National Gazette

In public bodies where the members are honest and independent, a difference of opinions is the natural consequence. It is the tax which liberty pays for its defence against internal danger. There are some, however, who undervalue the object so much as to be unwilling to hold it under this incumbrance. The admirers of the present British system consider as a less evil, that ministerial corruption which unites and secures a ready majority on all questions. In the United States such a remedy for the disease would be premature. It is necessary that some further evacuations of republican bile should be premised. In the mean time a good hint may be taken from a paragraph in the last Gazette of the United States, in the chapter of COMMUNICATIONS, which ascribes the happy union of the majorities in the House of Representatives on subjects of finance to the management of the business by one person, and contrasts therewith the discordant opinions of the opposers of the system, who presume to think for themselves. It would be curious to examine into the mode by which the opinions of the majority are thus rescued from the disagreement under which the minority labours. But it is of more importance to improve on the example as stated, by extending the advantage to all other cases as well as that of finance. For this purpose it is humbly proposed that the business of legislation be divided into the several distinct classes of subjects which compose it, and that the management of each class be put on a like footing, and so as to have the like effect with that ascribed to the provision already made. The legislative body, or a majority at least, might then free themselves altogether from the trouble of thinking. the public business would go on more systematically, expeditiously, and economically; the different plans conceived by the individuals of the minority would gradually disgrace them, opposition would cease within doors and the calm there would lead to that delicious serenity and sweet repose throughout the community, which distinguish the governments where the natural right of thinking is extinguished as a necessary sacrifice to the objects for which man enters into civil society.