To: Sam who wrote (57965 ) 11/20/2002 4:30:53 PM From: Nadine Carroll Read Replies (1) | Respond to A FIFTH desideratum, illustrating the utility of a senate, is the want of a due sense of national character. Without a select and stable member of the government, the esteem of foreign powers will not only be forfeited by an unenlightened and variable policy, proceeding from the causes already mentioned, but the national councils will not possess that sensibility to the opinion of the world, which is perhaps not less necessary in order to merit, than it is to obtain, its respect and confidence. What bitter anguish would not the people of Athens have often escaped if their government had contained so provident a safeguard against the tyranny of their own passions? Popular liberty might then have escaped the indelible reproach of decreeing to the same citizens the hemlock on one day and statues on the next. The difference most relied on, between the American and other republics, consists in the principle of representation; which is the pivot on which the former move, and which is supposed to have been unknown to the latter, or at least to the ancient part of them duty to get the approval of other governments for its policies; the government may care about the opinions of "other nations" (though even here only the Great Powers of Europe were meant by this; America soon showed that it cared very little for the good opinion of the Barbary States), but it is responsible only to its own citizens.How is our foreign policy made more legitimate by having Syria vote for it?
