82
"Hear, hear!" cried the colonel, with great complacency. "There
are flowery components, sir, in the language of my friend?"
"Very much so, indeed," said Martin."
Over parlementsleden.
De Tocqueville schrijft over parlementsleden het volgende, en ik
bied u hierbij een vrij lang citaat aan, opdat u zelf kunt vaststellen
hoe actueel het werk van De Tocqueville is:
"Amongst aristocratie nations the members of political assemblies
are at the same time members of the aristocracy. Each of them
enjoys high established rank in his own right, and the position which
he occupies in the assembly is often less important in his eyes than
that which he fills in the country. This consoles him for playing no
part in the discussion of public affairs, and restrains him from too
eagerly attempting to play an insignificant one.
In America, it generally happens that a Representative only becomes
somebody from his position in the Assembly. He is therefore
perpetually haunted by a craving to acquire importance there, and he
feels a petulant desire to be constantly obtruding his opinions upon
the House. His own vanity is not the only stimulant which urges him
on in this course, but that of his constituents, and the continual
necessity of propitiating them. Amongst aristocratic nations a
member of the legislature is rarely in strict dependence upon his
constituents: he is frequently to them a sort of unavoidable
representative; sometimes they are themselves strictly dependent
upon him; and if at length they reject him, he may easily get elected
elsewhere, or, retiring from public life, he may still enjoy the
pleasures of splendid idleness. In a democratic country like the
United States a Representative has hardly ever a lasting hold on the
minds of his constituents. However small an electoral body may be,
the fluctuations of democracy are constantly changing its aspect; it
must, therefore, be courted unceasingly. He is never sure of his
supporters, and, if they forsake him, he is left without a resource; for
his natural position is not sufficiently elevated for him to be easily
known to those not close to him; and, with the complete state of
independence prevailing among the people, he cannot hope that his
friends or the government will send him down to be returned by an
electoral body unacquainted with him. The seeds of his fortune are,
therefore, sown in his own neighborhood; from that nook of earth he
must start to raise himself to the command of a people and to
influence the destinies of the world. Thus it is natural that in
democratic countries the members of political assemblies think more
