This consoles him for playing no part in the discussion of public affairs, and restrains him from too eagerly attempting to play an insignificant one.
In America, it generally happens that a Representative only becomes somebody from his position in the Assembly.

He is therefore perpetually haunted by a craving to acquire importance there, and he feels a petulant desire to be constantly obtruding his opinions upon the House.
His own vanity is not the only stimulant which urges him on in this course, but that of his constituents, and the continual necessity of propitiating them.

Amongst aristocratic nations a member of the legislature is rarely in strict dependence upon his constituents: he is frequently to them a sort of unavoidable representative; sometimes they are themselves strictly dependent upon him; and if at length they reject him, he may easily get elected elsewhere, or, retiring from public life, he may still enjoy the pleasures of splendid idleness.

In a democratic country like the United States a Representative has hardly ever a lasting hold on the minds of his constituents.

However small an electoral body may be, the fluctuations of democracy are constantly changing its aspect; it must, therefore, be courted unceasingly.