The Importance of a Majority in Popular Government

There is, perhaps, no legislative act in which greater opportunity and temptation are given to a predominant party to trample on the rules of justice. Every shilling with which they overburden the inferior number is a shilling saved to their own pockets. It is in vain to say that enlightened statesmen will be able to adjust these clashing interests and render them all subservient to the public good. Neither moral nor religious motives can be relied on as an adequate control. Either the existence of the same passion or interest in a majority at the same time must be prevented; or the majority unable to concert and carry into effect schemes of oppression.