BOOK V OF LEGISLATIVE AND EXECUTIVE POWER CHAP. XXIII. OF NATIONAL ASSEMBLIES They produce a fictitious unanimity -- an un- natural uniformity of opinion. -- Causes of this uniformity. -- Consequences of the mode of decision by vote --1. perversion of reason -- 2. contentious disputes -- 3. the triumph of ignor- ance and vise. -- Society incapable of acting from itself -- of being well conducted by others. -- Conclusion. -- Modification of democracy that results from these considerations. IN the first place, the existence of a national assembly introduces the evils of a fictitious unanimity. The public, guided by such an assembly, must act with concert, or the assembly is a nugatory excrescence. But it is impossible that this unanimity can really exist. The individuals who constitute a nation cannot take into consideration a variety of important questions without forming different sentiments respecting them. In...
With an Introduction by James J. Martin Introduction In reissuing this famous but long-neglected work for the first time in over a century, it is not intended that it furnish a pretext to leap into the complex controversy concerning "women's rights" which has become increasingly intensified in the last fifteen years. The object is rather to bring attention to an undeservedly obscured figure in American intellectual and ideological history, first of all, and to put on the contemporary record one of the overlooked phases of the struggle to achieve equality before the law, especially, for women in the USA. It has been observed that it has become progressively more difficult to write about any phase of this subject recently, as the language of ... (From : crispinsartwell.com.)