It is not meant to dwell on this particular part of the subject. As those governed hold a check on the executive power, which alone can be supposed to profit by oppression, there is a means of defence, in the first instance, and of redress, in the second, which diminishes greatly, if it does not entirely do away all danger from encroachment.
Another thing to be said about this government is, that government and the subject never come into opposition with each other, except where there is law or precedent to determine between them.
The danger, then, of encroachment on that side, is not very great, and it is the less so in this country, that, when there have been contests, they have always ended in favour of the people; whereas, in most
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{96} The public certainly has a common interest, but it feels it not, and even those who have separate interests make part of that very public. -- This will be exemplified, in a variety of instances, in the course of the present chapter.
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other countries, they have terminated in favour of the executive power.
It is not so, however, with many other of the component parts of society. Those deliberating bodies, who have separate interests, and all those who live, as it were, on the public, and have what they call, in France, l'esprit du corps, for which we have no proper expression, though it may be defined to be those who have a common interest, a fellow feeling, and the means of acting in concert, are much more dangerous.
In nations where the executive power has no control, the progress of public bodies is less dangerous than where the power of the king is limited. It is always the interest of the sovereign, who monopolises all power, and those around him, to prevent any man, or body of men, from infringing on the liberty of the subject, or becoming rivals, by laying industry under contribution, so we find that, in every such nation, the clergy excepted, all public bodies are kept under proper subjection. {97}