Double Character Of The Government.
What power seeks in the employment of capital punishment is
security. I have shown that this it does not find; but that it
often finds what it does not seek, and what it should and always
does wish to avoid.
There are some simple truths which no one disputes, which good
sense immediately admits, and yet which are no sooner admitted
than forgotten. The reason is, perhaps, that being adopted
without debate, we are not led to think of their consequences.
Here is a truth of this kind. Every government has a double
character. Charged with maintaining public order and justice, and
conducting the affairs of the state, it represents the social
interest. Formed of men, and thus liable to the passions and
vices of our nature, it has, besides, a personal interest, which
is, to execute its will, and preserve at any price its existence.
That these two characters are united in power, that the one is
legitimate, and the other illegitimate, and that institutions
have for their object the constraining of the government to act
by the former, and to fortify the people from the perils of the
latter, who will deny? Who would even insinuate a doubt? Power
itself would not dare to do so. But in this instance power
forgets what it would not for a moment deny.
From the fact, that it is only called upon to act in the social
interest, while it still preserves a distinct personal interest,
proceeds this consequence, that all it does in virtue of the
former character fortifies it, and all it does in that of the
latter weakens it.
{286}
However frequently misunderstood, this is evident. I do not speak
of legitimacy, nor of justice, nor of any moral obligation.
Independently of every motive of this kind, it is clear that if
power acts only for its own sake, in the sole interest of its
will or durability, it separates itself from society, courts a
risk of detection, and if detected, exposes itself to being
forsaken or even attacked by that general force from which its
own has sprung.
That prudence prescribes to power to show itself ever in its
social, and dissemble its individual aspect, and that it is of
importance to its existence to appear on every occasion the
representative of the public interest, and not the minister of
its own, would serve to show, if it were necessary to show, its
continual efforts to appear what it is not, and to pass for the
organ of society even when it acts against its wants or wishes.
To abjure its personal, in order to retain its social character,
would be, on the part of power, an act of the highest virtue. To
convince the people that it acts only in the general interest,
and binds up its destiny in theirs, would be its greatest art. To
keep itself apart, preoccupied with its own affairs, and in all
the nakedness of its distinct existence, would be foolish and
perilous in the extreme.
There was a time when governments could so act with less danger.
When they drew their revenues from their own domains, when they
possessed their places of war like an estate, when they formed
armies of adventurers, attracted by the pay alone, and pledged to
serve everywhere, then power had a separate existence, and a
distinct form from that of society. If skilful, it still tried to
identify itself with the country, and so received from it a much
greater strength; but if incapable or passionate, it could
isolate itself at least for a time, to live on its own funds, and
preserve some reality whilst losing its public character, and
allowing its personal sentiments and interests to predominate in
its acts and language.
But this time is past: power, which cannot live of itself, can no
longer live by itself. Everything draws it towards society. Does
it want money!--society must give it: laws?--society must approve
of them. If it acts, its acts arc judged; if it speaks, its words
are commented on: the public weighs constantly upon it by the
rule of necessity. As the representative of society, its strength
may be great, greater than ever; but if special and isolated, it
is a cipher. Alone to-day, it will be nothing tomorrow.
It has, then, the greatest interest in avoiding every appearance
of egotism, and in making its public character obviously
predominate over its individual one.
{287}
But there are traits which belong to one more than the other of
these characters, symptoms which reveal the latter, but not the
former. The employment of capital punishment politically is of
this kind. It announces the predominance of the personal
existence of power over its social existence, and shows it to be
occupied with itself, and combating a peril which perhaps
threatens only itself. And what is more natural? When we look at
history, and ask why so much blood has been shed on the political
scaffold, it is seldom that the spirit of past society rises to
reply, 'That blood was shed for me.' Governments almost always
present themselves alone to give account of these punishments:
their own passions, faults, interests, commanded them; and next
to the victims themselves, society suffered most. I know that the
prospect of this future responsibility troubles power but little,
and less because it is perverse, than because, like men, it is
reckless; but we have at least gathered from it this knowledge,
that the necessities of a power which kills, often false with
regard to itself, are almost always so with regard to society;
and that if it must kill in its own defence, that defence is
necessary merely because it willed those things which suited no
interest but its own.
This knowledge, little disseminated formerly, and almost confined
to moralists, is now popular; it has become a sort of instinct,
which reveals to us, in all their extent, the position and the
illusions of power. When it is said that the illusions of what we
call monarchy are dissipated, and its prestiges vanished, we know
not how much to believe. It is not, however, in reality, a
question of illusions and prestiges; it is that things themselves
are changed: every sphere of existence or of action is enlarged;
and that which was particular has become general, not only for
society and its guarantees, but for the government and its
profit. The citizen whose affairs took him little from his
corporation, whose thoughts rarely wandered beyond the walls of
his town, now knows himself to be engaged and compromised in
affairs of the highest importance, and in the most complicated
deliberations. The words _judgment of the state, political
necessity_, which formerly struck upon his ear without his
comprehending their sense, although he admitted their dominion,
awaken ideas within him which trouble, and sentiments which
agitate him. He has indeed reason to be moved more than formerly;
for this government, which then had its sphere apart, higher and
greater, but also more special and restricted, has itself become
much more general, more directly, more universally associated
with the interests and life of every citizen. Does it require
money?--It demands it from all. Does it make laws?--They are for
all. Has it fear?--All maybe its object. The distinctions in the
nature of great and small exist no longer for power: its
relations are with the magistrates of a village, as well as with
the chiefs of the state; it has to produce an effect everywhere,
and everywhere receives some motive of action.
{288}
And what is astonishing in the fact of the condition of
government and the disposition of the people having changed?
These changes are reciprocal, and correspond with each other. If
power is no longer a mystery to society, the reason is, that
society has ceased to be so to power: if authority meets
everywhere with minds that pretend to judge it, it is because it
comes into daily contact with these minds: if they demand that
its conduct shall be on every occasion legitimate, it is because
it has the disposal of all the strength of the country: if the
public busies itself more with the government, government
likewise acts over a very different public, and power is enhanced
as well as liberty.
Of what, then, do you complain? Have you so little ambition that
this displeases you! It is true you have lost the independence
which belongs to a private life: your passions, and your personal
interests, can no more have a place in the new order which
surrounds you; you may not listen to their voice without its
being known, nor obey their dictates without the reproach of
failing in your mission. But what a mission is yours! If you are
in harmony with society, the whole of society is concentrated and
reflected in you. It is whilst offering itself entirely to you,
that it asks you to live only for it. Formerly, you could confide
only in a factitious policy, emanating from the ideas or desires
of a single man, and tormenting nations to adapt them to designs
they knew nothing about. But now policy must be true--that is to
say, national--and that restrains the capricious actions or
arbitrary conceptions of individuals. But what strength, what
lustre, what energy belongs to a true national policy! What power
is the best--that which represents the interests and the will of
a people, or that which accomplishes only the thoughts, and
responds only to the interest, of a man! I own I have no
hesitation in deciding.
Hesitation, however, is of little consequence. I only insist at
present upon this new state of society, to prove that power is
not free to choose; and that if its conduct were to appear
dictated by the necessities of its personal situation, rather
than those of the social, which should be manifested in it, it
would soon fall into a profound weakness; for society would soon
be aware that it was separated from the fate as well as interest
of the public, and acted only for itself. And how can it be
supposed that capital punishment, employed politically, will not
awaken this idea in society! There are fearful times, I know,
when the people themselves call for and excuse it. I do not
believe nations to be secure from those frightful maladies which
engender human passions and errors. But a crisis of this kind is
rare, and not of long duration; and it is precisely when it does
take place that capital punishment becomes most odious. Remember
the burst of kindly feeling with which France turned towards the
emigrants in spite of all mistrust, past animosities, and every
possible prejudice, the revolutionary policy was overturned,
because it could neither become just nor remain cruel.
{289}
Since that period, capital punishment has been in political hands
a weapon which compromises power more than serves it, and to
which power has scarcely ever recourse but when in peril on its
own account and from its own errors. It might be said that
society, terrified by what it has seen, will no longer accept the
responsibility of any political punishment, but is determined to
believe that if it must be employed, government alone has need of
an instrument which its own faults have rendered necessary. And
that is especially true of a government which is not of
yesterday, but has already held out, and is able to take its true
position. If it were now only struggling into life, we might
think with regret that it had not had time to become known, or to
dissipate by its wisdom the perils surrounding it, and that
examples were still necessary, and the severities of to-day only
the forerunners of peace tomorrow. But if the government has been
long enough established, if legal means and leisure have not
faded in their influence, if it has been able to show itself
wise, and become strong by its harmony with the public, then
conspiracies cannot spring up again, nor punishments recommence,
without society immediately repelling from itself both the
necessity and the blame. Then power is again invested with this
personal and isolated character which destroys it: it is no
longer social power; and society, instead of seeing its own
reflection, beholds only an interest which is not its own, wants
which it disavows, and intentions in which it has no share. The
justice of such a government is not true justice, and its
necessities are not real necessities.
There is, in fact, in political chastisements, as in other
things, a true justice and necessity, often distinct from legal
justice and the necessities of power. Governments have long given
up troubling themselves on the subject. In barbarous times--and
their duration was long--legal justice did not seem to have been
required at all; the personal necessities of power being
sufficient. When attacked, it had every right to defend itself,
and the execution of a conspirator called for little more delay
or formality than the death of an enemy. By degrees, however,
legal justice was introduced into public policy, the people began
to think, and power was forced to admit that there were other
things besides war, and that against crimes of this nature, as of
every other, laws, forms, proofs, and judgments were necessary.
This was an immense progress, and it is now approaching its
consummation. But the career of progress is not yet stayed--the
public cry is still, Go on! The laws which regulate the
chastisement of political crimes may be insufficient or even bad;
and the necessities which deliver up culprits to the laws may be
false.
{290}
Society goes the length of supposing this more especially when
the question is of capital punishment. Suspecting that power is
isolated from it, and looks to its own interest alone, it is at
the same time convinced that that interest does not suffice to
legitimise punishments, and that power has not the right of
defending itself at all risks. Sufficiently enlightened to know
that infallible justice does not belong to any law, and that were
laws even without fault in themselves, the faults of men would
corrupt them in their administration, society now neither relies
upon the personal wants of power nor upon the legality of its
processes. It would have these wants founded on reason, and these
processes in equity. Whether it obtains this or not, its demands
continue; for it is aware of the justice of the debt, and though
refused, it is not forgotten. Moreover, has not one political
condemnation, legally pronounced, succeeded better in our days in
convincing the people of its necessity and justice, than the most
arbitrary executions of former times? Let not power mistake this
new exaction of the public; for it is a powerful and irrevocable
one, and is allied to all the progress, and all the moral wants
of civilisation and of the human mind. Let it not flatter itself
in thinking to escape by taking refuge behind the laws: it has
long rejected their yoke, and now it would make them a shield
when beaten on an open field, and would possess itself of the
citadels armed against it, and then think itself inviolate. But
it will be pursued to this asylum, which will be shown to have
been profaned more than once by deceit and iniquity. It may plead
that the punishment was legal; but it will be asked if it was
just or necessary. Is it, indeed, so politically? And in what
case, and under what conditions? We must descend to these
questions, for the public thought itself descends to them, and
will have an answer. A government which would give itself no
concern in such questions, but say with Pilate--'I wash my hands
of the blood of this man: see ye to it,' such governments would
soon learn that they do not escape; that no deceit, no laws, can
save from impending danger a power at once egotistical and
hypocritical, which, in separating itself from society and truth,
makes for itself a justice which is not true justice, and a
necessity which is not the necessity of the country.
{291}