eriod to be reviewed; and even patrons
or opponents of the very measures to be thus brought to the test of the
constitution. Two of the members had been vice-presidents of the State,
and several other members of the executive council, within the seven
preceding years. One of them had been speaker, and a number of others
distinguished members, of the legislative assembly within the same
period.

Third. Every page of their proceedings witnesses the effect of all
these circumstances on the temper of their deliberations. Throughout
the continuance of the council, it was split into two fixed and violent
parties. The fact is acknowledged and lamented by themselves. Had
this not been the case, the face of their proceedings exhibits a
proof equally satisfactory. In all questions, however unimportant
in themselves, or unconnected with each other, the same names stand
invariably contrasted on the opposite columns. Every unbiased observer
may infer, without danger of mistake, and at the same time without
meaning to reflect on either party, or any individuals of either party,
that, unfortunately, PASSION, not REASON, must have presided over their
decisions. When men exercise their reason coolly and freely on a variety
of distinct questions, they inevitably fall into different opinions
on some of them. When they are governed by a common passion, their
opinions, if they are so to be called, will be the same.

Fourth. It is at least problematical, whether the decisions of this body
do not, in several instances, misconstrue the limits prescribed for the
legislative and executive departments, instead of reducing and limiting
them within their constitutional places.

Fifth. I have never understood that the decisions of the council on
constitutional questions, whether rightly or erroneously formed,
have had any effect in varying the practice founded on legislative
constructions. It even appears, if I mistake not, that in one instance
the contemporary legislature denied the constructions of the council,
and actually prevailed in the contest.

This censorial body, therefore, proves at the same time, by its
researches, the existence of the disease, and by its example, the
inefficacy of the remedy.

This conclusion cannot be invalidated by alleging that the State in
which the experiment was made was at that crisis, and had been for a
long time before, violently heated and distracted by the rage of party.
Is it to be presumed, that at an