least as a resource for their children.
It must, however, be allowed that a democratic State is most parsimonious towards its principal agents.

In America the secondary officers are much better paid, and the dignitaries of the administration much worse, than they are elsewhere.
These opposite effects result from the same cause; the people fixes the salaries of the public officers in both cases; and the scale of remuneration is determined by the consideration of its own wants.

It is held to be fair that the servants of the public should be placed in the same easy circumstances as the public itself; *g but when the question turns upon the salaries of the great officers of State, this rule fails, and chance alone can guide the popular decision.