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During many generations we have had legislative assemblies which, however defective their constitution might be, have always contained many members chosen by the people, and many others eager to obtain the approbation of the people: assemblies in which perfect freedom of debate was allowed; assemblies in which the smallest minority had a fair hearing; assemblies in which abuses, even when they were not redressed, were at least exposed.
The other, imposing a stamp-duty on small pamphlets, only placed them on the same footing with newspapers. The last of the new measures "to prevent more effectually seditious meetings and assemblies" was practically aimed against all large meetings, unless called by the highest authorities in counties and corporate towns, or, at least, five justices of the peace.
The fact is, that they did thus apply those general arguments; and your mode of governing them, whether through lenity or indolence, through wisdom or mistake, confirmed them in the imagination that they, as well as you, had an interest in these common principles. They were further confirmed in this pleasing error by the form of their provincial legislative assemblies.
Meanwhile Lucien had gathered around him in a room the members of the Five Hundred who were devoted to him, and had resumed the presidential chair; Napoleon's friends among the members of the Council of the Elders also gathered together, and both assemblies issued a decree, in which they declared there was no longer a Directory, and in which they excluded from the assembly as rebellious and factious a vast number of deputies.
"And is there not, dear sister," said I, "more pleasure in the possession of such a man than in all the little impertinences of balls, assemblies, and equipage, which it cost me so much pains to make you contemn?" She answered, smiling, "Tranquillus has made me a sincere convert in a few weeks, though I am afraid you could not have done it in your whole life.
And then, passing on to the vague insinuations or bolder charges against himself and his policy proffered by the preceding speakers, Audley gathered himself up, and paused; for his eye here rested on the Reporters seated round the table just below him; and he recognized faces not unfamiliar to his recollection when metropolitan assemblies had hung on the words which fell from lips then privileged to advise a king.
"Against May, Whitsonday, or other time, all the yung men and maides, olde men and wives, run gadding over night to the woods, groves, hils, and mountains, where they spend all the night in plesant pastimes; and in the morning they return, bringing with them birch and branches of trees, to deck their assemblies withall.
They have therefore interposed between themselves and the laws which may be passed by their public agents various representations, such as assemblies, senates, and governors in their several States, a House of Representatives, a Senate, and a President of the United States.
Perhaps their non-combatant attitude gave them more influence with the conquerors of Rome, who were to become the founders of modern nations. In later years, the abbots of the principal monasteries occupied seats in the legislative assemblies of Germany, Hungary, Spain, England, Italy, and France. In many instances they stood between the violence of the nobles and the unprotected vassal.
Moreover, the central principle guiding for the present the administration of the Cause has been to make the Bahá’í National Spiritual Assemblies as independent as possible in the conduct of such affairs as fall within their province, and to lessen the hampering influence of any institution within their jurisdiction that might, whether directly or indirectly, impair their authority and prestige.
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