BOOK III
Before
speaking of the different forms of government, let us
try to fix the exact sense of the word, which has not
yet been very clearly explained.
I
warn
the reader that this chapter requires careful reading,
and that I am unable to make myself clear to those who
refuse to be attentive. Every free action is produced
by the concurrence of two causes; one moral, i.e., the
will which determines the act; the other physical, i.e.,
the power which executes it. When I walk towards an object,
it is necessary first that I should will to go there,
and, in the second place, that my feet should carry me.
If a paralytic wills to run and an active man wills not
to, they will both stay where they are. The body politic
has the same motive powers; here too force and will are
distinguished, will under the name of legislative power
and force under that of executive power. Without their
concurrence, nothing is, or should be, done.
We
have seen that the legislative power belongs to the people,
and can belong to it alone. It may, on the other hand,
readily be seen, from the principles laid down above,
that the executive power cannot belong to the generality
as legislature or Sovereign, because it consists wholly
of particular acts which fall outside the competency of
the law, and consequently of the Sovereign, whose acts
must always be laws.
The
public force therefore needs an agent of its own to bind
it together and set it to work under the direction of
the general will, to serve as a means of communication
between the State and the Sovereign, and to do for the
collective person more or less what the union of soul
and body does for man. Here we have what is, in the State,
the basis of government, often wrongly confused with the
Sovereign, whose minister it is.
What
then is government? An intermediate body set up between
the subjects and the Sovereign, to secure their mutual
correspondence, charged with the execution of the laws
and the maintenance of liberty, both civil and political.
The
members of this body are called magistrates or kings,
that is to say governors, and the whole body bears
the name prince.18
Thus those who hold that the act, by which a people puts
itself under a prince, is not a contract, are certainly
right. It is simply and solely a commission, an employment,
in which the rulers, mere officials of the Sovereign,
exercise in their own name the power of which it makes
them depositaries. This power it can limit, modify or
recover at pleasure; for the alienation of such a right
is incompatible with the nature of the social body, and
contrary to the end of association.
I
call then government, or supreme administration,
the legitimate exercise of the executive power, and prince
or magistrate the man or the body entrusted with that
administration.
In
government reside the intermediate forces whose relations
make up that of the whole to the whole, or of the Sovereign
to the State. This last relation may be represented as
that between the extreme terms of a continuous proportion,
which has government as its mean proportional. The government
gets from the Sovereign the orders it gives the people,
and, for the State to be properly balanced, there must,
when everything is reckoned in, be equality between the
product or power of the government taken in itself, and
the product or power of the citizens, who are on the one
hand sovereign and on the other subject.
Furthermore,
none of these three terms can be altered without the equality
being instantly destroyed. If the Sovereign desires to
govern, or the magistrate to give laws, or if the subjects
refuse to obey, disorder takes the place of regularity,
force and will no longer act together, and the State is
dissolved and falls into despotism or anarchy. Lastly,
as there is only one mean proportional between each relation,
there is also only one good government possible for a
State. But, as countless events may change the relations
of a people, not only may different governments be good
for different peoples, but also for the same people at
different times.
In
attempting to give some idea of the various relations
that may hold between these two extreme terms, I shall
take as an example the number of a people, which is the
most easily expressible.
Suppose
the State is composed of ten thousand citizens. The Sovereign
can only be considered collectively and as a body; but
each member, as being a subject, is regarded as an individual:
thus the Sovereign is to the subject as ten thousand to
one, i.e., each member of the State has as his share only
a ten-thousandth part of the sovereign authority, although
he is wholly under its control. If the people numbers
a hundred thousand, the condition of the subject undergoes
no change, and each equally is under the whole authority
of the laws, while his vote, being reduced to a hundred-thousandth
part, has ten times less influence in drawing them up.
The subject therefore remaining always a unit, the relation
between him and the Sovereign increases with the number
of the citizens. From this it follows that, the larger
the State, the less the liberty.
When
I say the relation increases, I mean that it grows more
unequal. Thus the greater it is in the geometrical sense,
the less relation there is in the ordinary sense of the
word. In the former sense, the relation, considered according
to quantity, is expressed by the quotient; in the latter,
considered according to identity, it is reckoned by similarity.
Now,
the less relation the particular wills have to the general
will, that is, morals and manners to laws, the more should
the repressive force be increased. The government, then,
to be good, should be proportionately stronger as the
people is more numerous.
On
the other hand, as the growth of the State gives the depositaries
of the public authority more temptations and chances of
abusing their power, the greater the force with which
the government ought to be endowed for keeping the people
in hand, the greater too should be the force at the disposal
of the Sovereign for keeping the government in hand. I
am speaking, not of absolute force, but of the relative
force of the different parts of the State.
It
follows from this double relation that the continuous
proportion between the Sovereign, the prince and the people,
is by no means an arbitrary idea, but a necessary consequence
of the nature of the body politic. It follows further
that, one of the extreme terms, viz., the people, as subject,
being fixed and represented by unity, whenever the duplicate
ratio increases or diminishes, the simple ratio does the
same, and is changed accordingly. From this we see that
there is not a single unique and absolute form of government,
but as many governments differing in nature as there are
States differing in size.
If,
ridiculing this system, any one were to say that, in order
to find the mean proportional and give form to the body
of the government, it is only necessary, according to
me, to find the square root of the number of the people,
I should answer that I am here taking this number only
as an instance; that the relations of which I am speaking
are not measured by the number of men alone, but generally
by the amount of action, which is a combination of a multitude
of causes; and that, further, if, to save words, I borrow
for a moment the terms of geometry, I am none the less
well aware that moral quantities do not allow of geometrical
accuracy.
The
government is on a small scale what the body politic which
includes it is on a great one. It is a moral person endowed
with certain faculties, active like the Sovereign and
passive like the State, and capable of being resolved
into other similar relations. This accordingly gives rise
to a new proportion, within which there is yet another,
according to the arrangement of the magistracies, till
an indivisible middle term is reached, i.e., a single
ruler or supreme magistrate, who may be represented, in
the midst of this progression, as the unity between the
fractional and the ordinal series.
Without
encumbering ourselves with this multiplication of terms,
let us rest content with regarding government as a new
body within the State, distinct from the people and the
Sovereign, and intermediate between them.
There
is between these two bodies this essential difference,
that the State exists by itself, and the government only
through the Sovereign. Thus the dominant will of the prince
is, or should be, nothing but the general will or the
law; his force is only the public force concentrated in
his hands, and, as soon as he tries to base any absolute
and independent act on his own authority, the tie that
binds the whole together begins to be loosened. If finally
the prince should come to have a particular will more
active than the will of the Sovereign, and should employ
the public force in his hands in obedience to this particular
will, there would be, so to speak, two Sovereigns, one
rightful and the other actual, the social union would
evaporate instantly, and the body politic would be dissolved.
However,
in order that the government may have a true existence
and a real life distinguishing it from the body of the
State, and in order that all its members may be able to
act in concert and fulfil the end for which it was set
up, it must have a particular personality, a sensibility
common to its members, and a force and will of its own
making for its preservation. This particular existence
implies assemblies, councils, power and deliberation and
decision, rights, titles, and privileges belonging exclusively
to the prince and making the office of magistrate more
honourable in proportion as it is more troublesome. The
difficulties lie in the manner of so ordering this subordinate
whole within the whole, that it in no way alters the general
constitution by affirmation of its own, and always distinguishes
the particular force it possesses, which is destined to
aid in its preservation, from the public force, which
is destined to the preservation of the State; and, in
a word, is always ready to sacrifice the government to
the people, and never to sacrifice the people to the government.
Furthermore,
although the artificial body of the government is the
work of another artificial body, and has, we may say,
only a borrowed and subordinate life, this does not prevent
it from being able to act with more or less vigour or
promptitude, or from being, so to speak, in more or less
robust health. Finally, without departing directly from
the end for which it was instituted, it may deviate more
or less from it, according to the manner of its constitution.
From
all these differences arise the various relations which
the government ought to bear to the body of the State,
according to the accidental and particular relations by
which the State itself is modified, for often the government
that is best in itself will become the most pernicious,
if the relations in which it stands have altered according
to the defects of the body politic to which it belongs.
2. THE CONSTITUENT PRINCIPLE IN THE VARIOUS FORMS OF
GOVERNMENT
TO
set forth the general cause of the above differences,
we must here distinguish between government and its principle,
as we did before between the State and the Sovereign.
The
body of the magistrate may be composed of a greater or
a less number of members. We said that the relation of
the Sovereign to the subjects was greater in proportion
as the people was more numerous, and, by a clear analogy,
we may say the same of the relation of the government
to the magistrates.
But
the total force of the government, being always that of
the State, is invariable; so that, the more of this force
it expends on its own members, the less it has left to
employ on the whole people.
The
more numerous the magistrates, therefore, the weaker the
government. This principle being fundamental, we must
do our best to make it clear.
In
the person of the magistrate we can distinguish three
essentially different wills: first, the private will of
the individual, tending only to his personal advantage;
secondly, the common will of the magistrates, which is
relative solely to the advantage of the prince, and may
be called corporate will, being general in relation to
the government, and particular in relation to the State,
of which the government forms part; and, in the third
place, the will of the people or the sovereign will, which
is general both in relation to the State regarded as the
whole, and to the government regarded as a part of the
whole.
In
a perfect act of legislation, the individual or particular
will should be at zero; the corporate will belonging to
the government should occupy a very subordinate position;
and, consequently, the general or sovereign will should
always predominate and should be the sole guide of all
the rest.
According
to the natural order, on the other hand, these different
wills become more active in proportion as they are concentrated.
Thus, the general will is always the weakest, the corporate
will second, and the individual will strongest of all:
so that, in the government, each member is first of all
himself, then a magistrate, and then a citizen
in an order exactly the reverse of what the social system
requires.
This
granted, if the whole government is in the hands of one
man, the particular and the corporate will are wholly
united, and consequently the latter is at its highest
possible degree of intensity. But, as the use to which
the force is put depends on the degree reached by the
will, and as the absolute force of the government is invariable,
it follows that the most active government is that of
one man.
Suppose,
on the other hand, we unite the government with the legislative
authority, and make the Sovereign prince also, and all
the citizens so many magistrates: then the corporate will,
being confounded with the general will, can possess no
greater activity than that will, and must leave the particular
will as strong as it can possibly be. Thus, the government,
having always the same absolute force, will be at the
lowest point of its relative force or activity.
These
relations are incontestable, and there are other considerations
which still further confirm them. We can see, for instance,
that each magistrate is more active in the body to which
he belongs than each citizen in that to which he belongs,
and that consequently the particular will has much more
influence on the acts of the government than on those
of the Sovereign; for each magistrate is almost always
charged with some governmental function, while each citizen,
taken singly, exercises no function of Sovereignty. Furthermore,
the bigger the State grows, the more its real force increases,
though not in direct proportion to its growth; but, the
State remaining the same, the number of magistrates may
increase to any extent, without the government gaining
any greater real force; for its force is that of the State,
the dimension of which remains equal. Thus the relative
force or activity of the government decreases, while its
absolute or real force cannot increase.
Moreover,
it is a certainty that promptitude in execution diminishes
as more people are put in charge of it: where prudence
is made too much of, not enough is made of fortune; opportunity
is let slip, and deliberation results in the loss of its
object.
I
have just proved that the government grows remiss in proportion
as the number of the magistrates increases; and I previously
proved that, the more numerous the people, the greater
should be the repressive force. From this it follows that
the relation of the magistrates to the government should
vary inversely to the relation of the subjects to the
Sovereign; that is to say, the larger the State, the more
should the government be tightened, so that the number
of the rulers diminish in proportion to the increase of
that of the people.
It
should be added that I am here speaking of the relative
strength of the government, and not of its rectitude:
for, on the other hand, the more numerous the magistracy,
the nearer the corporate will comes to the general will;
while, under a single magistrate, the corporate will is,
as I said, merely a particular will. Thus, what may be
gained on one side is lost on the other, and the art of
the legislator is to know how to fix the point at which
the force and the will of the government, which are always
in inverse proportion, meet in the relation that is most
to the advantage of the State.
3. THE DIVISION OF GOVERNMENTS
WE
saw in the last chapter what causes the various kinds
or forms of government to be distinguished according to
the number of the members composing them: it remains in
this to discover how the division is made.
In
the first place, the Sovereign may commit the charge of
the government to the whole people or to the majority
of the people, so that more citizens are magistrates than
are mere private individuals. This form of government
is called democracy.
Or
it may restrict the government to a small number, so that
there are more private citizens than magistrates; and
this is named aristocracy.
Lastly,
it may concentrate the whole government in the hands of
a single magistrate from whom all others hold their power.
This third form is the most usual, and is called monarchy,
or royal government.
It
should be remarked that all these forms, or at least the
first two, admit of degree, and even of very wide differences;
for democracy may include the whole people, or may be
restricted to half. Aristocracy, in its turn, may be restricted
indefinitely from half the people down to the smallest
possible number. Even royalty is susceptible of a measure
of distribution. Sparta always had two kings, as its constitution
provided; and the Roman Empire saw as many as eight emperors
at once, without it being possible to say that the Empire
was split up. Thus there is a point at which each form
of government passes into the next, and it becomes clear
that, under three comprehensive denominations, government
is really susceptible of as many diverse forms as the
State has citizens.
There
are even more: for, as the government may also, in certain
aspects, be subdivided into other parts, one administered
in one fashion and one in another, the combination of
the three forms may result in a multitude of mixed forms,
each of which admits of multiplication by all the simple
forms.
There
has been at all times much dispute concerning the best
form of government, without consideration of the fact
that each is in some cases the best, and in others the
worst.
If,
in the different States, the number of supreme magistrates
should be in inverse ratio to the number of citizens,
it follows that, generally, democratic government suits
small States, aristocratic government those of middle
size, and monarchy great ones. This rule is immediately
deducible from the principle laid down. But it is impossible
to count the innumerable circumstances which may furnish
exceptions.
HE
who makes the law knows better than any one else how it
should be executed and interpreted. It seems then impossible
to have a better constitution than that in which the executive
and legislative powers are united; but this very fact
renders the government in certain respects inadequate,
because things which should be distinguished are confounded,
and the prince and the Sovereign, being the same person,
form, so to speak, no more than a government without government.
It
is not good for him who makes the laws to execute them,
or for the body of the people to turn its attention away
from a general standpoint and devote it to particular
objects. Nothing is more dangerous than the influence
of private interests in public affairs, and the abuse
of the laws by the government is a less evil than the
corruption of the legislator, which is the inevitable
sequel to a particular standpoint. In such a case, the
State being altered in substance, all reformation becomes
impossible, A people that would never misuse governmental
powers would never misuse independence; a people that
would always govern well would not need to be governed.
If
we take the term in the strict sense, there never has
been a real democracy, and there never will be. It is
against the natural order for the many to govern and the
few to be governed. It is unimaginable that the people
should remain continually assembled to devote their time
to public affairs, and it is clear that they cannot set
up commissions for that purpose without the form of administration
being changed.
In
fact, I can confidently lay down as a principle that,
when the functions of government are shared by several
tribunals, the less numerous sooner or later acquire the
greatest authority, if only because they are in a position
to expedite affairs, and power thus naturally comes into
their hands.
Besides,
how many conditions that are difficult to unite does such
a government presuppose! First, a very small State, where
the people can readily be got together and where each
citizen can with ease know all the rest; secondly, great
simplicity of manners, to prevent business from multiplying
and raising thorny problems; next, a large measure of
equality in rank and fortune, without which equality of
rights and authority cannot long subsist; lastly, little
or no luxury for luxury either comes of riches
or makes them necessary; it corrupts at once rich and
poor, the rich by possession and the poor by covetousness;
it sells the country to softness and vanity, and takes
away from the State all its citizens, to make them slaves
one to another, and one and all to public opinion.
This
is why a famous writer has made virtue the fundamental
principle of Republics;E1
for all these conditions could not exist without virtue.
But, for want of the necessary distinctions, that great
thinker was often inexact, and sometimes obscure, and
did not see that, the sovereign authority being everywhere
the same, the same principle should be found in every
well-constituted State, in a greater or less degree, it
is true, according to the form of the government.
It
may be added that there is no government so subject to
civil wars and intestine agitations as democratic or popular
government, because there is none which has so strong
and continual a tendency to change to another form, or
which demands more vigilance and courage for its maintenance
as it is. Under such a constitution above all, the citizen
should arm himself with strength and constancy, and say,
every day of his life, what a virtuous Count Palatine19
said in the Diet of Poland: Malo periculosam libertatem
quam quietum servitium.20
Were
there a people of gods, their government would be democratic.
So perfect a government is not for men.
WE
have here two quite distinct moral persons, the government
and the Sovereign, and in consequence two general wills,
one general in relation to all the citizens, the other
only for the members of the administration. Thus, although
the government may regulate its internal policy as it
pleases, it can never speak to the people save in the
name of the Sovereign, that is, of the people itself,
a fact which must not be forgotten.
The
first societies governed themselves aristocratically.
The heads of families took counsel together on public
affairs. The young bowed without question to the authority
of experience. Hence such names as priests, elders,
senate, and gerontes. The savages of North
America govern themselves in this way even now, and their
government is admirable.
But,
in proportion as artificial inequality produced by institutions
became predominant over natural inequality, riches or
power21 were put before
age, and aristocracy became elective. Finally, the transmission
of the father's power along with his goods to his children,
by creating patrician families, made government hereditary,
and there came to be senators of twenty.
There
are then three sorts of aristocracy natural, elective
and hereditary. The first is only for simple peoples;
the third is the worst of all governments; the second
is the best, and is aristocracy properly so called.
Besides
the advantage that lies in the distinction between the
two powers, it presents that of its members being chosen;
for, in popular government, all the citizens are born
magistrates; but here magistracy is confined to a few,
who become such only by election.22
By this means uprightness, understanding, experience and
all other claims to pre-eminence and public esteem become
so many further guarantees of wise government.
Moreover,
assemblies are more easily held, affairs better discussed
and carried out with more order and diligence, and the
credit of the State is better sustained abroad by venerable
senators than by a multitude that is unknown or despised.
In
a word, it is the best and most natural arrangement that
the wisest should govern the many, when it is assured
that they will govern for its profit, and not for their
own. There is no need to multiply instruments, or get
twenty thousand men to do what a hundred picked men can
do even better. But it must not be forgotten that corporate
interest here begins to direct the public power less under
the regulation of the general will, and that a further
inevitable propensity takes away from the laws part of
the executive power.
If
we are to speak of what is individually desirable, neither
should the State be so small, nor a people so simple and
upright, that the execution of the laws follows immediately
from the public will, as it does in a good democracy.
Nor should the nation be so great that the rulers have
to scatter in order to govern it and are able to play
the Sovereign each in his own department, and, beginning
by making themselves independent, end by becoming masters.
But
if aristocracy does not demand all the virtues needed
by popular government, it demands others which are peculiar
to itself; for instance, moderation on the side of the
rich and contentment on that of the poor; for it seems
that thorough-going equality would be out of place, as
it was not found even at Sparta.
Furthermore,
if this form of government carries with it a certain inequality
of fortune, this is justifiable in order that as a rule
the administration of public affairs may be entrusted
to those who are most able to give them their whole time,
but not, as Aristotle maintains, in order that the rich
may always be put first. On the contrary, it is of importance
that an opposite choice should occasionally teach the
people that the deserts of men offer claims to pre-eminence
more important than those of riches.
So
far, we have considered the prince as a moral and collective
person, unified by the force of the laws, and the depositary
in the State of the executive power. We have now to consider
this power when it is gathered together into the hands
of a natural person, a real man, who alone has the right
to dispose of it in accordance with the laws. Such a person
is called a monarch or king.
In
contrast with other forms of administration, in which
a collective being stands for an individual, in this form
an individual stands for a collective being; so that the
moral unity that constitutes the prince is at the same
time a physical unity, and all the qualities, which in
the other case are only with difficulty brought together
by the law, are found naturally united.
Thus
the will of the people, the will of the prince, the public
force of the State, and the particular force of the government,
all answer to a single motive power; all the springs of
the machine are in the same hands, the whole moves towards
the same end; there are no conflicting movements to cancel
one another, and no kind of constitution can be imagined
in which a less amount of effort produces a more considerable
amount of action. Archimedes, seated quietly on the bank
and easily drawing a great vessel afloat, stands to my
mind for a skilful monarch, governing vast states from
his study, and moving everything while he seems himself
unmoved.
But
if no government is more vigorous than this, there is
also none in which the particular will holds more sway
and rules the rest more easily. Everything moves towards
the same end indeed, but this end is by no means that
of the public happiness, and even the force of the administration
constantly shows itself prejudicial to the State.
Kings
desire to be absolute, and men are always crying out to
them from afar that the best means of being so is to get
themselves loved by their people. This precept is all
very well, and even in some respects very true. Unfortunately,
it will always be derided at court. The power which comes
of a people's love is no doubt the greatest; but it is
precarious and conditional, and princes will never rest
content with it. The best kings desire to be in a position
to be wicked, if they please, without forfeiting their
mastery: political sermonisers may tell them to their
hearts' content that, the people's strength being their
own, their first interest is that the people should be
prosperous, numerous and formidable; they are well aware
that this is untrue. Their first personal interest is
that the people should be weak, wretched, and unable to
resist them. I admit that, provided the subjects remained
always in submission, the prince's interest would indeed
be that it should be powerful, in order that its power,
being his own, might make him formidable to his neighbours;
but, this interest being merely secondary and subordinate,
and strength being incompatible with submission, princes
naturally give the preference always to the principle
that is more to their immediate advantage. This is what
Samuel put strongly before the Hebrews, and what Machiavelli
has clearly shown. He professed to teach kings; but it
was the people he really taught. His Prince is
the book of Republicans.23
We
found, on general grounds, that monarchy is suitable only
for great States, and this is confirmed when we examine
it in itself. The more numerous the public administration,
the smaller becomes the relation between the prince and
the subjects, and the nearer it comes to equality, so
that in democracy the ratio is unity, or absolute equality.
Again, as the government is restricted in numbers the
ratio increases and reaches its maximum when the
government is in the hands of a single person. There is
then too great a distance between prince and people, and
the State lacks a bond of union. To form such a bond,
there must be intermediate orders, and princes, personages
and nobility to compose them. But no such things suit
a small State, to which all class differences mean ruin.
If,
however, it is hard for a great State to be well governed,
it is much harder for it to be so by a single man; and
every one knows what happens when kings substitute others
for themselves.
An
essential and inevitable defect, which will always rank
monarchical below the republican government, is that in
a republic the public voice hardly ever raises to the
highest positions men who are not enlightened and capable,
and such as to fill them with honour; while in monarchies
those who rise to the top are most often merely petty
blunderers, petty swindlers, and petty intriguers, whose
petty talents cause them to get into the highest positions
at Court, but, as soon as they have got there, serve only
to make their ineptitude clear to the public. The people
is far less often mistaken in its choice than the prince;
and a man of real worth among the king's ministers is
almost as rare as a fool at the head of a republican government.
Thus, when, by some fortunate chance, one of these born
governors takes the helm of State in some monarchy that
has been nearly overwhelmed by swarms of "gentlemanly"
administrators, there is nothing but amazement at the
resources he discovers, and his coming marks an era in
his country's history.
For
a monarchical State to have a chance of being well governed,
its population and extent must be proportionate to the
abilities of its governor. It is easier to conquer than
to rule. With a long enough lever, the world could be
moved with a single finger; to sustain it needs the shoulders
of Hercules. However small a State may be, the prince
is hardly ever big enough for it. When, on the other hand,
it happens that the State is too small for its ruler,
in these rare cases too it is ill governed, because the
ruler, constantly pursuing his great designs, forgets
the interests of the people, and makes it no less wretched
by misusing the talents he has, than a ruler of less capacity
would make it for want of those he had not. A kingdom
should, so to speak, expand or contract with each reign,
according to the prince's capabilities; but, the abilities
of a senate being more constant in quantity, the State
can then have permanent frontiers without the administration
suffering.
The
disadvantage that is most felt in monarchical government
is the want of the continuous succession which, in both
the other forms, provides an unbroken bond of union. When
one king dies, another is needed; elections leave dangerous
intervals and are full of storms; and unless the citizens
are disinterested and upright to a degree which very seldom
goes with this kind of government, intrigue and corruption
abound. He to whom the State has sold itself can hardly
help selling it in his turn and repaying himself, at the
expense of the weak, the money the powerful have wrung
from him. Under such an administration, venality sooner
or later spreads through every part, and peace so enjoyed
under a king is worse than the disorders of an interregnum.
What
has been done to prevent these evils? Crowns have been
made hereditary in certain families, and an order of succession
has been set up, to prevent disputes from arising on the
death of kings. That is to say, the disadvantages of regency
have been put in place of those of election, apparent
tranquillity has been preferred to wise administration,
and men have chosen rather to risk having children, monstrosities,
or imbeciles as rulers to having disputes over the choice
of good kings. It has not been taken into account that,
in so exposing ourselves to the risks this possibility
entails, we are setting almost all the chances against
us. There was sound sense in what the younger Dionysius
said to his father, who reproached him for doing some
shameful deed by asking, "Did I set you the example?"
"No," answered his son, "but your father
was not king."
Everything
conspires to take away from a man who is set in authority
over others the sense of justice and reason. Much trouble,
we are told, is taken to teach young princes the art of
reigning; but their education seems to do them no good.
It would be better to begin by teaching them the art of
obeying. The greatest kings whose praises history tells
were not brought up to reign: reigning is a science we
are never so far from possessing as when we have learnt
too much of it, and one we acquire better by obeying than
by commanding. "Nam utilissimus idem ac brevissimus
bonarum malarumque rerum delectus cogitare quid aut nolueris
sub alio principe, aut volueris."24
One
result of this lack of coherence is the inconstancy of
royal government, which, regulated now on one scheme and
now on another, according to the character of the reigning
prince or those who reign for him, cannot for long have
a fixed object or a consistent policy and this
variability, not found in the other forms of government,
where the prince is always the same, causes the State
to be always shifting from principle to principle and
from project to project. Thus we may say that generally,
if a court is more subtle in intrigue, there is more wisdom
in a senate, and Republics advance towards their ends
by more consistent and better considered policies; while
every revolution in a royal ministry creates a revolution
in the State; for the principle common to all ministers
and nearly all kings is to do in every respect the reverse
of what was done by their predecessors.
This
incoherence further clears up a sophism that is very familiar
to royalist political writers; not only is civil government
likened to domestic government, and the prince to the
father of a family this error has already been
refuted but the prince is also freely credited
with all the virtues he ought to possess, and is supposed
to be always what he should be. This supposition once
made, royal government is clearly preferable to all others,
because it is incontestably the strongest, and, to be
the best also, wants only a corporate will more in conformity
with the general will.
But
if, according to Plato,25
the "king by nature" is such a rarity, how often
will nature and fortune conspire to give him a crown?
And, if royal education necessarily corrupts those who
receive it, what is to be hoped from a series of men brought
up to reign? It is, then, wanton self-deception to confuse
royal government with government by a good king. To see
such government as it is in itself, we must consider it
as it is under princes who are incompetent or wicked:
for either they will come to the throne wicked or incompetent,
or the throne will make them so.
These
difficulties have not escaped our writers, who, all the
same, are not troubled by them. The remedy, they say,
is to obey without a murmur: God sends bad kings in His
wrath, and they must be borne as the scourges of Heaven.
Such talk is doubtless edifying; but it would be more
in place in a pulpit than in a political book. What are
we to think of a doctor who promises miracles, and whose
whole art is to exhort the sufferer to patience? We know
for ourselves that we must put up with a bad government
when it is there; the question is how to find a good one.
STRICTLY
speaking, there is no such thing as a simple government.
An isolated ruler must have subordinate magistrates; a
popular government must have a head. There is therefore,
in the distribution of the executive power, always a gradation
from the greater to the lesser number, with the difference
that sometimes the greater number is dependent on the
smaller, and sometimes the smaller on the greater.
Sometimes
the distribution is equal, when either the constituent
parts are in mutual dependence, as in the government of
England, or the authority of each section is independent,
but imperfect, as in Poland. This last form is bad; for
it secures no unity in the government, and the State is
left without a bond of union.
Is
a simple or a mixed government the better? Political writers
are always debating the question, which must be answered
as we have already answered a question about all forms
of government.
Simple
government is better in itself, just because it is simple.
But when the executive power is not sufficiently dependent
upon the legislative power, i.e., when the prince is more
closely related to the Sovereign than the people to the
prince, this lack of proportion must be cured by the division
of the government; for all the parts have then no less
authority over the subjects, while their division makes
them all together less strong against the Sovereign.
The
same disadvantage is also prevented by the appointment
of intermediate magistrates, who leave the government
entire, and have the effect only of balancing the two
powers and maintaining their respective rights. Government
is then not mixed, but moderated.
The
opposite disadvantages may be similarly cured, and, when
the government is too lax, tribunals may be set up to
concentrate it. This is done in all democracies. In the
first case, the government is divided to make it weak;
in the second, to make it strong: for the maxima
of both strength and weakness are found in simple governments,
while the mixed forms result in a mean strength.
8. THAT ALL FORMS OF GOVERNMENT DO NOT SUIT ALL COUNTRIES
LIBERTY,
not being a fruit of all climates, is not within the reach
of all peoples. The more this principle, laid down by
Montesquieu,E2 is
considered, the more its truth is felt; the more it is
combated, the more chance is given to confirm it by new
proofs.
In
all the governments that there are, the public person
consumes without producing. Whence then does it get what
it consumes? From the labour of its members. The necessities
of the public are supplied out of the superfluities of
individuals. It follows that the civil State can subsist
only so long as men's labour brings them a return greater
than their needs.
The
amount of this excess is not the same in all countries.
In some it is considerable, in others middling, in yet
others nil, in some even negative. The relation of product
to subsistence depends on the fertility of the climate,
on the sort of labour the land demands, on the nature
of its products, on the strength of its inhabitants, on
the greater or less consumption they find necessary, and
on several further considerations of which the whole relation
is made up.
On
the other side, all governments are not of the same nature:
some are less voracious than others, and the differences
between them are based on this second principle, that
the further from their source the public contributions
are removed, the more burdensome they become. The charge
should be measured not by the amount of the impositions,
but by the path they have to travel in order to get back
to those from whom they came. When the circulation is
prompt and well-established, it does not matter whether
much or little is paid; the people is always rich and,
financially speaking, all is well. On the contrary, however
little the people gives, if that little does not return
to it, it is soon exhausted by giving continually: the
State is then never rich, and the people is always a people
of beggars.
It
follows that, the more the distance between people and
government increases, the more burdensome tribute becomes:
thus, in a democracy, the people bears the least charge;
in an aristocracy, a greater charge; and, in monarchy,
the weight becomes heaviest. Monarchy therefore suits
only wealthy nations; aristocracy, States of middling
size and wealth; and democracy, States that are small
and poor.
In
fact, the more we reflect, the more we find the difference
between free and monarchical States to be this: in the
former, everything is used for the public advantage; in
the latter, the public forces and those of individuals
are affected by each other, and either increases as the
other grows weak; finally, instead of governing subjects
to make them happy, despotism makes them wretched in order
to govern them.
We
find then, in every climate, natural causes according
to which the form of government which it requires can
be assigned, and we can even say what sort of inhabitants
it should have.
Unfriendly
and barren lands, where the product does not repay the
labour, should remain desert and uncultivated, or peopled
only by savages; lands where men's labour brings in no
more than the exact minimum necessary to subsistence
should be inhabited by barbarous peoples: in such places
all polity is impossible. Lands where the surplus of product
over labour is only middling are suitable for free peoples;
those in which the soil is abundant and fertile and gives
a great product for a little labour call for monarchical
government, in order that the surplus of superfluities
among the subjects may be consumed by the luxury of the
prince: for it is better for this excess to be absorbed
by the government than dissipated among the individuals.
I am aware that there are exceptions; but these exceptions
themselves confirm the rule, in that sooner or later they
produce revolutions which restore things to the natural
order.
General
laws should always be distinguished from individual causes
that may modify their effects. If all the South were covered
with Republics and all the North with despotic States,
it would be none the less true that, in point of climate,
despotism is suitable to hot countries, barbarism to cold
countries, and good polity to temperate regions. I see
also that, the principle being granted, there may be disputes
on its application; it may be said that there are cold
countries that are very fertile, and tropical countries
that are very unproductive. But this difficulty exists
only for those who do not consider the question in all
its aspects. We must, as I have already said, take labour,
strength, consumption, etc., into account.
Take
two tracts of equal extent, one of which brings in five
and the other ten. If the inhabitants of the first consume
four and those of the second nine, the surplus of the
first product will be a fifth and that of the second a
tenth. The ratio of these two surpluses will then be inverse
to that of the products, and the tract which produces
only five will give a surplus double that of the tract
which produces ten.
But
there is no question of a double product, and I think
no one would put the fertility of cold countries, as a
general rule, on an equality with that of hot ones. Let
us, however, suppose this equality to exist: let us, if
you will, regard England as on the same level as Sicily,
and Poland as Egypt further south, we shall have
Africa and the Indies; further north, nothing at all.
To get this equality of product, what a difference there
must be in tillage: in Sicily, there is only need to scratch
the ground; in England, how men must toil! But, where
more hands are needed to get the same product, the superfluity
must necessarily be less.
Consider,
besides, that the same number of men consume much less
in hot countries. The climate requires sobriety for the
sake of health; and Europeans who try to live there as
they would at home all perish of dysentery and indigestion.
"We are," says Chardin, "carnivorous animals,
wolves, in comparison with the Asiatics. Some attribute
the sobriety of the Persians to the fact that their country
is less cultivated; but it is my belief that their country
abounds less in commodities because the inhabitants need
less. If their frugality," he goes on, "were
the effect of the nakedness of the land, only the poor
would eat little; but everybody does so. Again, less or
more would be eaten in various provinces, according to
the land's fertility; but the same sobriety is found throughout
the kingdom. They are very proud of their manner of life,
saying that you have only to look at their hue to recognise
how far it excels that of the Christians. In fact, the
Persians are of an even hue; their skins are fair, fine
and smooth; while the hue of their subjects, the Armenians,
who live after the European fashion, is rough and blotchy,
and their bodies are gross and unwieldy."
The
nearer you get to the equator, the less people live on.
Meat they hardly touch; rice, maize, curcur, millet and
cassava are their ordinary food. There are in the Indies
millions of men whose subsistence does not cost a halfpenny
a day. Even in Europe we find considerable differences
of appetite between Northern and Southern peoples. A Spaniard
will live for a week on a German's dinner. In the countries
in which men are more voracious, luxury therefore turns
in the direction of consumption. In England, luxury appears
in a well-filled table; in Italy, you feast on sugar and
flowers.
Luxury
in clothes shows similar differences. In climates in which
the changes of season are prompt and violent, men have
better and simpler clothes; where they clothe themselves
only for adornment, what is striking is more thought of
than what is useful; clothes themselves are then a luxury.
At Naples, you may see daily walking in the Pausilippeum
men in gold-embroidered upper garments and nothing else.
It is the same with buildings; magnificence is the sole
consideration where there is nothing to fear from the
air. In Paris and London, you desire to be lodged warmly
and comfortably; in Madrid, you have superb salons, but
not a window that closes, and you go to bed in a mere
hole.
In
hot countries foods are much more substantial and succulent;
and the third difference cannot but have an influence
on the second. Why are so many vegetables eaten in Italy?
Because there they are good, nutritious and excellent
in taste. In France, where they are nourished only on
water, they are far from nutritious and are thought nothing
of at table. They take up all the same no less ground,
and cost at least as much pains to cultivate. It is a
proved fact that the wheat of Barbary, in other respects
inferior to that of France, yields much more flour, and
that the wheat of France in turn yields more than that
of northern countries; from which it may be inferred that
a like gradation in the same direction, from equator to
pole, is found generally. But is it not an obvious disadvantage
for an equal product to contain less nourishment?
To
all these points may be added another, which at once depends
on and strengthens them. Hot countries need inhabitants
less than cold countries, and can support more of them.
There is thus a double surplus, which is all to the advantage
of despotism. The greater the territory occupied by a
fixed number of inhabitants, the more difficult revolt
becomes, because rapid or secret concerted action is impossible,
and the government can easily unmask projects and cut
communications; but the more a numerous people is gathered
together, the less can the government usurp the Sovereign's
place: the people's leaders can deliberate as safely in
their houses as the prince in council, and the crowd gathers
as rapidly in the squares as the prince's troops in their
quarters. The advantage of tyrannical government therefore
lies in acting at great distances. With the help of the
rallying-points it establishes, its strength, like that
of the lever,26 grows
with distance. The strength of the people, on the other
hand, acts only when concentrated: when spread abroad,
it evaporates and is lost, like powder scattered on the
ground, which catches fire only grain by grain. The least
populous countries are thus the fittest for tyranny: fierce
animals reign only in deserts.
9. THE MARKS OF A GOOD GOVERNMENT
THE
question "What absolutely is the best government?"
is unanswerable as well as indeterminate; or rather, there
are as many good answers as there are possible combinations
in the absolute and relative situations of all nations.
But
if it is asked by what sign we may know that a given people
is well or ill governed, that is another matter, and the
question, being one of fact, admits of an answer.
It
is not, however, answered, because everyone wants to answer
it in his own way. Subjects extol public tranquillity,
citizens individual liberty; the one class prefers security
of possessions, the other that of person; the one regards
as the best government that which is most severe, the
other maintains that the mildest is the best; the one
wants crimes punished, the other wants them prevented;
the one wants the State to be feared by its neighbours,
the other prefers that it should be ignored; the one is
content if money circulates, the other demands that the
people shall have bread. Even if an agreement were come
to on these and similar points, should we have got any
further? As moral qualities do not admit of exact measurement,
agreement about the mark does not mean agreement about
the valuation.
For
my part, I am continually astonished that a mark so simple
is not recognised, or that men are of so bad faith as
not to admit it. What is the end of political association?
The preservation and prosperity of its members. And what
is the surest mark of their preservation and prosperity?
Their numbers and population. Seek then nowhere else this
mark that is in dispute. The rest being equal, the government
under which, without external aids, without naturalisation
or colonies, the citizens increase and multiply most,
is beyond question the best. The government under which
a people wanes and diminishes is the worst. Calculators,
it is left for you to count, to measure, to compare.27
10. THE ABUSE OF GOVERNMENT AND ITS TENDENCY TO DEGENERATE
AS
the particular will acts constantly in opposition to the
general will, the government continually exerts itself
against the Sovereignty. The greater this exertion becomes,
the more the constitution changes; and, as there is in
this case no other corporate will to create an equilibrium
by resisting the will of the prince, sooner or later the
prince must inevitably suppress the Sovereign and break
the social treaty. This is the unavoidable and inherent
defect which, from the very birth of the body politic,
tends ceaselessly to destroy it, as age and death end
by destroying the human body.
There
are two general courses by which government degenerates:
i.e., when it undergoes contraction, or when the State
is dissolved.
Government
undergoes contraction when it passes from the many to
the few, that is, from democracy to aristocracy, and from
aristocracy to royalty. To do so is its natural propensity.28
If it took the backward course from the few to the many,
it could be said that it was relaxed; but this inverse
sequence is impossible.
Indeed,
governments never change their form except when their
energy is exhausted and leaves them too weak to keep what
they have. If a government at once extended its sphere
and relaxed its stringency, its force would become absolutely
nil, and it would persist still less. It is therefore
necessary to wind up the spring and tighten the hold as
it gives way: or else the State it sustains will come
to grief.
The
dissolution of the State may come about in either of two
ways.
First,
when the prince ceases to administer the State in accordance
with the laws, and usurps the Sovereign power. A remarkable
change then occurs: not the government, but the State,
undergoes contraction; I mean that the great State is
dissolved, and another is formed within it, composed solely
of the members of the government, which becomes for the
rest of the people merely master and tyrant. So that the
moment the government usurps the Sovereignty, the social
compact is broken, and all private citizens recover by
right their natural liberty, and are forced, but not bound,
to obey.
The
same thing happens when the members of the government
severally usurp the power they should exercise only as
a body; this is as great an infraction of the laws, and
results in even greater disorders. There are then, so
to speak, as many princes as there are magistrates, and
the State, no less divided than the government, either
perishes or changes its form.
When
the State is dissolved, the abuse of government, whatever
it is, bears the common name of anarchy. To distinguish,
democracy degenerates into ochlocracy, and aristocracy
into oligarchy; and I would add that royalty degenerates
into tyranny; but this last word is ambiguous and
needs explanation.
In
vulgar usage, a tyrant is a king who governs violently
and without regard for justice and law. In the exact sense,
a tyrant is an individual who arrogates to himself the
royal authority without having a right to it. This is
how the Greeks understood the word "tyrant":
they applied it indifferently to good and bad princes
whose authority was not legitimate.29
Tyrant and usurper are thus perfectly synonymous
terms.
In
order that I may give different things different names,
I call him who usurps the royal authority a tyrant,
and him who usurps the sovereign power a despot.
The tyrant is he who thrusts himself in contrary to the
laws to govern in accordance with the laws; the despot
is he who sets himself above the laws themselves. Thus
the tyrant cannot be a despot, but the despot is always
a tyrant.
11. THE DEATH OF THE BODY POLITIC
SUCH
is the natural and inevitable tendency of the best constituted
governments. If Sparta and Rome perished, what State can
hope to endure for ever? If we would set up a long-lived
form of government, let us not even dream of making it
eternal. If we are to succeed, we must not attempt the
impossible, or flatter ourselves that we are endowing
the work of man with a stability of which human conditions
do not permit.
The
body politic, as well as the human body, begins to die
as soon as it is born, and carries in itself the causes
of its destruction. But both may have a constitution that
is more or less robust and suited to preserve them a longer
or a shorter time. The constitution of man is the work
of nature; that of the State the work of art. It is not
in men's power to prolong their own lives; but it is for
them to prolong as much as possible the life of the State,
by giving it the best possible constitution. The best
constituted State will have an end; but it will end later
than any other, unless some unforeseen accident brings
about its untimely destruction.
The
life-principle of the body politic lies in the sovereign
authority. The legislative power is the heart of the State;
the executive power is its brain, which causes the movement
of all the parts. The brain may become paralysed and the
individual still live. A man may remain an imbecile and
live; but as soon as the heart ceases to perform its functions,
the animal is dead.
The
State subsists by means not of the laws, but of the legislative
power. Yesterday's law is not binding to-day; but silence
is taken for tacit consent, and the Sovereign is held
to confirm incessantly the laws it does not abrogate as
it might. All that it has once declared itself to will
it wills always, unless it revokes its declaration.
Why
then is so much respect paid to old laws? For this very
reason. We must believe that nothing but the excellence
of old acts of will can have preserved them so long: if
the Sovereign had not recognised them as throughout salutary,
it would have revoked them a thousand times. This is why,
so far from growing weak, the laws continually gain new
strength in any well constituted State; the precedent
of antiquity makes them daily more venerable: while wherever
the laws grow weak as they become old, this proves that
there is no longer a legislative power, and that the State
is dead.
12. HOW THE SOVEREIGN AUTHORITY MAINTAINS ITSELF
THE
Sovereign, having no force other than the legislative
power, acts only by means of the laws; and the laws being
solely the authentic acts of the general will, the Sovereign
cannot act save when the people is assembled. The people
in assembly, I shall be told, is a mere chimera. It is
so to-day, but two thousand years ago it was not so. Has
man's nature changed?
The
bounds of possibility, in moral matters, are less narrow
than we imagine: it is our weaknesses, our vices and our
prejudices that confine them. Base souls have no belief
in great men; vile slaves smile in mockery at the name
of liberty.
Let
us judge of what can be done by what has been done. I
shall say nothing of the Republics of ancient Greece;
but the Roman Republic was, to my mind, a great State,
and the town of Rome a great town. The last census showed
that there were in Rome four hundred thousand citizens
capable of bearing arms, and the last computation of the
population of the Empire showed over four million citizens,
excluding subjects, foreigners, women, children and slaves.
What
difficulties might not be supposed to stand in the way
of the frequent assemblage of the vast population of this
capital and its neighbourhood. Yet few weeks passed without
the Roman people being in assembly, and even being so
several times. It exercised not only the rights of Sovereignty,
but also a part of those of government. It dealt with
certain matters, and judged certain cases, and this whole
people was found in the public meeting-place hardly less
often as magistrates than as citizens.
If
we went back to the earliest history of nations, we should
find that most ancient governments, even those of monarchical
form, such as the Macedonian and the Frankish, had similar
councils. In any case, the one incontestable fact I have
given is an answer to all difficulties; it is good logic
to reason from the actual to the possible.
IT
is not enough for the assembled people to have once fixed
the constitution of the State by giving its sanction to
a body of law; it is not enough for it to have set up
a perpetual government, or provided once for all for the
election of magistrates. Besides the extraordinary assemblies
unforeseen circumstances may demand, there must be fixed
periodical assemblies which cannot be abrogated or prorogued,
so that on the proper day the people is legitimately called
together by law, without need of any formal summoning.
But,
apart from these assemblies authorised by their date alone,
every assembly of the people not summoned by the magistrates
appointed for that purpose, and in accordance with the
prescribed forms, should be regarded as unlawful, and
all its acts as null and void, because the command to
assemble should itself proceed from the law.
The
greater or less frequency with which lawful assemblies
should occur depends on so many considerations that no
exact rules about them can be given. It can only be said
generally that the stronger the government the more often
should the Sovereign show itself.
This,
I shall be told, may do for a single town; but what is
to be done when the State includes several? Is the sovereign
authority to be divided? Or is it to be concentrated in
a single town to which all the rest are made subject?
Neither
the one nor the other, I reply. First, the sovereign authority
is one and simple, and cannot be divided without being
destroyed. In the second place, one town cannot, any more
than one nation, legitimately be made subject to another,
because the essence of the body politic lies in the reconciliation
of obedience and liberty, and the words subject and Sovereign
are identical correlatives the idea of which meets in
the single word "citizen."
I
answer further that the union of several towns in a single
city is always bad, and that, if we wish to make such
a union, we should not expect to avoid its natural disadvantages.
It is useless to bring up abuses that belong to great
States against one who desires to see only small ones;
but how can small States be given the strength to resist
great ones, as formerly the Greek towns resisted the Great
King, and more recently Holland and Switzerland have resisted
the House of Austria?
Nevertheless,
if the State cannot be reduced to the right limits, there
remains still one resource; this is, to allow no capital,
to make the seat of government move from town to town,
and to assemble by turn in each the Provincial Estates
of the country.
People
the territory evenly, extend everywhere the same rights,
bear to every place in it abundance and life: by these
means will the State become at once as strong and as well
governed as possible. Remember that the walls of towns
are built of the ruins of the houses of the countryside.
For every palace I see raised in the capital, my mind's
eye sees a whole country made desolate.
THE
moment the people is legitimately assembled as a sovereign
body, the jurisdiction of the government wholly lapses,
the executive power is suspended, and the person of the
meanest citizen is as sacred and inviolable as that of
the first magistrate; for in the presence of the person
represented, representatives no longer exist. Most of
the tumults that arose in the comitia at Rome were due
to ignorance or neglect of this rule. The consuls were
in them merely the presidents of the people; the tribunes
were mere speakers;30
the senate was nothing at all.
These
intervals of suspension, during which the prince recognises
or ought to recognise an actual superior, have always
been viewed by him with alarm; and these assemblies of
the people, which are the aegis of the body politic and
the curb on the government, have at all times been the
horror of rulers: who therefore never spare pains, objections,
difficulties, and promises, to stop the citizens from
having them. When the citizens are greedy, cowardly, and
pusillanimous, and love ease more than liberty, they do
not long hold out against the redoubled efforts of the
government; and thus, as the resisting force incessantly
grows, the sovereign authority ends by disappearing, and
most cities fall and perish before their time.
But
between the sovereign authority and arbitrary government
there sometimes intervenes a mean power of which something
must be said.
15.
DEPUTIES OR REPRESENTATIVES
AS
soon as public service ceases to be the chief business
of the citizens, and they would rather serve with their
money than with their persons, the State is not far from
its fall. When it is necessary to march out to war, they
pay troops and stay at home: when it is necessary to meet
in council, they name deputies and stay at home. By reason
of idleness and money, they end by having soldiers to
enslave their country and representatives to sell it.
It
is through the hustle of commerce and the arts, through
the greedy self-interest of profit, and through softness
and love of amenities that personal services are replaced
by money payments. Men surrender a part of their profits
in order to have time to increase them at leisure. Make
gifts of money, and you will not be long without chains.
The word finance is a slavish word, unknown in
the city-state. In a country that is truly free, the citizens
do everything with their own arms and nothing by means
of money; so far from paying to be exempted from their
duties, they would even pay for the privilege of fulfilling
them themselves. I am far from taking the common view:
I hold enforced labour to be less opposed to liberty than
taxes.
The
better the constitution of a State is, the more do public
affairs encroach on private in the minds of the citizens.
Private affairs are even of much less importance, because
the aggregate of the common happiness furnishes a greater
proportion of that of each individual, so that there is
less for him to seek in particular cares. In a well-ordered
city every man flies to the assemblies: under a bad government
no one cares to stir a step to get to them, because no
one is interested in what happens there, because it is
foreseen that the general will will not prevail, and lastly
because domestic cares are all-absorbing. Good laws lead
to the making of better ones; bad ones bring about worse.
As soon as any man says of the affairs of the State What
does it matter to me? the State may be given up for
lost.
The
lukewarmness of patriotism, the activity of private interest,
the vastness of States, conquest and the abuse of government
suggested the method of having deputies or representatives
of the people in the national assemblies. These are what,
in some countries, men have presumed to call the Third
Estate. Thus the individual interest of two orders is
put first and second; the public interest occupies only
the third place.
Sovereignty,
for the same reason as makes it inalienable, cannot be
represented; it lies essentially in the general will,
and will does not admit of representation: it is either
the same, or other; there is no intermediate possibility.
The deputies of the people, therefore, are not and cannot
be its representatives: they are merely its stewards,
and can carry through no definitive acts. Every law the
people has not ratified in person is null and void
is, in fact, not a law. The people of England regards
itself as free; but it is grossly mistaken; it is free
only during the election of members of parliament. As
soon as they are elected, slavery overtakes it, and it
is nothing. The use it makes of the short moments of liberty
it enjoys shows indeed that it deserves to lose them.
The
idea of representation is modern; it comes to us from
feudal government, from that iniquitous and absurd system
which degrades humanity and dishonours the name of man.
In ancient republics and even in monarchies, the people
never had representatives; the word itself was unknown.
It is very singular that in Rome, where the tribunes were
so sacrosanct, it was never even imagined that they could
usurp the functions of the people, and that in the midst
of so great a multitude they never attempted to pass on
their own authority a single plebiscitum. We can, however,
form an idea of the difficulties caused sometimes by the
people being so numerous, from what happened in the time
of the Gracchi, when some of the citizens had to cast
their votes from the roofs of buildings.
Where
right and liberty are everything, disadvantages count
for nothing. Among this wise people everything was given
its just value, its lictors were allowed to do what its
tribunes would never have dared to attempt; for it had
no fear that its lictors would try to represent it.
To
explain, however, in what way the tribunes did sometimes
represent it, it is enough to conceive how the government
represents the Sovereign. Law being purely the declaration
of the general will, it is clear that, in the exercise
of the legislative power, the people cannot be represented;
but in that of the executive power, which is only the
force that is applied to give the law effect, it both
can and should be represented. We thus see that if we
looked closely into the matter we should find that very
few nations have any laws. However that may be, it is
certain that the tribunes, possessing no executive power,
could never represent the Roman people by right of the
powers entrusted to them, but only by usurping those of
the senate.
In
Greece, all that the people had to do, it did for itself;
it was constantly assembled in the public square. The
Greeks lived in a mild climate; they had no natural greed;
slaves did their work for them; their great concern was
with liberty. Lacking the same advantages, how can you
preserve the same rights? Your severer climates add to
your needs;31 for
half the year your public squares are uninhabitable; the
flatness of your languages unfits them for being heard
in the open air; you sacrifice more for profit than for
liberty, and fear slavery less than poverty.
What
then? Is liberty maintained only by the help of slavery?
It may be so. Extremes meet. Everything that is not in
the course of nature has its disadvantages, civil society
most of all. There are some unhappy circumstances in which
we can only keep our liberty at others' expense, and where
the citizen can be perfectly free only when the slave
is most a slave. Such was the case with Sparta. As for
you, modern peoples, you have no slaves, but you are slaves
yourselves; you pay for their liberty with your own. It
is in vain that you boast of this preference; I find in
it more cowardice than humanity.
I
do not mean by all this that it is necessary to have slaves,
or that the right of slavery is legitimate: I am merely
giving the reasons why modern peoples, believing themselves
to be free, have representatives, while ancient peoples
had none. In any case, the moment a people allows itself
to be represented, it is no long free: it no longer exists.
All
things considered, I do not see that it is possible henceforth
for the Sovereign to preserve among us the exercise of
its rights, unless the city is very small. But if it is
very small, it will be conquered? No. I will show later
on how the external strength of a great people32
may be combined with the convenient polity and good order
of a small State.
16. THAT THE INSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT IS NOT A CONTRACT
THE
legislative power once well established, the next thing
is to establish similarly the executive power; for this
latter, which operates only by particular acts, not being
of the essence of the former, is naturally separate from
it. Were it possible for the Sovereign, as such, to possess
the executive power, right and fact would be so confounded
that no one could tell what was law and what was not;
and the body politic, thus disfigured, would soon fall
a prey to the violence it was instituted to prevent.
As
the citizens, by the social contract, are all equal, all
can prescribe what all should do, but no one has a right
to demand that another shall do what he does not do himself.
It is strictly this right, which is indispensable for
giving the body politic life and movement, that the Sovereign,
in instituting the government, confers upon the prince.
It
has been held that this act of establishment was a contract
between the people and the rulers it sets over itself,
a contract in which conditions were laid down between
the two parties binding the one to command and the other
to obey. It will be admitted, I am sure, that this is
an odd kind of contract to enter into. But let us see
if this view can be upheld.
First,
the supreme authority can no more be modified than it
can be alienated; to limit it is to destroy it. It is
absurd and contradictory for the Sovereign to set a superior
over itself; to bind itself to obey a master would be
to return to absolute liberty.
Moreover,
it is clear that this contract between the people and
such and such persons would be a particular act; and from
this is follows that it can be neither a law nor an act
of Sovereignty, and that consequently it would be illegitimate.
It
is plain too that the contracting parties in relation
to each other would be under the law of nature alone and
wholly without guarantees of their mutual undertakings,
a position wholly at variance with the civil state. He
who has force at his command being always in a position
to control execution, it would come to the same thing
if the name "contract" were given to the act
of one man who said to another: "I give you all my
goods, on condition that you give me back as much of them
as you please."
There
is only one contract in the State, and that is the act
of association, which in itself excludes the existence
of a second. It is impossible to conceive of any public
contract that would not be a violation of the first.
17. THE INSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT
UNDER
what general idea then should the act by which government
is instituted be conceived as falling? I will begin by
stating that the act is complex, as being composed of
two others the establishment of the law and its
execution.
By
the former, the Sovereign decrees that there shall be
a governing body established in this or that form; this
act is clearly a law.
By
the latter, the people nominates the rulers who are to
be entrusted with the government that has been established.
This nomination, being a particular act, is clearly not
a second law, but merely a consequence of the first and
a function of government.
The
difficulty is to understand how there can be a governmental
act before government exists, and how the people, which
is only Sovereign or subject, can, under certain circumstances,
become a prince or magistrate.
It
is at this point that there is revealed one of the astonishing
properties of the body politic, by means of which it reconciles
apparently contradictory operations; for this is accomplished
by a sudden conversion of Sovereignty into democracy,
so that, without sensible change, and merely by virtue
of a new relation of all to all, the citizens become magistrates
and pass from general to particular acts, from legislation
to the execution of the law.
This
changed relation is no speculative subtlety without instances
in practice: it happens every day in the English Parliament,
where, on certain occasions, the Lower House resolves
itself into Grand Committee, for the better discussion
of affairs, and thus, from being at one moment a sovereign
court, becomes at the next a mere commission; so that
subsequently it reports to itself, as House of Commons,
the result of its proceedings in Grand Committee, and
debates over again under one name what it has already
settled under another.
It
is, indeed, the peculiar advantage of democratic government
that it can be established in actuality by a simple act
of the general will. Subsequently, this provisional government
remains in power, if this form is adopted, or else establishes
in the name of the Sovereign the government that is prescribed
by law; and thus the whole proceeding is regular. It is
impossible to set up government in any other manner legitimately
and in accordance with the principles so far laid down.
18.
HOW TO CHECK THE USURPATIONS OF GOVERNMENT
WHAT
we have just said confirms Chapter 16, and makes it clear
that the institution of government is not a contract,
but a law; that the depositaries of the executive power
are not the people's masters, but its officers; that it
can set them up and pull them down when it likes; that
for them there is no question of contract, but of obedience
and that in taking charge of the functions the State imposes
on them they are doing no more than fulfilling their duty
as citizens, without having the remotest right to argue
about the conditions.
When
therefore the people sets up an hereditary government,
whether it be monarchical and confined to one family,
or aristocratic and confined to a class, what it enters
into is not an undertaking; the administration is given
a provisional form, until the people chooses to order
it otherwise.
It
is true that such changes are always dangerous, and that
the established government should never be touched except
when it comes to be incompatible with the public good;
but the circumspection this involves is a maxim of policy
and not a rule of right, and the State is no more bound
to leave civil authority in the hands of its rulers than
military authority in the hands of its generals.
It
is also true that it is impossible to be too careful to
observe, in such cases, all the formalities necessary
to distinguish a regular and legitimate act from a seditious
tumult, and the will of a whole people from the clamour
of a faction. Here above all no further concession should
be made to the untoward possibility than cannot, in the
strictest logic, be refused it. From this obligation the
prince derives a great advantage in preserving his power
despite the people, without it being possible to say he
has usurped it; for, seeming to avail himself only of
his rights, he finds it very easy to extend them, and
to prevent, under the pretext of keeping the peace, assemblies
that are destined to the re-establishment of order; with
the result that he takes advantage of a silence he does
not allow to be broken, or of irregularities he causes
to be committed, to assume that he has the support of
those whom fear prevents from speaking, and to punish
those who dare to speak. Thus it was that the decemvirs,
first elected for one year and then kept on in office
for a second, tried to perpetuate their power by forbidding
the comitia to assemble; and by this easy method every
government in the world, once clothed with the public
power, sooner or later usurps the sovereign authority.
The
periodical assemblies of which I have already spoken are
designed to prevent or postpone this calamity, above all
when they need no formal summoning; for in that case,
the prince cannot stop them without openly declaring himself
a law-breaker and an enemy of the State.
The
opening of these assemblies, whose sole object is the
maintenance of the social treaty, should always take the
form of putting two propositions that may not be suppressed,
which should be voted on separately.
The
first is: "Does it please the Sovereign to preserve
the present form of government?"
The
second is: "Does it please the people to leave its
administration in the hands of those who are actually
in charge of it?"
I
am here assuming what I think I have shown; that there
is in the State no fundamental law that cannot be revoked,
not excluding the social compact itself; for if all the
citizens assembled of one accord to break the compact,
it is impossible to doubt that it would be very legitimately
broken. Grotius even thinks that each man can renounce
his membership of his own State, and recover his natural
liberty and his goods on leaving the country.33
It would be indeed absurd if all the citizens in assembly
could not do what each can do by himself.