ABSTRACT
In his later years Bentham was no longer content with mere democratic ascendancy. By the time he wrote the Constitutional Code, he had concluded that the ‘axiom’ that ‘in the general tenor of life, in every human breast, self-regarding interest is predominant over all other interests put together’, meant that any ruler not subjected to control would on all occasions prefer his own interest to the interests of the people. 1 The only form of government which could provide adequate checks to prevent this from happening was a pure representative democracy. A mixed form of government, even with democratic ascendancy, would leave far too much room for the corruption of the people's representatives and result in the exploitation of the people. Governmental power must be concentrated in the hands of a popularly elected unitary legislature, so that there would be no doubt as to where responsibility rested for governmental misrule. Thus, although the United States of America had served Bentham as the primary proof of the undangerousness of democracy and as the leading example of a government actually seeking the greatest happiness of the greatest number, the Constitution of the United States was not the model for Bentham's ideal republic. There were too many elements in that Constitution, including the bicameral legislature, which impeded popular control, made the system too complicated and provided too much room for abuse. A bicameral system was unnecessary and dangerous. A hereditary second house or one appointed by anyone other than the people themselves would be undemocratic and was simply out of the question. An elected second house would be either superfluous or undemocratic. If it was elected on the only defensible plan of popular suffrage in relatively equal districts, it would be superfluous for it would simply reproduce the pattern of representation found in the other house. To employ any other mode of election would mean that the house 89was undemocratic, and hence dangerous. It would mean that those representing a minority of the people might be able to block the will of those representing a majority, and there should be no such impediment to the will of the majority. 2
