ge, however free, is of no avail for this purpose; because the
suffrage of the minority is overborne by the suffrage of the majority,
and is thus rendered powerless for purposes of legislation. The
responsibility of officers can be made of no avail, because they are
responsible only to the majority. The minority, therefore, are wholly
without rights in the government, wholly at the mercy of the majority,
unless, through the trial by jury, they have a veto upon such
legislation as they think unjust.

Government is established for the protection of the weak against the
strong. This is the principal, if not the sole, motive for the
establishment of all legitimate government. Laws, that are sufficient
for the protection of the weaker party, are of course sufficient for the
protection of the stronger party; because the strong can certainly need
no more protection than the weak. It is, therefore, right that the
weaker party should be represented in the tribunal which is finally to
determine what legislation may be enforced; and that no legislation
shall be enforced against their consent. They being presumed to be
competent judges of what kind of legislation makes for their safety, and
what for their injury, it must be presumed that any legislation, which
_they_ object to enforcing, tends to their oppression, and not to their
security.

There is still another reason why the weaker party, or the minority,
should have a veto upon all legislation which they disapprove. _That
reason is, that that is the only means by which the government can be
kept within the limits of the contract, compact, or constitution, by
which the whole people agree to establish government._ If the majority
were allowed to interpret the compact for themselves, and enforce it
according to their own interpretation, they would, of course, make it
authorize them to do whatever they wish to do.

The theory of free government is that it is formed by the voluntary
contract of the people individually with each other. This is the theory,
(although it is not, as it ought to be, the fact,) in all the
governments in the United States, as also in the government of England.
The theory assumes that each man, who is a party to the government, and
contributes to its support, has individually and freely consented to it.
Otherwise the government would have no right to tax him for its
support,--for taxation without consent is robbery. This theory, then,
necessarily suppose