cur no
small risk of perishing miserably amongst the shoals of democracy.

And here I have no scruple in confessing that I look upon this peculiar
system of election as the only means of bringing the exercise of
political power to the level of all classes of the people. Those
thinkers who regard this institution as the exclusive weapon of a party,
and those who fear, on the other hand, to make use of it, seem to me to
fall into as great an error in the one case as in the other.

Influence Which The American Democracy Has Exercised On The Laws
Relating To Elections

When elections are rare, they expose the State to a violent crisis--When
they are frequent, they keep up a degree of feverish excitement--The
Americans have preferred the second of these two evils--Mutability of
the laws--Opinions of Hamilton and Jefferson on this subject.

When elections recur at long intervals the State is exposed to violent
agitation every time they take place. Parties exert themselves to the
utmost in order to gain a prize which is so rarely within their reach;
and as the evil is almost irremediable for the candidates who fail, the
consequences of their disappointed ambition may prove most disastrous;
if, on the other hand, the legal struggle can be repeated within a short
space of time, the defeated parties take patience. When elections occur
frequently, their recurrence keeps society in a perpetual state of
feverish excitement, and imparts a continual instability to public
affairs.

Thus, on the one hand the State is exposed to the perils of a
revolution, on the other to perpetual mutability; the former system
threatens the very existence of the Government, the latter is an
obstacle to all steady and consistent policy. The Americans have
preferred the second of these evils to the first; but they were led to
this conclusion by their instinct much more than by their reason; for a
taste for variety is one of the characteristic passions of democracy. An
extraordinary mutability has, by this means, been introduced into their
legislation. Many of the Americans consider the instability of their
laws as a necessary consequence of a system whose general results are
beneficial. But no one in the United States affects to deny the fact of
this instability, or to contend that it is not a great evil.

Hamilton, after having demonstrated the utility of a power which might
prevent, or which might at least impede, the promulgation of bad laws,