they minister to domestic luxury, or furnish the means of secret, corruption only. The moment that wealth becomes influential, the principle of democracy is corrupted; when it is allied with power, the democracy itself is subverted; when this alliance becomes hereditary in any state, the democratic principle may be regarded as annihilated.
But the most easy and successful mode in which an aristocracy commences, or advances, consists in the secret and gradual abuse of the confidence of the people, in a representative democracy. Slight, and sometimes even imperceptible, innovations, occasional usurpations, founded upon the pretended emergency of the occasion: or upon former unconstitutional precedents; the introduction of the doctrines of constructive grants of power: of the duty of self-preservation in a government, however constituted, or however limited; of the right of eminent domain, (or in other words, absolute power,) in all governments; these, with the stale pretence of the dangers to be apprehended from the giddy multitude in democratic governments, and a thousand other pretexts and arguments of the same stamp, form the ladder by which the agents of the people mount over the heads of their constituents, and finally ascend to that pinnacle of authority and power, from whence they behold those who have raised them with contempt, and treat them with indignation and insult. The only preventive lies in the vigilance of the people. Where the people are too numerous, or too much dispersed to deliberate upon the conduct of their public agents, or too supine to watch over that conduct, the representative will soon render himself paramount to, and independent of, his constituents; and then the people may bid a long farewell to all their happiness.
The first form of government established at Venice, was founded upon principles perfectly democratic. Magistrates were chosen by a general assembly of the people; and their power continued only for one year. This simple form of government (we are told by Doctor Moore,12 whose inquiries and researches upon this subject afford an useful, and an awful lesson to all democratic states;) remained uncorrupted for one hundred and fifty years. Upwards of three hundred years were afterwards employed in gradual, and almost imperceptible changes in the government, and encroachments upon the rights of the people, before that system of terror, which finally rendered the Venetian government the most tyrannical and formidable to its own citizens that the world has ever known, was completed by the establishment of the state inquisition. From that period the most complete despotism hath with unremitting rigor been exerted not only over the actions, but over the minds, of every citizen of that miserable state. A word, a look, nay silence itself, may be interpreted to be treasonable, in a government whose maxim is, “that it is better that an innocent person should suffer from an ill grounded suspicion, than the government should be endangered by any scrutiny into its conduct.”
Should it be inquired how such important changes can possibly be effected where the supreme power is vested in the people, as in the American States, we may give the answer in the words of De Lolme.13 The combination of those who share either in the actual exercise of the public power, or in its advantages, do not allow themselves to sit down in inaction. They wake, while the people sleep. Entirely taken up with the thoughts of their own power, they live but to increase it. Deeply versed in the management of public business, they see at once all the possible consequences of measures. And, as they have the exclusive direction of the springs of government, they give rise, at pleasure, to every incident that may influence the minds of a multitude who are not on their guard; ever active in turning to their advantage every circumstance that happens, they equally avail themselves of the tractableness of the people during public calamities, and its heedlessness in times of prosperity. By presenting in their speeches arguments and facts, which there is no opportunity of examining, they lead the people into gross, and yet decisive errors. In confirmation of these observations he cites two instances from the history of his own country, which have occurred within the present century; and which may serve to show how slight a movement of the political machine, may effect a total change in its operations. In Geneva in the year 1707 a law was enacted that a general assembly of the people, should be held every five years to treat of the affairs of the republic, but the magistrates who dreaded those assemblies soon obtained from the citizens themselves, the repeal of the law; and the first resolution of the people, in the first of these periodical assemblies, in the year 1712, was to abolish them forever. The profound secrecy with which the magistrates prepared their proposals to the citizens on that subject, and the sudden manner in which the latter, when assembled, were acquainted with it, and made to give their votes upon it; and the consternation of the people when the result was proclaimed has confirmed many in the opinion that some unfair means were used. The whole transaction has been kept secret to this day: but the common opinion is, that the magistrates had privately instructed the secretaries in whose ear the citizens were to whisper their suffrages; when a citizen said “approbation,” he was to be considered as approving the proposal of the magistrates; when he said “rejection,” it was to be considered that he meant to reject the periodical assemblies. … In the year 1738 the citizens enacted at once into laws a small code of forty-four articles, by one single line of which they bound themselves forever to elect the four syndicts, or chiefs of the council of twenty-five out of the members of the same council; whereas they were before free in their choice. They, at that time, suffered the word approved to be slipped into a law; the consequence of which was to render the magistrates absolute masters of the legislature. So watchful, so active, so preserving, so noxious, so incompatible with the principles of a democratic government, are those of aristocracy, that we may venture to pronounce it the most dangerous enemy to a free government. If a single germ of aristocracy, be once ingrafted upon a republican government, the stock will soon cease to bear any other branches. In an aristocracy, says Montesquieu, the republic is in the body of the nobles; and the people are nothing at all.
SECTION IX.
Monarchy is that form of government in which all the parts of the supreme power are committed to one person. And such a government may be either despotic, absolute, and unlimited; or limited. In the former case the administration is vested altogether in the prince, without any check, or restriction whatsoever. In this government, according to Montesquieu, the prince is all in all. The people were all equal, and their equality is the most abject slavery. The principle of this kind of government is fear generated in ignorance. Submission constitutes the only security, which the people enjoy: and the safety of the tyrant is alike the result of their terrors, and their ignorance.
In this government the will of the prince is the only law, manners and customs, says Montesquieu, supply the place of general laws, and the will of the prince constitutes the law in particular cases. Hence in a despotic government there are no laws which can be properly so called: laws are established; manners are inspired; these proceed from a general spirit, those, from a particular institution. It is a capital maxim, that the manners and customs of a despotic empire should never be changed; for nothing would more speedily produce a revolution.
In China, the fundamental laws of the empire are spoken of; the emperor presumes not to change them; but on particular occasions he dispenses with them. They are binding upon all the world but himself; and so far binding even upon him, that he leaves them to his successor, to dispense with, as he had done before him.
A limited monarchy (if indeed such a form of government can be anywhere found) is one where by some original laws in the very constitution or conveyance of power, the quantity of it is determined, and limits set to it, with reservations of certain public rights of the people, not entrusted to the prince; and yet no court or council, constituted which does not derive its power from him. How far the government established over the Israelites in the person of Saul … when Samuel their prophet “told the people the manner of the kingdom, and wrote it in a book and laid it up before the Lord,” may have furnished a model for this species of monarchy, is foreign from our present inquiry.
Baron Montesquieu distinguishes that species of monarchy in which there are intermediate, subordinate, and dependent powers, likewise, from the absolute or despotic kind, above-mentioned; yet he acknowledges that even in this, the prince, is the source of all power, civil and political, but that he governs by fundamental laws. “And these,” says he, “necessarily suppose the intermediate channels through
