his will. (134) The same was the character of the Mexican and Peruvian governments under their native princes; and such is the character of all Oriental governments at this day, as well as of all other barbarous communities which enjoy the advantages of a regular government. Such, too, was substantially the character of the semi-Oriental kingdoms governed by the successors of Alexander; of the continental governments of Europe during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; of the government of Russia, and of the empire of Napoleon.

When the Greek communities had established their political system, they were for the most part governed according to oligarchical or democratic forms-despotism being abhorrent to the Greek sentiment and custom, and submitted to only from necessity. The same system of government prevailed throughout the states of Italy, and it lasted until the extraordinary changes produced by the conquests of Rome, and the formation of its vast empire, necessitated also a change of political system. The republican government of Rome became first in substance, and

(134) The similarity of a master of slaves to a Túpavvos or despot is pointed out by Plato, Rep. ix. 5, p. 578; and by Aristotle, Eth. Nic. v. 10; viii. 12. τὴν ἐλευθερίαν καὶ τὸ μηδένα ἔχειν δεσπότην αὑτῶν, ἃ τοῖς πρότερον Ελλησιν ὅροι τῶν ἀγαθῶν ἦσαν καὶ κανόνες, ἀνατετραφότες, are the words of Demosth. Cor. p. 324. Antipater (says Plutarch) was kakòs deonórns kai Túpavos.-Phocion, c. 29. Inasmuch as it was the constant aim of Augustus to exercise the substance of supreme power, without its form or appearance (above, ch. iv. § 3), he objected strongly to the title dominus, which would have implied that he stood in the same relation to the people, in his capacity of ruler, as a master stood to his slaves. Domini appellationem, ut maledictum et opprobrium, semper exhorruit.'-Sueton. Oct. c. 53. Tiberius followed the example of Augustus.-Sueton. Tib. c. 27 ; and see Pliny, in his Panegyric of Trajan, c. 2. 55. Alexander Severus likewise refused the title of dominus.-Elius Lamprid, c. 4. The Roman emperor

The

is, however, called & kúpios by Festus, in Act. Apost. xxv. 26. epithet of dominus, or lord (says Gibbon), in its primitive signification, was expressive, not of the authority of a prince over his subjects, or of a commander over his soldiers, but of the despotic power of a master over his domestic slaves. Viewing it in that odious light, it had been rejected with abhorrence by the first Cæsars. Their resistance insensibly became more feeble, and the name less odious; till, at length, the style of our Lord and Emperor was not only bestowed by flattery, but was regularly admitted into the laws and public monuments.'-Decline and Fall, c. 13. 'Julian absolutely refused the title of dominus, or lord, a word which was grown so familiar to the ears of the Romans, that they no longer remembered its servile and humiliating origin.'-Ib. c. 22. The application of the word dominus to political or social superiors by the Romans is illustrated by Selden, Titles of Honour, part i. c. 4, § 1; and by the Abbé de la Bleterie, Hist. de Jovien, tom. ii. p. 99.

afterwards in form, a despotic monarchy; and as the Roman empire now included every community partaking of the Hellenic civilization, republican government was everywhere extinguished, and the whole world was governed by purely monarchical forms. After a time, however, the traditions of the Roman municipal institutions, combined with the activity produced by commercial wealth, led to the formation of independent town communities in Italy, Germany, Switzerland, and the Low Countries. These subsisted for some time, with a considerable variety of oligarchical and democratic forms, (135) until most of them were at length incorporated with monarchical states, or changed into a monarchical regimen. The wars of the French revolution, and the conquests of Napoleon, nearly completed the work which remained unfinished, so that the Swiss cantons, Frankfort, and the Hanse Towns, are the only subsisting remains of the republican communities of mediæval origin.

The chief exemplar of free, and (properly speaking) of republican government, in modern times, is to be sought in England. (136) The struggle between the crown and the parliament, which first assumed a serious character in the reign of Charles I., which produced the civil war, and which was not finally settled till the revolution of 1688, was substantially a contest for the sovereign power. It was the aim of the crown, on the one hand, to assume the entire functions of government, both legislative and executive, as they were assumed by the continental kings, whose countries, like England, had feudal constitutions of estates. It was the aim of the parliament, on the other hand, to establish the practical principle, that no tax could be levied, and no law made, by the crown alone, without the consent of the two houses. This principle having been irrevocably established at the revolution of 1688, the constitution, which had been previously unsettled, became unquestionably a parliamentary

(135) For a detailed description of the constitutions of the free towns of the middle ages, see Raumer, Geschichte der Hohenstaufen, vol. v.

(136) That a republican is properly a non-despotic government-a government in which the supreme power is shared by several, whether few or many, and whatever may be the title of the head of the state-is shown above, ch. iv. §§ 3 and 4.

constitution. The king, therefore, was properly not a monarch; though exempt from legal responsibility, his legal powers were limited, (137) and the government, though called monarchical, was, in strictness of speech, republican, because the sovereign power was shared by a body of persons.

England, however, did not exhibit a specimen of free, or (as we have called it) republican government merely on her own soil. Various colonies were planted by English settlers in North America and the West India Islands in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and these, for the most part, received charters for their local government, founded on the plan of municipal government established in our boroughs. The model constitution of the English borough, in the form which it had assumed in the seventeenth century, consisting of a common council, with a court of aldermen, was thus transferred to the English colonies, and became the general type of the colonial constitution. Hence arose the house of assembly and the legislative council the former appointed by the election of the colonists; to which was added, a governor appointed by the crown. The constitution thus formed in many of the colonies of English settlement resembled the triple division of the English constitution-king, lords, and commons; but the resemblance was accidental, inasmuch as the origin was different.

This constitution existed in the North American colonies at the time of their separation from the mother-country. The temporary confederation which they had formed for the purpose of carrying on the war against England was converted into a permanent federal system; but the local institutions of each state remained substantially unchanged, with such modifications only as the transition from a lax dependence to independence rendered necessary.

The revolutionary changes in France, accomplished in 1789

(137) L'Angleterre est à present le plus libre pays qui soit au monde, je n'en excepte aucune république ; j'appelle libre, parce que le prince n'a le pouvoir de faire aucun tort imaginable à qui que ce soit, par la raison que son pouvoir est contrôlé et borné par un acte.'-Montesquieu, Notes sur l'Angleterre, tom. vi. p. 269.

and the following years, and extended by conquest to other continental countries, produced nothing durable in political forms. Since the peace of 1815, parliamentary governments have been established in France, Holland, Belgium, Saxony, Wirtemberg, Spain, Portugal, and Greece, not derived from native models, but imitated from the English constitution. In 1848, the French constitution was converted into a copy of the American model; and constitutions have since been introduced or promised in other European states, founded partly on English and partly on American institutions. The system of the United States has likewise served, in general, as the model of the independent states formed out of the Spanish colonies on the same continent.

From the experience of different forms of supreme government thus obtained, can we affirm that despotic monarchy on the one hand, and free or republican government on the other, are attended respectively with certain constant and peculiar effects? Can it be said that all monarchies, or all republics, produce the happiness or misery, the wealth or poverty, the intelligence or ignorance, of the people, in the same sense in which it can be said that all fire produces heat, and that all cold of a certain degree freezes water?

Now, on considering in succession each of the despotic monarchies which have been enumerated, and observing its character throughout its existence, we shall find it very difficult to discover, by a strict logical process, such as has been exemplified in a former chapter, any constant causation : we shall scarcely be able to say that every despotic monarchy produces a certain effect. We shall scarcely be able to detect any characteristic influence which we can predicate of the Persian monarchy of Darius and Xerxes, of the Greek despotisms, of the monarchy of the Ptolemies, of the Roman empire, of the monarchy of ancient Mexico, of the Italian mediæval despotisms, of the monarchies of the Arab kaliphs, the Indian moguls, the Persian shahs, and the Turkish sultans, of the monarchies of Philip II., Louis XIV., Frederic the Great, and Napoleon. We cannot say that all these governments, at every period of their existence,

VOL. II.

F

were either good or bad, strong or weak, enlightened or ignorant, stable or unstable, favourable or unfavourable to science, arts, and literature, or to trade, manufactures, and agriculture; that they all relied on military support, or not; that they were all fond of war and conquest; that they were all faithless or true to international engagements; that they all protected person and property, effectually or ineffectually; that they all established private rights and duties of a peculiar character; that they all treated their dependencies with harshness or lenity. When we have applied to these governments the Method of Agreement, and have stripped them of all that they have not in commonwhen we have removed race, religion, climate, geographical position, national manners and morals, state of the arts, personal character of the monarch or his ministers, and other similar influences, together with their respective effects, we shall find it very difficult to trace a constant and universal sequence between the despotic form of government and any other phenomenon. Assuming that we designate despotic monarchy by A, and the other influences just mentioned by other capital letters, then we shall certainly have ABC and bc, ABD and bd, ACF and cf, and so on but the difficulty will be, to discover with certainty a phenomenon, a, in constant connexion with bc, bd, cf, &c., which can be fairly considered the mere consequence of the form of government; which not only occurs in each complex case, but which, when analytically examined, can be satisfactorily traced to this source.

If, indeed, we break down the whole mass of despotic governments into smaller groups, and take, for example, all the Oriental or all the Greek despotisms separately; or if we take the successive rulers in one monarchy, as in the Roman empire, we may find it easier to discover such a constant connexion. At the same time it is more difficult, in a problem thus shaped, to eliminate the effects of other possible causes, inasmuch as the limitation of the form of government to a class having several attributes in common, prevents a clear distinction being made between the effects of the despotism and those of its invariable concomi