“If [the Peoples’ representatives] are sufficiently numerous to be well informed of the circumstances, . . . and have a proper regard for the people, [the People] will be secure.”
And if the People’s representatives are mostly slime?
He was right. The Constitution was a big mistake.
In so extensive a republic, the great officers of government would soon
become above the controul of the people, and abuse their power to the
purpose of aggrandizing themselves, and oppressing them. The trust committed
to the executive offices, in a country of the extent of the United-States,
must be various and of magnitude. The command of all the troops and navy of
the republic, the appointment of officers, the power of pardoning offences,
the collecting of all the public revenues, and the power of expending them,
with a number of other powers, must be lodged and exercised in every state,
in the hands of a few. When these are attended with great honor and
emolument, as they always will be in large states, so as greatly to interest
men to pursue them, and to be proper objects for ambitious and designing
men, such men will be ever restless in their pursuit after them. They will
use the power, when they have acquired it, to the purposes of gratifying
their own interest and ambition, and it is scarcely possible, in a very
large republic, to call them to account for their misconduct, or to prevent
their abuse of power.
Brutus, 18 October 1787