y represent a fraction of the party. Lastly, in the
third case, they constitute a separate nation in the midst of the
nation, a government within the Government. Their delegates, like the
real delegates of the majority, represent the entire collective force
of their party; and they enjoy a certain degree of that national dignity
and great influence which belong to the chosen representatives of the
people. It is true that they have not the right of making the laws,
but they have the power of attacking those which are in being, and
of drawing up beforehand those which they may afterwards cause to be
adopted.

If, in a people which is imperfectly accustomed to the exercise
of freedom, or which is exposed to violent political passions, a
deliberating minority, which confines itself to the contemplation of
future laws, be placed in juxtaposition to the legislative majority, I
cannot but believe that public tranquillity incurs very great risks in
that nation. There is doubtless a very wide difference between proving
that one law is in itself better than another and proving that the
former ought to be substituted for the latter. But the imagination
of the populace is very apt to overlook this difference, which is so
apparent to the minds of thinking men. It sometimes happens that a
nation is divided into two nearly equal parties, each of which affects
to represent the majority. If, in immediate contiguity to the directing
power, another power be established, which exercises almost as much
moral authority as the former, it is not to be believed that it will
long be content to speak without acting; or that it will always be
restrained by the abstract consideration of the nature of associations
which are meant to direct but not to enforce opinions, to suggest but
not to make the laws.

The more we consider the independence of the press in its principal
consequences, the more are we convinced that it is the chief and, so to
speak, the constitutive element of freedom in the modern world. A nation
which is determined to remain free is therefore right in demanding the
unrestrained exercise of this independence. But the unrestrained liberty
of political association cannot be entirely assimilated to the liberty
of the press. The one is at the same time less necessary and more
dangerous than the other. A nation may confine it within certain limits
without forfeiting any part of its self-control; and it may sometimes be
obliged to do s