flows. The most natural, intermediate, and subordinate power is that of the nobility. No nobility, no monarch; but there may be a despotic prince.”
But I incline to refer this latter form of government to the class of mixed governments, rather than to the simple monarchical form. It partakes, however, of both; wherever the prince alone is the source of all power, the government is really absolute, in spite of forms. Though the establishment of different ranks, and orders may vary the condition of the people, whereby the burdens of government are unequally borne, yet this does not alter the nature of the government, unless there be some certain powers annexed to those different ranks, or some of them, which may on certain occasions control or check the administration of the monarch. Where no such incidental powers exist, the government is still absolute in the person of the prince: and wherever they do exist, their existence constitutes a mixed government. In Spain, since the suppression of the cortes, the monarchy is absolute; yet there is in Spain a splendid nobility, whose condition is far above the rest of the people, but who, possess no power in respect to the operations of the government. In France, before the late revolution; in Russia, in Prussia, and in Sweden under the government of its late monarch, this was also the case. In all these countries the prince is supposed to govern by fixed laws; yet in all of them, I apprehend he was absolute. In England, the nobility form a separate branch of the supreme legislature; the power of the crown is according to the theory of that government, limited thereby; and this constitutes the English government, what is ordinarily styled, a limited monarchy, but more properly a mixed government. Baron Montesquieu, at the same moment that he is speaking of that species of monarchy in which there are intermediate, subordinate, and dependent powers, subjoins; “that the prince is the source of all power political and civil.” I am at a loss to conceive how the power of such a prince can be said to be limited. He considers indeed the ecclesiastical power in Spain and Portugal, as forming a carrier against the torrent of arbitrary power in those countries: but the ecclesiastical power can scarcely be considered as a dependent power on the crown in either of these kingdoms. It for a long time maintained a superiority over the civil power, in those, and most other countries in Europe; and even at this day, it might hazard a revolution in either of those two kingdoms, if the monarch should attempt to treat it as a subordinate, dependent power.
It must, however, be confessed, that there is a wide difference between those governments, where liberty hath never been known to exist, or has been long banished, as in Turkey, and in most of the Asiatic, and African states, and those, where absolute authority hath been acquired by gradual usurpations, or violent exertions, made at particular epochs, to suppress those branches of the government, which, in mixed governments, are stripped to form some check upon the supreme executive authority, as was the case in the suppression of the cortes, or assembly of the nobles, in Spain, by Charles V. Of the states general, and provincial parliaments, in France, by Louis XIII. And of the diet of the States, and the senate of Sweden, by the late king Gustavus III. In these last cases, the laws relating to property being previously established, and the privileges of the several orders and ranks of persons, understood, and admitted by general custom, and implied consent, the assumption of power by the prince, was directed to the abolition of public, rather than private rights. In such states, the business of legislation is ordinarily confined to a single subject, that of revenue. The ancient laws on all other subjects remaining unaltered, the people seem to possess some rights: whereas in the Turkish and Asiatic governments, the subject is held to be the slave of the sovereign and his property is held at his master’s will. In the European monarchies, on the other hand, the higher orders, or nobility often, posses very extensive powers over the commonalty, or peasantry, as they are frequently styled, without interfering with, or in any manner diminishing the authority of the government over either; but, on the contrary, strengthening and supporting it on every occasion, where its oppressions might incline the people to resistance, if they possessed the means of making it. And this may serve to explain the maxim, “no nobility, no monarch.” The foundations of this species of monarchy are to be sought for, in the ancient feudal governments, the prince having by degrees usurped, and annihilated all those privileges which might possibly interfere with his own authority; yet leaving the nobility in possession of such as might enable them to maintain a superiority over the people, without danger to the throne. Such was the state of France under Louis XIV, and his successors.
If this kind of monarchy be considered as limited, it proceeds not so much from the nature of the government, as from the character of the nation, previous to its establishment. If the prince from an apprehension of rousing that spirit of liberty, which has been smothered, rather than extinguished, pursues moderate measures, the people are flattered into a notion, that this circumstance is owing, equally, to the excellence of their government, and, to the benignity of their monarch. The distinction between the character of the prince, and the nature of the government, is soon lost sight of. Hence that profound veneration, that enthusiastic predilection for their own government, which is found almost universally, to prevail in all nations. The moderation of Augustus Caesar, after he was established in the empire of Rome, contributed not less to the annihilation of the spirit of liberty, in the nation, than his own previous tyranny, and that of his successors, did, to the enjoyment of it. The same moderation in the late king of Sweden’s administration, after subverting the constitution, was calculated to obliterate the remembrance of that transaction, and even to persuade the nation that they were more free, than before he became absolute. His posterity will probably evince to them the change in their condition.
This species of monarchy being usually founded upon usurpation, rather than conquest, the prince does not always exert his authority to the utmost extent; but reserves such an exercise of it for extraordinary emergencies. When they occur, and the people feel new oppressions, if the spirit of liberty be not wholly extinguished among them, such oppressions are regarded as usurpations. From hence it happens that these governments are neither so durable, nor so tranquil, as those more rigorous despotisms, which are founded in conquest, and in which the spirit of liberty has been long since annihilated. In these last, the people, being already reduced to the most abject slavery, are incapable of distinguishing between one act of tyranny and another: they are divested of all power of resistance; and therefore acquiesce in any new burdens, which their cruel task-masters may impose, without presuming to murmur, or to complain but where the people are not yet reduced to such an abject state, a series of oppressions, heaped upon them from time to time, irritate and inflame their minds, much more than such an instantaneous accumulation of injuries, as would amount to a total privation of liberty at once. Reiterated oppressions, though comparatively light, have often the same effect as superficial wounds; a number of which are often more painful than a single one, that is mortal. The irritation of temper among the people, thus produced, generally manifests itself by open opposition, with the first favorable occasion; the suppression of such an opposition renders the government more absolute, despotic, and tyrannical: on the other hand its success overturns, or changes the nature of, the government. Such appears to have been the origin and progress of the late revolution in France.14
The distinction of ranks in this kind of government contributes not, as we have already observed, to impose any check upon the government, in favor of the people, in general. The nobility, are, according to Montesquieu, at once the slaves of the monarch, and the despots of the people. Their privileges have no relation to the government, otherwise than to exempt them from the utmost severity of those oppressions, which are indiscriminately heaped upon the lower orders; but they are great, as they respect the lower orders. An admission into the higher class gains an exemption from that intermediate oppression, which these orders exercise over the inferior ranks of the people. This produces a stimulus which Montesquieu has dignified with the epithet honour; which, as he informs us, is the vital principle of this kind of monarchy, and excites men to aspire to preferments, and to distinguishing titles. The term honour, thus understood, conveys no very favorable impression to the ear of a republican.
As, in a simple monarchy, the nation is as it were concentrated in the person of the prince, the lustre of the throne is often mistaken for the prosperity of the nation. Does a prince maintain an immense army in his territories; are the ports of his dominions filled with a powerful navy; does he not only inspire his neighbors with the terror of his arms, but even
