and could only cancel a decree when the community
seemed to have exceeded its competence--to have violated by its
decree existing obligations towards the gods or towards foreign
states or organic institutions of the community. But still it was
a matter of the greatest importance that--to take an example--when
the Roman king had proposed a declaration of war and the burgesses
had converted it into a decree, and when the satisfaction which
the foreign community seemed bound to furnish had been demanded in
vain, the Roman envoy invoked the gods as witnesses of the wrong
and concluded with the words, "But on these matters we shall consult
the elders at home how we may obtain our rights;" it was only when
the council of elders had declared its consent, that the war now
decreed by the burgesses and approved by the senate was formally
declared. Certainly it was neither the design nor the effect of
this rule to occasion a constant interference of the senate with
the resolutions of the burgesses, and by such guardianship to divest
them of their sovereign power; but, as in the event of a vacancy
in the supreme office the senate secured the continuance of the
constitution, we find it here also as the shield of legal order in
opposition even to the supreme power--the community.

The Senate As State-Council

With this arrangement was probably connected the apparently very
ancient usage, in virtue of which the king previously submitted
to the senate the proposals that were to be brought before the
burgesses, and caused all its members one after another to give their
opinion on the subject. As the senate had the right of cancelling
the resolution adopted, it was natural for the king to assure
himself beforehand that no opposition was to be apprehended from
that quarter; as indeed in general, on the one hand, it was in
accordance with Roman habits not to decide matters of importance
without having taken counsel with other men, and on the other hand
the senate was called, in virtue of its very composition, to act as
a state-council to the ruler of the community. It was from this
usage of giving counsel, far more than from the prerogatives which
we have previously described, that the subsequent extensive powers
of the senate were developed; but it was in its origin insignificant
and really amounted only to the prerogative of the senators to
answer, when they were asked a question. It may have been usual
to ask the previous o