g the community to that community
while it was in vigour and self-governing, whereas Flaminius submitted
a question of state to the primary assembly of a great empire.

Nullity of the Comitia

Not the party of the government only, but the party of reform also,
very properly regarded the military, executive, and financial
government as the legitimate domain of the senate, and carefully
abstained from making full use of, to say nothing of augmenting, the
formal power vested in primary assemblies that were inwardly doomed to
inevitable dissolution. Never even in the most limited monarchy was a
part so completely null assigned to the monarch as was allotted to the
sovereign Roman people: this was no doubt in more than one respect to
be regretted, but it was, owing to the existing state of the comitial
machine, even in the view of the friends of reform a matter of
necessity. For this reason Cato and those who shared his views never
submitted to the burgesses a question, which trenched on government
strictly so called; and never, directly or indirectly, by decree of
the burgesses extorted from the senate the political or financial
measures which they wished, such as the declaration of war against
Carthage and the assignations of land. The government of the senate
might be bad; the primary assemblies could not govern at all. Not
that an evil-disposed majority predominated in them; on the contrary
the counsel of a man of standing, the loud call of honour, and the
louder call of necessity were still, as a rule, listened to in the
comitia, and averted the most injurious and disgraceful results.
The burgesses, before whom Marcellus pleaded his cause, ignominiously
dismissed his accuser, and elected the accused as consul for the
following year: they suffered themselves also to be persuaded of the
necessity of the war against Philip, terminated the war against
Perseus by the election of Paullus, and accorded to the latter his
well-deserved triumph. But in order to such elections and such
decrees there was needed some special stimulus; in general the mass
having no will of its own followed the first impulse, and folly or
accident dictated the decision.

Disorganisation of Government

In the state, as in every organism, an organ which no longer
discharges its functions is injurious. The nullity of the sovereign
assembly of the people involved no small danger. Any minority in the
senate might constitutionally appeal to the