It follows also, that the only form which is frequently found pure is monarchy. There are few aristocracies without a doge or a president, exercising a temporary but real control. Still more rare is a pure democracy. It is impossible of Commons were elected by the householders of in any state which is not small enough to enable all the inhabitants to attend the place of meeting; and even where there are no physical objections, the moral ones are generally sufficient to exclude it. The majority of the forms adopted by the civilized world do not belong exclusively to either of these classes, but admit the principles of all. They are not monarchies, aristocracies, or democracies, but mixed forms, in which it is often diffi-number, it must depend on their positive number, cult to say whether the monarchical, the aristocratic, or the democratic principle prevails.

will of the select body-and the term democracy |bers of those admitted and excluded, will become to the form in which there is nothing to suspend evident; if we consider what would be the effect or impede the action of the will of the bulk of the if the inhabitants of France were diminished, but community. the proportions of electors and non-electors preserved. If France contained only three hundred and forty thousand persons, of whom one thousand elected a legislative body, the institution would be aristocratic. On the other hand, if the British House the metropolis, it would still be a democratic, not an aristocratic institution, although the metropolitan householders constitute a small minority of the inhabitants of the British islands. The Ecclesia of Athens was a democratic assembly, though out of the four hundred thousand inhabitants of Attica, not twenty-five thousand had a right to vote. So far as the conduct of a body depends on their not on the proportion which that number bears to the number of some other class of persons. If that number be very large, it is subject to the contagion with which fear and hope, love and hatred-in short, all the passions-are propagated from mind to mind, and exaggerated as they are diffused. It is more generous and more cruelmore sanguine and more desponding more rash and more easily frightened-more ready to undertake and more ready to abandon what it has undertaken-more confiding and more suspicious-more prone to erect idols and more prone to break them

It may be advisable, however, to state more fully what we mean by each of these principles. The monarchical principle requires little further explanation. It consists, as we have already remarked, in the subservience of the will of the whole community to that of an individual. It is not essential to monarchical power that this subservience should be universal, or even general: it is not essential even that the individual should have the power to command. If there are any acts in which his concurrence is necessary, and than would be the case with the individuals there is no authority that can legally force him to composing it, if they had to feel, and to think, concur, his power to prevent is, for many pur- and to act separately. It is likely, as its number poses, a power to act, just as a power to forbid is increases, to contain a larger proportion of ignooften equivalent to a power to command. It is, rant, violent, and uncultivated persons. It is likehowever, essential that he should form a part of ly, in short, to possess the qualities-some noble, the legislative body, not merely as a member, but but most of them dangerous, hateful, or conas an independent branch; or, in other words, that temptible-which belong to a mob. On the other he should have a veto, permanent or suspensive. hand, in proportion as the number is small, it is If he have not, his opposition may at any time be likely to be cool, selfish, and unimpassioned; to legally got rid of either by a law, or by an arbi-allow its perseverance to run into obstinacy, and its trary executory act. The President of the United caution into timidity; to be tenacious of old imStates, therefore, has monarchical power; he can pressions and unsusceptible of new ones; to be resist, and indeed often has resisted, the will of steady in its sympathies and in its antipathies; to be the community. The Doge of Venice had not. sparing of reward and unrelenting in punishment; In his highest functions he was only a member of to be permanently grateful and permanently unfora council, unable to oppose the will of the ma-giving; to be marked, in short, by the austere, jority.

The aristocratic principle consists in the possession of legislative power by a small body of persons.

The democratic principle consists in its possession, directly or indirectly, by a large number of

persons.

respectable, but somewhat unattractive character which we associate with the name of a senate.

We have followed Lord Brougham in applying the term "aristocratic" to the legislative influence of a small number of persons; but we should have preferred, if usage had permitted it, the term "oligarchical." The word "oligarchy" is univocal, These definitions are obviously vague. The and is associated with no idea except that which it excuse is, that the ideas which they express are expresses. The word "aristocracy" is often used vague. If we were to define the aristocratic to express mere excellence, without any reference principle as the influence of a minority, the demo-to power-as when we talk of the aristocracy of cratic principle as the influence of a majority of talent or the aristocracy of learning. Derivatively, the people, almost all the institutions which are it means either the government of the best numusually called democratic must be called aristo-bers of the society, or, according to Aristotle, a cratic. The only legal share in the government government ngòç to giσtov тîj ne-a government of France possessed by the people, consists in which endeavors to promote the welfare of the their right to elect the Chamber of Deputies. community, or the objects in the attainment of This is always held to be the democratic portion which the community thinks that its welfare conof the French constitution. But out of the thirty-sists. It has almost every defect, therefore, which four million inhabitants of France, not more than an appellative can have. It is equivocal, it is assoone hundred thousand are electors. Without doubt, ciated with an extraneous idea, and its derivative the democratic element would be increased if the meaning differs from both its received meanings. franchise were extended. But that the difference Its use, however, to express government by a few, between the aristocratic and democratic principles is so established, that we think it, on the whole, consists rather in the positive number of the persons best to retain it. admitted to power, than in the proportional num-j

Pol., lib. iii. cap. vii.

In the remainder of the first volume, Lord | fear of revolt, or the danger of being conquered, Brougham treats of pure or absolute monarchy-force them into quiet."-(Vol. i., p. 151.) that is, of the form of government in which there That the monarchs who govern barbarous nations is no legal restraint whatever on the will of the are prone to war, is true; and so are the rulers, reigning individual. He divides pure monarchy and indeed the people in barbarous nations, whatinto Oriental or despotic, and European or consti- ever be the form of government. Uncivilized man tutional. In each, the monarch is absolute-in is a beast of prey. The early history of every neither is there any direct legal check to his will; nation, democratic, aristocratic, or monarchical, is in each, therefore, the checks are indirect, but in perpetual war. But when Lord Brougham attrithe former the only indirect checks are religious butes a peculiar tendency towards war to the opinions, and the fear of resistance; in the latter, monarchical principle-when he maintains that to these checks are added habits and feelings when a single individual has to decide on peace or among the people, the results of a former preva- war, he is more likely than an aristocratic body or lence of the aristocratic or democratic principle, a popular assembly to decide for war-we dissent now obsolete or abolished, and institutions which from him. the monarch, though he has legally the power to destroy them, does not venture actually to destroy.

their northern frontier in the hope of seizing the demagogues, is generally popular in proportion to Canadas, and is now ready for war, in the hope of the violence and the mischievousness of its counappropriating the Oregon country, two thousand sels. miles from their own back settlements. As for the southern republics, no sooner had they freed themselves from the monarchical influence of Spain and Portugal, than they began to fight with one another for frontiers; and that in a country where the great evils are the paucity of people and the extent of territory.

It is true that an undue tendency to war, or at least an insufficient dread of its evils, is frequent in every government-whether the monarchical, the aristocratic, or the democratic principle prevail; but so far from believing that this defect belongs peculiarly to monarchical government, we believe that form of government to be, on the whole, less subject to it than any other, except perhaps a pure aristocracy.

We now proceed to consider the other of the two branches with which Lord Brougham has subdivided pure monarchies, namely, the monarchies which he terms constitutional-those in which the authority of the sovereign, though legally unfettered, is moderated by popular habits or feelings, the relics of lost privileges, or by institutions which he cannot venture to abolish. Of these institutions the most important is an hereditary nobility. Lord Brougham treats it as the test which distinguishes constitutional monarchy from pure despotism.

We extract from Lord Brougham's statement of the effects peculiar to this form of government, the small portion for which we have room

"A monarchy is naturally extravagant-it is splendid and it is expensive-it is reckless of the general suffering from the burdens of taxation; and it is prone to consider only the interests and enjoyments of courts and persons in authority. A richly endowed hierarchy-numerous governments of towns and provinces-a large military staff-in maritime countries expensive colonies-must all be kept up to provide for the nobles and their families, and their followers.

"The maintenance of a standing army, numerous, expensive, and well disciplined, is another charge upon all monarchies. Large armies are incompatible with the genius, almost with the existence, of a commonwealth. With the institutions of a pure monarchy they square perfectly— they are in complete harmony with its spirit.

If popular governments are prone to wars of ambition, still more are they to those of vanity. Let any practical diplomatist say, whether it be easier to induce a minister who represents the will of an absolute monarch, or one who depends on the majority of a popular assembly, to repair or even to confess a wrong, or to accept equitable terms of satisfaction or compromise. The reasons for this are numerous, and, we fear, not likely to be removed or even weakened. In the first place, the secrecy which covers the negotiations between monarchs saves their vanity. A concession is easily made where its only real evil depends on its publicity, and that publicity can be prevented. A victory is of little value when it is recorded only in the archives of a state-paper office. A popular government lives in the face of day, and has to apologize to its own subjects for every act of prudence or of justice. In the second place, an individual can generally be forced to hear both sides of the question. There are few disputes in which each party is not in some degree in the wrong, or in which he can avoid perceiving that he is so; if once he be compelled to give a deliberate attention to all his opponent's arguments. The instant that this discovery has been mutually made, if there be no mala fides-that is to say, if the controversy arise not from ambition but from vanity, if it be the cause of quarrel, not its mere pretext-an accommodation is almost inevitable. A nation does not listen to reason. It cannot be forced to study both sides of a question, and never does so voluntarily. It reads only its own state-papers, its own newspapers, and its own pamphlets; it hears only its own speakers, it accepts all their statements of facts and of law; and holding itself to be obviously and notoriously right on every point, believes that it would be dishonored in the face of all Europe by the slightest concession. Again, every popular government is infested by faction. It always contains one party, sometimes more than one, whose great, and sometimes whose principal object is the subversion of the existing ministry. The foreign policy of a ministry is generally its most vulnerable point. It is the subject about which the mass of the people always understand least, and sometimes feel most. If a minister be bold, the opposition halloo him on to make extravagant demands, in the hope that he may be entangled by war or disgraced by retreat; if he be prudent, they accuse him of sacrificing the interests or the honor of the country, of surrendering to foreign ambition, or quailing before foreign insolence. And lastly, there is in every nation in which the democratic element prevails, an important power whose im- "The will of the court and upper classes bemediate interests are opposed to peace, external as comes the law, and their habits the example for well as internal, and that is the daily press. A all. Court favor and the countenance of nobles newspaper lives on events. It lives by taking of are the objects of universal pursuit. No spirit of those events the view that agrees best with the free speech or free action can be said anywhere passions and prejudices of the people. It pleases to exist. Among the upper classes, those who them best by stimulating their pride, their vanity, are brought into immediate contact with power, their resentment, and their antipathies. It is the fear prevails almost as much as in pure despotdemagogue of a nation of readers; and, like other isms. The alarms, the suspicions, the precau

"The whole arrangements of the state are modelled upon the monarchical footing. In a country where the public are wholly excluded from the administration of state affairs, they cannot safely be admitted to manage even their own local interests, because the habit of acting in these would inevitably beget the desire to interfere in the affairs of the community at large.

"The influence of the monarchical principle, but especially when combined with aristocracy, as in European monarchies it ever must be, tends to the establishment of a division of property, not very wholesome for public liberty, or for the character of the people, though attended with some redeeming consequences: we allude to the rule of primogeniture. The law of entails is the abuse of the law of primogeniture; and their consequences are prejudicial to the happiness of families, as well as to the wealth and commerce of the country.

tions, prevalent in the society of the superior classes in Italy and Germany, are almost equal to any which can be observed in the courts of the East.

of patronage. An absolute monarch can give money, and that is always the cheapest way of rewarding or buying. In a mixed government, a place is created or retained, duties are attached to it—generally useless, often mischievous; still, as they are troublesome, they must be remunerated, and a claimant who would have been satisfied with £100 a-year as a pension, must have £300 on the condition of residence and employment. It is thus that England retains its three hundred Ecclesiastical Courts. Every one admits that two hundred and ninety-nine of them are instruments for the creation of trouble, delay, and expense. An absolute government would sweep them away by a decree of ten lines. Every year the mixed government of England attacks them, and is repulsed.

"The vigor of the monarchical government, both at home and abroad, is the quality most boasted of by its admirers; and to this it can lay claim from the unity of its councils, and the undivided force which it brings to their execution. But there is one virtue which this constitution and all monarchy possesses beyond any other-the fixed order of succession by inheritance. In this respect it excels both despotisms and commonwealths. The former are constantly subject to revolution and violence; the latter are unstable from opposite causes; but monarchies, established by law and accompanied with regular institutions, have the hereditary principle of succession in perfection. Second, the amount of the standing army of a That this rule leads to great occasional mischiefs, nation seems to depend little on the form of its there can be no doubt. Nevertheless, the dangers government. The largest in proportion to its which are sure to result from suffering the place population is that of Holland; the next is that of of chief magistrate to be played for by intriguing, France; the smallest is that of China. When or fought for by ambitious men, are so formidable Spain and Portugal were absolute monarchies, as to make reflecting persons overlook all lesser their standing armies were trifling, and so are risks in the apprehension of the worst of calami- those of most of the Italian monarchies. Ireland, ties, civil war. This is the redeeming quality of with eight millions of people, requires a standing monarchy; it is far enough from leaving the ques-army more than twice as large as is necessary in tion all one way, but upon the balance it gives a great gain."(Vol. i., p. 357 to 363.)

Great Britain, with a population of above twentyone millions.

We have already remarked that pure democracy Third, again, with respect to centralization. is impossible in any country larger than an ordi- France, under a mixed government, is incomnary English parish; and there is no case in parably more centralized than she was under an Europe, modern or ancient, in which any nation absolute monarch. The local administration of on the scale of the great European monarchies, Spain under her absolute kings was almost demohas adopted enough either of the aristocratic or of cratic. So was that of Norway, when she formed the democratic principle, to entitle its form of a part of the absolute monarchy of Denmark so is government to be described as an aristocracy or as that of India, though she has been ruled by absoa democracy, and has retained that form for a lute monarchs for twenty-five centuries. An period sufficient to enable us to estimate its perma-Indian village scarcely knows the existence of its nent effects. The modern American States, in- monarch except through his revenue-officers. The deed, are essentially democratic; but the situation fortunes and lives of the inhabitants are at his of the United States, without a formidable neigh-mercy; but while his taxes are paid, he abstains bor, is too peculiar; and the independence of the others is too recent, to allow them to be used as fair objects of comparison. It is impossible, therefore, to infer from actual experiences, whether, if thirty, or twenty, or ten millions of persons constituted one nation, with a government essentially aristocratic or essentially democratic, and sur-power is likely to exclude them from the managerounded by other powerful states, that government would have a less tendency to extravagance, to the maintenance of large standing armies, to centralization, or to primogeniture, than is now the case with Austria or Prussia. As direct proof is unattainable, we will inquire into the results, on each point, of analogical reasoning.

from all interference. The tendency of the British government is at once towards democracy and centralization; and every advance towards the former is generally accompanied by a much greater advance towards the latter. So far from believing that the exclusion of the people from political

ment of their local interests, we are inclined to think that an absolute government, partly to avoid trouble, partly to avoid expense, and still more from carelessness, is more likely than any other to abandon to the parishioners what it considers the trifling matters of the parish.

Fourth, primogeniture is natural only in a pecuFirst, as to extravagance. The mixed govern- liar state of society, that in which the possession ments of Europe, those which are distinguished of land gives political power, proportioned in some from its absolute monarchies by a strong infusion measure to its extent or value; and even then selof the aristocratic or democratic principle, are in dom exists except among the owners of land. It general also distinguished by their greater public is essentially an aristocratic custom. In Oriental expenditure. The expenses of the Danish, the despotisms, therefore, where the land is generally Prussian, or even the Austrian court, are insignifi- the property of the sovereign, it is unknown. It cant, compared with those of the courts of England is rare in the United States of America, except in or France; or indeed, if the extent of territory and population be compared, of Holland. The amount of the annual taxation compared with the population, is more than three times as great in each of the three mixed governments, as it is in any of the three absolute governments. There is, indeed, one great source of expense in mixed governments, from which absolute governments are comparatively free-the creation of offices for the sake

the Southern States, where a proprietor can vote
for his slaves. It is rare in the British islands,
excepting among the high landed aristocracy. No
man with a fortune consisting of £20,000 in the
funds, or even of a landed estate worth only
£20,000, thinks of making an eldest son.
if it were lawful in France, it probably would be
uncommon. The aristocratic element is so weak
in France, that the slight amount of political power

Even

but

which a man could secure to his son by leaving to in Berlin than in Edinburgh or in London; him his whole property, would seldom be sufficient there are other subjects on which there is much to conquer his natural feelings of parental justice. more; and we believe that it would be safer to talk The prevalence of primogeniture in the absolute Chartism in Naples than Abolition in New OrEuropean monarchies, arises from the former prev-leans.

many.

We cannot think, therefore, that either extravagance, standing armies, centralization, or primogeniture, flow naturally from the monarchical principle. And we must add, that even if we thought monarchy peculiarly favorable to these three latter institutions, we should not treat that tendency as necessarily a vice. Standing armies, indeed, may be too large, and centralization may be excessive; and such is generally the case on the continent of Europe. But they each may be deficient. The standing army of America is insufficient to keep her at peace at home or abroad, to prevent her inhabitants from injuring one another, or from attacking her neighbors. The local authorities of England are the seats of ignorance, selfishness, jobbing, corruption, and often of oppression. Every diminution of their power has been an improvement; and, if we had room, we could show that the case is the same as to primogeniture. Both the power to entail, and the wish to exercise it, may certainly be excessive, as we think they both are in Scotland and in Germany; but both or either of them may be deficient, as we think they both are in France and in Hindostan.

alence among them all of the aristocratic element. We fear that we shall be thought paradoxical if The monarchs have always endeavored to restrain we suggest some doubts as to the superiority it. In England, perpetual entails were abolished which Lord Brougham ascribes to the principle of by the Tudors, the race under whom the monar- succession, over that of election, in absolute monchical element was strongest. In Seotland, where archies. In limited monarchies, where the king the aristocratic element has always been more reigns but does not govern—where he has only to powerful than in any other part of the British accept the ministers who can obtain a parliamenislands, a larger proportion of the land is subject tary majority, to sign whatever they lay before to perpetual primogeniture than in any country him, and to receive their resignations when they in Europe, except perhaps some parts of Ger- find it necessary to retire-there is scarcely any drawback to the advantages of hereditary succession. The sovereign's great office is to be a keystone, merely to fill space-to occupy the supreme station, in order to keep others out of it. He may be-perhaps it is better that he should be— the person in his kingdom who knows least, and cares least, about politics. His personal character is comparatively unimportant. We say comparatively; because, even in the most limited monarchy, the social influence of the sovereign for good or for evil is considerable. His habits and tastes are always matters of notoriety, and often of imitation. Access to his society is always coveted. He may give that access in a manner useful, or mischievous, or absolutely indifferent. He may call to his court those who are most distinguished by genius or by knowledge; or those whose only merit is their birth or their station; or parasites, buffoons, or profligates. Even in the appointment of ministers, he may sometimes exercise a sort of selection. He is sometimes able to delay for a short period the fall of those whom he likes, and the accession of those whom he dislikes; and he can sometimes permanently exclude an individual. But even these powers he can seldom exercise unless in a state of balanced parties. If one party have a decided ascendency in the legislative assemblies, and in the constituencies, the limited sovereign is little more than a phantom; and there can be no doubt that it is better that a phantom should be hereditary. An absolute king always is, or ought to be, a substance. Supposing such a monarch to covet the leisure, the quiet, and the irresponsibility of a limited king-to desire that the fittest persons should be his ministers, and manage public affairs without his interference-how is he to discover who are the fittest persons? How is he to avoid appointing or retaining persons positively unfit? He has no parliament to direct his choice

We agree with Lord Brougham that the influence of absolute monarchy, even when tempered by European civilization, is unfavorable to the character of its subjects. We agree with him that it is destructive of free action, and, to a certain degree, of free speech, and that it impairs most of the manly and independent virtues. But we do not believe that "the alarms, the suspicions, and the precautions prevalent in the society of the superior classes in Italy and Germany, are almost equal to any which can be observed in the courts of the East." That where every man of eminence is conscious that he hates the existing government, and is anxious to subvert it, he should be always on his guard against betraying no opposition to expose the errors of those his feelings and his wishes to the distributors of punishment and favor-and that the government itself, knowing that all the ground beneath it is mined, should be always on the watch for an explosion-all this is inevitable in countries which have been recently the scenes of revolutionary movement; and where the sovereign owes his power to conquest, or to foreign support, or to promises treacherously evaded or shamelessly broken. But this state of mutual alarm, suspicion, and precaution, is not a necessary incident to the absolute European monarchies. It does not exist in Prussia, or in Denmark, or in the German provinces of Austria, or, in fact, in any portion of Europe, except parts of Russia, Poland, and Italy. On political subjects, without doubt, there is less freedom of speech in Vienna or

whom he has chosen; he cannot mix in society,
and hear the independent voice of public opinion.
Even the press gives him little assistance: first,
because a free press probably cannot exist-cer-
tainly never does exist-in an absolute monarchy;
and secondly, because the press is never a well-
informed, an impartial, or even an incorrupt ad-
viser. A king governed by newspapers would re-
semble a judge who should allow himself to be in-
fluenced by anonymous letters.
There is one
mode, and only one mode, by which he can satisfy
himself that his ministers are fit for their office;
and that is, by giving up his scheme of non-inter-
ference, and performing himself a great part of their
functions. Every absolute king who is an honest
man, must be in constant communication with the
heads of every department-he must take part in