All speculations concerning forms of government bear the
impress, more or less exclusive, of two conflicting theories
respecting political institutions; or, to speak more properly,
conflicting conceptions of what political institutions
are.
By some minds, government is conceived as strictly a
practical art, giving rise to no questions but those of means and
an end. Forms of government are assimilated to any other expedients
for the attainment of human objects. They are regarded as wholly an
affair of invention and contrivance. Being made by man, it is
assumed that man has the choice either to make them or not, and how
or on what pattern they shall be made. Government, according to
this conception, is a problem, to be worked like any other question
of business. The first step is to define the purposes which
governments are required to promote. The next, is to inquire what
form of government is best fitted to fulfill those purposes. Having
satisfied ourselves on these two points, and ascertained the form
of government which combines the greatest amount of good with the
least of evil, what further remains is to obtain the concurrence of
our countrymen, or those for whom the institutions are intended, in
the opinion which we have privately arrived at. To find the best
form of government; to persuade others that it is the best; and,
having done so, to stir them up to insist on having it, is the
order of ideas in the minds of those who adopt this view of
political philosophy. They look upon a constitution in the same
light (difference of scale being allowed for) as they would upon a
steam plow, or a threshing machine.
To these stand opposed another kind of political reasoners,
who are so far from assimilating a form of government to a machine,
that they regard it as a sort of spontaneous product, and the
science of government as a branch (so to speak) of natural history.
According to them, forms of government are not a matter of choice.
We must take them, in the main, as we find them. Governments can
not be constructed by premeditated design. They "are not made, but
grow." Our business with them, as with the other facts of the
universe, is to acquaint ourselves with their natural properties,
and adapt ourselves to them. The fundamental political institutions
of a people are considered by this school as a sort of organic
growth from the nature and life of that people; a product of their
habits, instincts, and unconscious wants and desires, scarcely at
all of their deliberate purposes. Their will has had no part in the
matter but that of meeting the necessities of the moment by the
contrivances of the moment, which contrivances, if in sufficient
conformity to the national feelings and character, commonly last,
and, by successive aggregation, constitute a polity suited to the
people who possess it, but which it would be vain to attempt to
superinduce upon any people whose nature and circumstances had not
spontaneously evolved it.
It is difficult to decide which of these doctrines would be
the most absurd, if we could suppose either of them held as an
exclusive theory. But the principles which men profess, on any
controverted subject, are usually a very incomplete exponent of the
opinions they really hold. No one believes that every people is
capable of working every sort of institution. Carry the analogy of
mechanical contrivances as far as we will, a man does not choose
even an instrument of timber and iron on the sole ground that it is
in itself the best. He considers whether he possesses the other
requisites which must be combined with it to render its employment
advantageous, and, in particular whether those by whom it will have
to be worked possess the knowledge and skill necessary for its
management. On the other hand, neither are those who speak of
institutions as if they were a kind of living organisms really the
political fatalists they give themselves out to be. They do not
pretend that mankind have absolutely no range of choice as to the
government they will live under, or that a consideration of the
consequences which flow from different forms of polity is no
element at all in deciding which of them should be preferred. But,
though each side greatly exaggerates its own theory, out of
opposition to the other, and no one holds without modification to
either, the two doctrines correspond to a deep-seated difference
between two modes of thought; and though it is evident that neither
of these is entirely in the right, yet it being equally evident
that neither is wholly in the wrong, we must endeavour to get down
to what is at the root of each, and avail ourselves of the amount
of truth which exists in either.
Let us remember, then, in the first place, that political
institutions (however the proposition may be at times ignored) are
the work of men—owe their origin and their whole existence to human
will. Men did not wake on a summer morning and find them sprung up.
Neither do they resemble trees, which, once planted, "are aye
growing" while men "are sleeping." In every stage of their
existence they are made what they are by human voluntary agency.
Like all things, therefore, which are made by men, they may be
either well or ill made; judgment and skill may have been exercised
in their production, or the reverse of these. And again, if a
people have omitted, or from outward pressure have not had it in
their power to give themselves a constitution by the tentative
process of applying a corrective to each evil as it arose, or as
the sufferers gained strength to resist it, this retardation of
political progress is no doubt a great disadvantage to them, but it
does not prove that what has been found good for others would not
have been good also for them, and will not be so still when they
think fit to adopt it.
On the other hand, it is also to be borne in mind that
political machinery does not act of itself. As it is first made, so
it has to be worked, by men, and even by ordinary men. It needs,
not their simple acquiescence, but their active participation; and
must be adjusted to the capacities and qualities of such men as are
available. This implies three conditions. The people for whom the
form of government is intended must be willing to accept it, or, at
least not so unwilling as to oppose an insurmountable obstacle to
its establishment. They must be willing and able to do what is
necessary to keep it standing. And they must be willing and able to
do what it requires of them to enable it to fulfill its purposes.
The word "do" is to be understood as including forbearances as well
as acts. They must be capable of fulfilling the conditions of
action and the conditions of self-restraint, which are necessary
either for keeping the established polity in existence, or for
enabling it to achieve the ends, its conduciveness to which forms
its recommendation.
The failure of any of these conditions renders a form of
government, whatever favorable promise it may otherwise hold out,
unsuitable to the particular case.
The first obstacle, the repugnance of the people to the
particular form of government, needs little illustration, because
it never can in theory have been overlooked. The case is of
perpetual occurrence. Nothing but foreign force would induce a
tribe of North American Indians to submit to the restraints of a
regular and civilized government. The same might have been said,
though somewhat less absolutely, of the barbarians who overran the
Roman Empire. It required centuries of time, and an entire change
of circumstances, to discipline them into regular obedience even to
their own leaders, when not actually serving under their banner.
There are nations who will not voluntarily submit to any government
but that of certain families, which have from time immemorial had
the privilege of supplying them with chiefs. Some nations could
not, except by foreign conquest, be made to endure a monarchy;
others are equally averse to a republic. The hindrance often
amounts, for the time being, to impracticability.
But there are also cases in which, though not averse to a
form of government—possibly even desiring it—a people may be
unwilling or unable to fulfill its conditions. They may be
incapable of fulfilling such of them as are necessary to keep the
government even in nominal existence. Thus a people may prefer a
free government; but if, from indolence, or carelessness, or
cowardice, or want of public spirit, they are unequal to the
exertions necessary for preserving it; if they will not fight for
it when it is directly attacked; if they can be deluded by the
artifices used to cheat them out of it; if, by momentary
discouragement, or temporary panic, or a fit of enthusiasm for an
individual, they can be induced to lay their liberties at the feet
even of a great man, or trust him with powers which enable him to
subvert their institutions—in all these cases they are more or less
unfit for liberty; and though it may be for their good to have had
it even for a short time, they are unlikely long to enjoy it.
Again, a people may be unwilling or unable to fulfill the duties
which a particular form of government requires of them. A rude
people, though in some degree alive to the benefits of civilized
society, may be unable to practice the forbearances which it
demands; their passions may be too violent, or their personal pride
too exacting, to forego private conflict, and leave to the laws the
avenging of their real or supposed wrongs. In such a case, a
civilized government, to be really advantageous to them, will
require to be in a considerable degree despotic; one over which
they do not themselves exercise control, and which imposes a great
amount of forcible restraint upon their actions. Again, a people
must be considered unfit for more than a limited and qualified
freedom who will not co-operate actively with the law and the
public authorities in the repression of evil-doers. A people who
are more disposed to shelter a criminal than to apprehend him; who,
like the Hindoos, will perjure themselves to screen the man who has
robbed them, rather than take trouble or expose themselves to
vindictiveness by giving evidence against him; who, like some
nations of Europe down to a recent date, if a man poniards another
in the public street, pass by on the other side, because it is the
business of the police to look to the matter, and it is safer not
to interfere in what does not concern them; a people who are
revolted by an execution, but not shocked at an
assassination—require that the public authorities should be armed
with much sterner powers of repression than elsewhere, since the
first indispensable requisites of civilized life have nothing else
to rest on. These deplorable states of feeling, in any people who
have emerged from savage life, are, no doubt, usually the
consequence of previous bad government, which has taught them to
regard the law as made for other ends than their good, and its
administrators as worse enemies than those who openly violate it.
But, however little blame may be due to those in whom these mental
habits have grown up, and however the habits may be ultimately
conquerable by better government, yet, while they exist, a people
so disposed can not be governed with as little power exercised over
them as a people whose sympathies are on the side of the law, and
who are willing to give active assistance in its enforcement.
Again, representative institutions are of little value, and may be
a mere instrument of tyranny or intrigue, when the generality of
electors are not sufficiently interested in their own government to
give their vote, or, if they vote at all, do not bestow their
suffrages on public grounds, but sell them for money, or vote at
the beck of some one who has control over them, or whom for private
reasons they desire to propitiate. Popular election thus practiced,
instead of a security against misgovernment, is but an additional
wheel in its machinery.
Besides these moral hindrances, mechanical difficulties are
often an insuperable impediment to forms of government. In the
ancient world, though there might be, and often was, great
individual or local independence, there could be nothing like a
regulated popular government beyond the bounds of a single
city-community; because there did not exist the physical conditions
for the formation and propagation of a public opinion, except among
those who could be brought together to discuss public matters in
the same agora. This obstacle is generally thought to have ceased
by the adoption of the representative system. But to surmount it
completely, required the press, and even the newspaper press, the
real equivalent, though not in all respects an adequate one, of the
Pnyx and the Forum. There have been states of society in which even
a monarchy of any great territorial extent could not subsist, but
unavoidably broke up into petty principalities, either mutually
independent, or held together by a loose tie like the feudal:
because the machinery of authority was not perfect enough to carry
orders into effect at a great distance from the person of the
ruler. He depended mainly upon voluntary fidelity for the obedience
even of his army, nor did there exist the means of making the
people pay an amount of taxes sufficient for keeping up the force
necessary to compel obedience throughout a large territory. In
these and all similar cases, it must be understood that the amount
of the hindrance may be either greater or less. It may be so great
as to make the form of government work very ill, without absolutely
precluding its existence, or hindering it from being practically
preferable to any other which can be had. This last question mainly
depends upon a consideration which we have not yet arrived at—the
tendencies of different forms of government to promote
Progress.
We have now examined the three fundamental conditions of the
adaptation of forms of government to the people who are to be
governed by them. If the supporters of what may be termed the
naturalistic theory of politics, mean but to insist on the
necessity of these three conditions; if they only mean that no
government can permanently exist which does not fulfill the first
and second conditions, and, in some considerable measure, the
third; their doctrine, thus limited, is incontestable. Whatever
they mean more than this appears to me untenable. All that we are
told about the necessity of an historical basis for institutions,
of their being in harmony with the national usages and character,
and the like, means either this, or nothing to the purpose. There
is a great quantity of mere sentimentality connected with these and
similar phrases, over and above the amount of rational meaning
contained in them. But, considered practically, these alleged
requisites of political institutions are merely so many facilities
for realising the three conditions. When an institution, or a set
of institutions, has the way prepared for it by the opinions,
tastes, and habits of the people, they are not only more easily
induced to accept it, but will more easily learn, and will be, from
the beginning, better disposed, to do what is required of them both
for the preservation of the institutions, and for bringing them
into such action as enables them to produce their best results. It
would be a great mistake in any legislator not to shape his
measures so as to take advantage of such pre-existing habits and
feelings when available. On the other hand, it is an exaggeration
to elevate these mere aids and facilities into necessary
conditions. People are more easily induced to do, and do more
easily, what they are already used to; but people also learn to do
things new to them. Familiarity is a great help; but much dwelling
on an idea will make it familiar, even when strange at first. There
are abundant instances in which a whole people have been eager for
untried things. The amount of capacity which a people possess for
doing new things, and adapting themselves to new circumstances; is
itself one of the elements of the question. It is a quality in
which different nations, and different stages of civilization,
differ much from one another. The capability of any given people
for fulfilling the conditions of a given form of government can not
be pronounced on by any sweeping rule. Knowledge of the particular
people, and general practical judgment and sagacity, must be the
guides.
There is also another consideration not to be lost sight of.
A people may be unprepared for good institutions; but to kindle a
desire for them is a necessary part of the preparation. To
recommend and advocate a particular institution or form of
government, and set its advantages in the strongest light, is one
of the modes, often the only mode within reach, of educating the
mind of the nation not only for accepting or claiming, but also for
working, the institution. What means had Italian patriots, during
the last and present generation, of preparing the Italian people
for freedom in unity, but by inciting them to demand it? Those,
however, who undertake such a task, need to be duly impressed, not
solely with the benefits of the institution or polity which they
recommend, but also with the capacities, moral, intellectual, and
active, required for working it; that they may avoid, if possible,
stirring up a desire too much in advance of the
capacity.
The result of what has been said is, that, within the limits
set by the three conditions so often adverted to, institutions and
forms of government are a matter of choice. To inquire into the
best form of government in the abstract (as it is called) is not a
chimerical, but a highly practical employment of scientific
intellect; and to introduce into any country the best institutions
which, in the existing state of that country, are capable of, in
any tolerable degree, fulfilling the conditions, is one of the most
rational objects to which practical effort can address itself.
Every thing which can be said by way of disparaging the efficacy of
human will and purpose in matters of government might be said of it
in every other of its applications. In all things there are very
strict limits to human power. It can only act by wielding some one
or more of the forces of nature. Forces, therefore, that can be
applied to the desired use must exist; and will only act according
to their own laws. We can not make the river run backwards; but we
do not therefore say that watermills "are not made, but grow." In
politics, as in mechanics, the power which is to keep the engine
going must be sought for outside
the machinery; and if it is not forthcoming, or is
insufficient to surmount the obstacles which may reasonably be
expected, the contrivance will fail. This is no peculiarity of the
political art; and amounts only to saying that it is subject to the
same limitations and conditions as all other arts.
At this point we are met by another objection, or the same
objection in a different form. The forces, it is contended, on
which the greater political phenomena depend, are not amenable to
the direction of politicians or philosophers. The government of a
country, it is affirmed, is, in all substantial respects, fixed and
determined beforehand by the state of the country in regard to the
distribution of the elements of social power. Whatever is the
strongest power in society will obtain the governing authority; and
a change in the political constitution can not be durable unless
preceded or accompanied by an altered distribution of power in
society itself. A nation, therefore, can not choose its form of
government. The mere details, and practical organization, it may
choose; but the essence of the whole, the seat of the supreme
power, is determined for it by social circumstances.
That there is a portion of truth in this doctrine I at once
admit; but to make it of any use, it must be reduced to a distinct
expression and proper limits. When it is said that the strongest
power in society will make itself strongest in the government, what
is meant by power? Not thews and sinews; otherwise pure democracy
would be the only form of polity that could exist. To mere muscular
strength, add two other elements, property and intelligence, and we
are nearer the truth, but far from having yet reached it. Not only
is a greater number often kept down by a less, but the greater
number may have a preponderance in property, and individually in
intelligence, and may yet be held in subjection, forcibly or
otherwise, by a minority in both respects inferior to it. To make
these various elements of power politically influential they must
be organized; and the advantage in organization is necessarily with
those who are in possession of the government. A much weaker party
in all other elements of power may greatly preponderate when the
powers of government are thrown into the scale; and may long retain
its predominance through this alone: though, no doubt, a government
so situated is in the condition called in mechanics unstable
equilibrium, like a thing balanced on its smaller end, which, if
once disturbed, tends more and more to depart from, instead of
reverting to, its previous state.
But there are still stronger objections to this theory of
government in the terms in which it is usually stated. The power in
society which has any tendency to convert itself into political
power is not power quiescent, power merely passive, but active
power; in other words, power actually exerted; that is to say, a
very small portion of all the power in existence. Politically
speaking, a great part of all power consists in will. How is it
possible, then, to compute the elements of political power, while
we omit from the computation any thing which acts on the will? To
think that, because those who wield the power in society wield in
the end that of government, therefore it is of no use to attempt to
influence the constitution of the government by acting on opinion,
is to forget that opinion is itself one of the greatest active
social forces. One person with a belief is a social power equal to
ninety-nine who have only interests. They who can succeed in
creating a general persuasion that a certain form of government, or
social fact of any kind, deserves to be preferred, have made nearly
the most important step which can possibly be taken toward ranging
the powers of society on its side. On the day when the protomartyr
was stoned to death at Jerusalem, while he who was to be the
Apostle of the Gentiles stood by "consenting unto his death," would
any one have supposed that the party of that stoned man were then
and there the strongest power in society? And has not the event
proved that they were so? Because theirs was the most powerful of
then existing beliefs. The same element made a monk of Wittenberg,
at the meeting of the Diet of Worms, a more powerful social force
than the Emperor Charles the Fifth, and all the princes there
assembled. But these, it may be said, are cases in which religion
was concerned, and religious convictions are something peculiar in
their strength. Then let us take a case purely political, where
religion, if concerned at all, was chiefly on the losing side. If
any one requires to be convinced that speculative thought is one of
the chief elements of social power, let him bethink himself of the
age in which there was scarcely a throne in Europe which was not
filled by a liberal and reforming king, a liberal and reforming
emperor, or, strangest of all, a liberal and reforming pope; the
age of Frederic the Great, of Catherine the Second, of Joseph the
Second, of Peter Leopold, of Benedict XIV., of Ganganelli, of
Pombal, of D'Aranda; when the very Bourbons of Naples were liberals
and reformers, and all the active minds among the noblesse of
France were filled with the ideas which were soon after to cost
them so dear. Surely a conclusive example how far mere physical and
economic power is from being the whole of social power. It was not
by any change in the distribution of material interests, but by the
spread of moral convictions, that negro slavery has been put an end
to in the British Empire and elsewhere. The serfs in Russia owe
their emancipation, if not to a sentiment of duty, at least to the
growth of a more enlightened opinion respecting the true interest
of the state. It is what men think that determines how they act;
and though the persuasions and convictions of average men are in a
much greater degree determined by their personal position than by
reason, no little power is exercised over them by the persuasions
and convictions of those whose personal position is different, and
by the united authority of the instructed. When, therefore, the
instructed in general can be brought to recognize one social
arrangement, or political or other institution, as good, and
another as bad—one as desirable, another as condemnable, very much
has been done towards giving to the one, or withdrawing from the
other, that preponderance of social force which enables it to
subsist. And the maxim, that the government of a country is what
the social forces in existence compel it to be, is true only in the
sense in which it favors, instead of discouraging, the attempt to
exercise, among all forms of government practicable in the existing
condition of society, a rational choice.