Perhaps there is some latent policy
toward the continuance of the present Assembly in this strange
procedure. However, until they do this, they can have no certain
constitution. It must depend at last upon the system of taxation,
and must vary with every variation in that system. As they have
contrived matters, their taxation does not so much depend on their
constitution as their constitution on their taxation. This must
introduce great confusion among the masses, as the variable
qualification for votes within the district must, if ever real
contested elections take place, cause infinite internal controversies.
To compare together the three bases, not on their political
reason, but on the ideas on which the Assembly works, and to try its
consistency with itself, we cannot avoid observing that the
principle which the committee call the basis of population does not
begin to operate from the same point with the two other principles
called the bases of territory and of contribution, which are both of
an aristocratic nature. The consequence is that, where all three begin
to operate together, there is the most absurd inequality produced by
the operation of the former on the two latter principles. Every canton
contains four square leagues, and is estimated to contain, on the
average, 4000 inhabitants or 680 voters in the primary assemblies,
which vary in numbers with the population of the canton, and send
one deputy to the commune for every 200 voters.
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