Some checks on such sudden action are most essential in a democracy, because there is no appeal from its decision.

A reverence for tradition, for those rules of conduct which have stood the test of time, is one restraining influence, but more formal restraints on sudden decisions and violent changes are necessary.

A single vote of a popular assembly may not represent the well-considered judgment and permanent will of the people.
Steps may be taken which it is impossible to recall.

To insist on an appeal from "Philip drunk to Philip sober" is not to deprive him of his real liberty.

It is a safeguard, not an infringement of the principles of true democracy, to provide some body of men of experience who can exercise an independent judgment, and who, when some violent change is proposed, have the right and the duty to reply in effect: Old things may not be therefore true, Oh brother men, nor yet the new; Ah, still awhile the old thought retain, And yet consider it again.
Such a justification, such a statement of the function of a Second Chamber, not directly elected, may provoke a histrionic smile among extreme advocates of so-called popular rights, but has never evoked an argument which can displace it as based on sound reason and common sense.