Читать книгу History of the Origin of Representative Government in Europe - Guizot François - Страница 60

Whoever was entitled to attend the assembly went thither, and went in person. No proxies were allowed. No one was permitted to enter the assembly in any name but his own. When we come to treat of the principles of representative government, we shall see that the formation of the ancient Germanic assemblies was based upon the principles of individual right, and of the sovereignty of the multitude,—principles from which representative government did not take its origin. Besides, the towns at this period were in so miserable a condition, that it was impossible for them to appoint representatives. York, the second city in England, contained fourteen hundred and eighteen families, and Bath sixty-four. A law of King Athelstane declares that no one entered, or could enter, the assembly, except upon his own account; every proprietor possessing five hides of land, it says, and every merchant who has made three voyages to foreign countries, shall be numbered among the thanes, and be admitted as such into the Wittenagemot. The inequality of conditions, however, continued to increase. Those national assemblies, in which, originally, all freemen were entitled to sit, soon became, as you have seen, restricted to landed proprietors. By-and-bye, as power became centralized, and predominant influences gained greater strength, the small proprietors ceased to use a right which had lost all value to them, and the large landowners remained the undisputed masters of the field. The disproportion between the two classes was so great, that a contest was impossible. As each man sat in his own name, each man brought his own personal influence and private interests with him. The general assembly became an arena for individual disputes. This was the necessary consequence of a principle, which, by summoning all persons to exercise the same right, placed inequalities in that position which was most favourable to the development of their power and egotism. It is the work of a widely different principle to seek out among the masses the persons best fitted to represent them, to send these individuals to the central assembly to provide for the safety of all rights in the name of justice, and thus to prevent the evil consequences which must result from the natural or social inequality of mankind, by creating a factitious, but just, equality among their representatives, which leaves them only the legitimate influence of their talents and character.