The senate carefully avoided giving a handle to opposition or to ambition by unpopular changes, or manifest violations, of the constitution; it permitted, though it did nor promote, the enlargement in a democratic direction of the power of the burgesses.

But while the burgesses acquired the semblance, the senate acquired the substance of power -- a decisive influence over legislation and the official elections, and the whole control of the state.
Its Influence in Legislation Every new project of law was subjected to a preliminary deliberation in the senate, and scarcely ever did a magistrate venture to lay a proposal before the community without or in opposition to the senate's opinion.

If he did so, the senate had--in the intercessory powers of the magistrates and the annulling powers of the priests--an ample set of means at hand to nip in the bud, or subsequently to get rid of, obnoxious proposals; and in case of extremity it had in its hands as the supreme administrative authority not only the executing, but the power of refusing to execute, the decrees of the community.

The senate further with tacit consent of the community claimed the right in urgent cases of absolving from the laws, under the reservation that the community should ratify the proceeding--a reservation which from the first was of little moment, and became by degrees so entirely a form that in later times they did not even take the trouble to propose the ratifying decree.
Influence on the Elections As to the elections, they passed, so far as they depended on the magistrates and were of political importance, practically into the hands of the senate.

In this way it acquired, as has been mentioned already,( 25) the right to appoint the dictator.