CHAPTER XXX. INSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT, THE ONLY GOVERNMENT UNIVERSAL suffrage is power-sweeping, real powerso vast, that even its semblance bears down everything before it. Uninstitutional, universal suffrage, may be fittingly said to turn the whole popular power and national sovereignty-the self-sufficient source of all derivative power-into an executive, and thus fearfully to confound sovereignty with absolute power, absolutism with liberty. Still, the idea of all government implies power, while that of liberty implies check and protection. It is the necessary harmony between these two requisites of all public vitality and civil progress, which constitutes the difficulty of establishing and maintaining liberty—a difficulty far greater than that which a master mind has declared the greatest, namely, the founding of a new government.1 1 Machiavelli-tanto nomini nullum par elogium-says in his Prince: "But in the new government lies the greatest difficulty." This depends upon circumstances. He undoubtedly had in mind the difficulty of uniting Italy, or rather of eliminating so many governments, and establishing one Italic state; for there has been no noble Italian, since the times when Dante called his own Italy, "Di dolor ostello," that does not yearn for the union of his noble land, and look for the realization of his hopes as fervently as he believes in a God. Machiavelli was one of the foremost among these true Italians. But he had not lived through our times. There are times when the people throw themselves into the arms of any one that 1 1 Power is necessary, and an executive cannot be dispensed with; and all power has a tendency to increase, to clear away opposition, and to absorb or break down. the weaker one. It would not be power if it had not this tendency. How then is liberty to be preserved ? A new power may be created to check the first, like the Roman tribune; but the newly created power is power, and how is this in turn to be checked? Erecting one tier of power over the other affords no remedy. The chief power may thus be made to change its name or place; but the power with all its attributes is there. Nor will it be supposed that salvation can be found in the mere veto, however multiplied. For the veto, although appearing negative with reference to that which is vetoed, nevertheless is power in itself, and to rest civil liberty upon a system of mere vetoes would indeed be expecting life, action, growth, and that which is positive, from a system of negativism. A government without power and inherent strength is like aught else without power, useless for action. Yet action is the object of all government. The single Polish nobleman who possessed the rakosh or veto, had a very positive but a very injurious power. It was the pervading idea, in the middle ages, to protect by the requisition of unanimity of votes on all important questions. But, on the one hand, this is the principle which belonged to the disjunctive state of the middle ages, not to our broad possibly may save them from impending or imaginary shipwreck, or promises to do so. Wearied people will take a stone for a pillow, and no people deceive themselves so easily as the panic-stricken. On such occasions it is easy to establish a new government, especially if cumbersome conscience is set aside. The reverse of Machiavelli's dictum then takes place, and the greatest difficulty lies in maintaining a government. This applies even to administrations and ministries. All is pleasant sailing at first. A new power charms like a rising sun; but the heat of noon follows upon the morning. national liberty; and on the other hand, unanimity does not of itself insure protection or liberty. Tyranny or corruption has often been unanimous. The only way of meeting the difficulty is to prevent the overbearing growth of any power. When grown, it is too late; and this cannot be done by putting class against class, or interest against interest. One of these must be stronger than the other, and become the absorbing one. Nor is the problem we have to solve discord. It is harmony, peace, united yet organic action. History or speculation points to no other solution of this high problem of man, than a well-grounded and ramified system of institutions, checking and modifying one another, strong and self-ruling, with a power limited by the very principle of self-government within each, yet all united and working toward one common end, thus producing a general government of a cooperative character, and serving in many cases in which interests would jar with interests without institutions, as friction-rollers do in machinery. The institution is strong within its bounds, yet not feared, because necessarily bounded in its action. What can be more powerful than the King's Bench in England, in each case in which it acts within its own limits? Now older than five hundred years, it has repeatedly stood up against Parliament with success. Yet no one fears that its power will invade that of other institutions, nor did the people of the State of New York fear that the Court of Appeals would become an invasive power, when in its own legitimate and efficient way it lately declared the vast Canal Enlargement Law, passed by a great majority, unconstitutional, and consequently null and void. Seeking for liberty merely or chiefly in a vetitive power of each class or circle, interest or corporation, upon the rest, as has been often proposed, and every time after a revolution, in modern times,2 would simply amount to dismembering, instead of constructing. It would produce a multitudinous antagonism, instead of a vital organism, and it would be falling back into the medieval state of narrow chartered independencies. We cannot hope for liberty in a pervading negation, but must find it in comprehensive action. All that is good or great is creative and positive. Negation cannot stand for itself, or impart life. But that negation which is necessary to check and refrain is found in the self-government of many and vigorous institutions, as they also are the only efficient preventives of the undue growth of power. If they are not always able to prevent it, man has no better preventive. When, in the seventeenth century, the Danes threw themselves into the power of the king, making him absolute, in order to protect themselves against baronial oppression, they necessarily created a power which in turn became oppressive. The English, on the contrary, broke the power of their barons, not by raising the king, but by increasing self-government. We find, among the characteristic distinctions between modern history and ancient, the longevity of modern 3 2 Harris, in his Oceana, St. Just, in the First French Revolution, and many former and recent writers might be mentioned. 3 These differences between antiquity and modern times, all of which are more or less connected with Christianity and the institution, are 1. That in antiquity only one nation flourished at the time. The course of history, therefore, flows in a narrow channel, and the historian can easily arrange universal ancient history. In modern times, many nations flourish at the same time, and their history resembles the broad Atlantic, on which they all freely meet. 2. Ancient states are short-lived; modern states have a far greater tenacity of life. 3. Ancient states, when once declining, were irretrievably lost. Their history is that of a rising curve, with its maximum and declension. Modern states have frequently shown a recuperative power. Compare present England with that of Charles II., France as it is with the times of Louis XV. 4. Ancient Y states, contemporaneous progress of wealth or culture and civil liberty, and the national state as contradistinguished to the ancient city-state, the only state of antiquity in which liberty appeared. These are not merely facts which happen to present themselves to the historian, but they are conditions upon which it is the modern problem to develop liberty, because they are requisites for modern civilization, and civilization is the comprehensive aim of all humanity. We must have national states (and not city states); we must have national broadcast liberty (and not narrow chartered liberty); we must have increasing wealth, for civilization is expensive; we must have liberty, and our states must last long to perform their great duties. All this can be obtained by institutional liberty alone. It is neither maintained that longevity alone is the object, nor that it can be obtained by institutions alone. Russia, peculiarly uninstitutional, because it unites Asiatic despotism with European bureaucracy, has lasted long, even though we may consider its late celebration of its millennial existence as a great official licence. But what is maintained here is, that longevity, together with progressive liberty, is obtainable only by institutional liberty. England, now really a thousand years old, presents the great spectacle of an old nation advancing steadily in wealth and liberty. She is far richer than she was a century ago, and her government is of a far more popular cast. In ancient times, it was adopted as an axiom that liberty and wealth are incompatible. 4. Ancient liberty and wealth were incompatible, at least for any length of time; modern nations grow freer and richer at the same time. 5. Ancient liberty dwelt in city-states only; modern liberty requires enlarged societies-nations. 6. Ancient liberty demanded disregard of individual liberty; modern liberty is founded upon it. 7. The ancients had no international law. (Nor have the Asiatics now.) |