of the constitution. This was
natural; and it was equally natural that they should be resisted by the
patricians. Hence when the Tarquins, or Etruscan dynasty, undertook to
be kings in fact as well as in name, and seemed likely to succeed, the
patricians expelled them, and supplied their place by two consuls
annually elected. Here was a modification, but no real change of the
constitution. The effective Power, as before, remained in the senate.

But there was from early times a plebeian element in the population of
the city, though forming at first no part of the political people.
Their origin is not very certain, nor their original position in the
city. Historians give different accounts of them. But that they
should, as they increased in numbers, wealth, and importance, demand
admission into the political society, religious or solemn marriage, a
voice in the government, and the faculty of holding civil and military
offices, was only in the order of regular development. At first the
patricians fought them, and, failing to subdue them by force, effected
a compromise, and bought up their leaders. The concession which
followed of the tribunitial veto was only a further development. By
that veto the plebeians gained no initiative, no positive power,
indeed, but their tribunes, by interposing it, could stop the
proceedings of the government. They could not propose the measures they
liked, but they could prevent the legal adoption of measures they
disliked--a faculty Mr. Calhoun asserted for the several States of the
American Union in his doctrine of nullification, or State veto, as he
called it. It was simply an obstructive power.

But from a power to obstruct legislative action to the power to
originate or propose it, and force the senate to adopt it through fear
of the veto of measures the patricians had at heart, was only a still
further development. This gained, the exclusively patrician
constitution had disappeared, and Marius, the head of a great plebeian
house, could be elected consul and the plebeians in turn threaten to
become predominant, which Sylla or Sulla, as dictator, seeing, tried in
vain to prevent. The dictator was provided for in the original
constitution. Retain the dictatorship for a time, strengthen the
plebeian element by ruthless proscriptions of patricians and by
recruits from the provinces, unite the tribunitial, pontifical, and
military powers in the imperator designated by the army,