_Three Standard Forms._--Political writers from the time of Aristotle
have been singularly unanimous in their classification of the forms of
government. There are three ways in which states may be governed. They
may be governed by one man, or by a number of men, small in proportion
to the whole number of men in the state, or by a number large in
proportion to the whole number of men in the state. The government may
be a monarchy, an aristocracy or a democracy. The same terms are used by
John Austin as were used by Aristotle, and in very nearly the same
sense. The determining quality in governments in both writers, and it
may safely be said in all intermediate writers, is the numerical
relation between the constituent members of the government and the
population of the state. There were, of course, enormous differences
between the state-systems present to the mind of the Greek philosopher
and the English jurist. Aristotle was thinking of the small independent
states of Greece, Austin of the great peoples of modern Europe. The unit
of government in the one case was a city, in the other a nation. This
difference is of itself enough to invalidate all generalization founded
on the common terminology. But on one point there is a complete parallel
between the politics of Aristotle and the politics of Austin. The Greek
cities were to the rest of the world very much what European nations and
European colonies are to the rest of the world now. They were the only
communities in which the governed visibly took some share in the work of
government. Outside the European system, as outside the Greek system, we
have only the stereotyped uniformity of despotism, whether savage or
civilized. The question of forms of government, therefore, belongs
characteristically to the European races. The virtues and defects of
monarchy, aristocracy and democracy are the virtues and defects
manifested by the historical governments of Europe. The generality of
the language used by political writers must not blind us to the fact
that they are thinking only of a comparatively small portion of mankind.
_Greek Politics._--Aristotle divides governments according to two
principles. In all states the governing power seeks either its own
advantage or the advantage of the whole state, and the government is bad
or good accordingly. In all states the governing power is one man, or a
few men or many men. Hence six varieties of government, three of which
are bad and three good. Each excellent form has a corresponding depraved
form, thus:--
The good government of one (Monarchy) corresponds to the depraved form
(Tyranny).
The good government of few (Aristocracy) corresponds to the depraved
form (Oligarchy).
The good government of many (Commonwealth) corresponds to the depraved
form (Democracy).
The fault of the depraved forms is that the governors act unjustly where
their own interests are concerned. The worst of the depraved forms is
tyranny, the next oligarchy and the least bad democracy.[1] Each of the
three leading types exhibits a number of varieties. Thus in monarchy we
have the heroic, the barbaric, the elective dictatorship, the
Lacedemonian (hereditary generalship, [Greek: strategia]), and absolute
monarchy. So democracy and oligarchy exhibit four corresponding
varieties. The best type of democracy is that of a community mainly
agricultural, whose citizens, therefore, have not leisure for political
affairs, and allow the law to rule. The best oligarchy is that in which
a considerable number of small proprietors have the power; here, too,
the laws prevail. The worst democracy consists of a larger citizen class
having leisure for politics; and the worst oligarchy is that of a small
number of very rich and influential men. In both the sphere of law is
reduced to a minimum. A good government is one in which as much as
possible is left to the laws, and as little as possible to the will of
the governor.
The _Politics_ of Aristotle, from which these principles are taken,
presents a striking picture of the variety and activity of political
life in the free communities of Greece. The king and council of heroic
times had disappeared, and self-government in some form or other was the
general rule. It is to be noticed, however, that the governments of
Greece were essentially unstable. The political philosophers could lay
down the law of development by which one form of government gives birth
to another. Aristotle devotes a large portion of his work to the
consideration of the causes of revolutions. The dread of tyranny was
kept alive by the facility with which an over-powerful and unscrupulous
citizen could seize the whole machinery of government. Communities
oscillated between some form of oligarchy and some form of democracy.
The security of each was constantly imperilled by the conspiracies of
the opposing factions. Hence, although political life exhibits that
exuberant variety of form and expression which characterizes all the
intellectual products of Greece, it lacks the quality of persistent
progress. Then there was no approximation to a national government, even
of the federal type. The varying confederacies and hegemonies are the
nearest approach to anything of the kind. What kind of national
government would ultimately have arisen if Greece had not been crushed
it is needless to conjecture; the true interest of Greek politics lies
in the fact that the free citizens were, in the strictest sense of the
word, self-governed. Each citizen took his turn at the common business
of the state. He spoke his own views in the agora, and from time to time
in his own person acted as magistrate or judge. Citizenship in Athens
was a liberal education, such as it never can be made under any
representative system.
_The Government of Rome._--During the whole period of freedom the
government of Rome was, in theory at least, municipal self-government.
Each citizen had a right to vote laws in his own person in the comitia
of the centuries or the tribes. The administrative powers of government
were, however, in the hands of a bureaucratic assembly, recruited from
the holders of high public office. The senate represented capacity and
experience rather than rank and wealth. Without some such instrument the
city government of Rome could never have made the conquest of the world.
The gradual extension of the citizenship to other Italians changed the
character of Roman government. The distant citizens could not come to
the voting booths; the device of representation was not discovered; and
the comitia fell into the power of the town voters. In the last stage of
the Roman republic, the inhabitants of one town wielded the resources of
a world-wide empire. We can imagine what would be the effect of leaving
to the people of London or Paris the supreme control of the British
empire or of France,--irresistible temptation, inevitable corruption.
The rabble of the capital learn to live on the rest of the empire.[2]
The favour of the effeminate masters of the world is purchased by _panem
et circenses_. That capable officers and victorious armies should long
be content to serve such masters was impossible. A conspiracy of
generals placed itself at the head of affairs, and the most capable of
them made himself sole master. Under Caesar, Augustus and Tiberius, the
Roman people became habituated to a new form of government, which is
best described by the name of Caesarism. The outward forms of republican
government remained, but one man united in his own person all the
leading offices, and used them to give a seemingly legal title to what
was essentially military despotism. There is no more interesting
constitutional study than the chapters in which Tacitus traces the
growth of the new system under the subtle and dissimulating intellect of
Tiberius. The new Roman empire was as full of fictions as the English
constitution of the present day. The master of the world posed as the
humble servant of a menial senate. Deprecating the outward symbols of
sovereignty, he was satisfied with the modest powers of a consul or a
tribunus plebis. The reign of Tiberius, little capable as he was by
personal character of captivating the favour of the multitude, did more
for imperialism than was done by his more famous predecessors.
Henceforward free government all over the world lay crushed beneath the
military despotism of Rome. Caesarism remained true to the character
imposed upon it by its origin. The Caesar was an elective not an
hereditary king. The real foundation of his power was the army, and the
army in course of time openly assumed the right of nominating the
sovereign. The characteristic weakness of the Roman empire was the
uncertainty of the succession. The nomination of a Caesar in the
lifetime of the emperor was an ineffective remedy. Rival emperors were
elected by different armies; and nothing less than the force of arms
could decide the question between them.
_Modern Governments._--_Feudalism._--The Roman empire bequeathed to
modern Europe the theory of universal dominion. The nationalities which
grew up after its fall arranged themselves on the basis of territorial
sovereignty. Leaving out of account the free municipalities of the
middle ages, the problem of government had now to be solved, not for
small urban communities, but for large territorial nations. The medieval
form of government was feudal. One common type pervaded all the
relations of life. The relation of king and lord was like the relation
between lord and vassal (see FEUDALISM). The bond between them was the
tenure of land. In England there had been, before the Norman Conquest,
an approximation to a feudal system. In the earlier English
constitution, the most striking features were the power of the witan,
and the common property of the nation in a large portion of the soil.
The steady development of the power of the king kept pace with the
aggregation of the English tribes under one king. The conception that
the land belonged primarily to the people gave way to the conception
that everything belonged primarily to the king.[3] The Norman Conquest
imposed on England the already highly developed feudalism of France, and
out of this feudalism the free governments of modern Europe have grown.
One or two of the leading steps in this process may be indicated here.
The first, and perhaps the most important, was the device of
representation. For an account of its origin, and for instances of its
use in England before its application to politics, we must be content to
refer to Stubbs's _Constitutional History_, vol. ii. The problem of
combining a large area of sovereignty with some degree of
self-government, which had proved fatal to ancient commonwealths, was
henceforward solved. From that time some form of representation has been
deemed essential to every constitution professing, however remotely, to
be free.
The connexion between representation and the feudal system of estates
must be shortly noticed. The feudal theory gave the king a limited right
to military service and to certain aids, both of which were utterly
inadequate to meet the expenses of the government, especially in time of
war. The king therefore had to get contributions from his people, and he
consulted them in their respective orders. The three estates were simply
the three natural divisions of the people, and Stubbs has pointed out
that, in the occasional treaties between a necessitous king and the
order of merchants or lawyers, we have examples of inchoate estates or
sub-estates of the realm. The right of representation was thus in its
origin a right to consent to taxation. The pure theory of feudalism had
from the beginning been broken by William the Conqueror causing all
free-holders to take an oath of direct allegiance to himself. The
institution of parliaments, and the association of the king's smaller
tenants _in capite_ with other commoners, still further removed the
government from the purely feudal type in which the mesne lord stands
between the inferior vassal and the king.
_Parliamentary Government._--_The English System._--The right of the
commons to share the power of the king and lords in legislation, the
exclusive right of the commons to impose taxes, the disappearance of the
clergy as a separate order, were all important steps in the movement
towards popular government. The extinction of the old feudal nobility in
the dynastic wars of the 15th century simplified the question by leaving
the crown face to face with parliament. The immediate result was no
doubt an increase in the power of the crown, which probably never stood
higher than it did in the reigns of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth; but even
these powerful monarchs were studious in their regard for parliamentary
conventionalities. After a long period of speculative controversy and
civil war, the settlement of 1688 established limited monarchy as the
government of England. Since that time the external form of government
has remained unchanged, and, so far as legal description goes, the
constitution of William III. might be taken for the same system as that
which still exists. The silent changes have, however, been enormous. The
most striking of these, and that which has produced the most salient
features of the English system, is the growth of cabinet government.
Intimately connected with this is the rise of the two great historical
parties of English politics. The normal state of government in England
is that the cabinet of the day shall represent that which is, for the
time, the stronger of the two. Before the Revolution the king's
ministers had begun to act as a united body; but even after the
Revolution the union was still feeble and fluctuating, and each
individual minister was bound to the others only by the tie of common
service to the king. Under the Hanoverian sovereigns the ministry became
consolidated, the position of the cabinet became definite, and its
dependence on parliament, and more particularly on the House of Commons,
was established. Ministers were chosen exclusively from one house or the
other, and they assumed complete responsibility for every act done in
the name of the crown. The simplicity of English politics has divided
parliament into the representatives of two parties, and the party in
opposition has been steadied by the consciousness that it, too, has
constitutional functions of high importance, because at any moment it
may be called to provide a ministry. Criticism is sobered by being made
responsible. Along with this movement went the withdrawal of the
personal action of the sovereign in politics. No king has attempted to
veto a bill since the Scottish Militia Bill was vetoed by Queen Anne. No
ministry has been dismissed by the sovereign since 1834. Whatever the
power of the sovereign may be, it is unquestionably limited to his
personal influence over his ministers. And it must be remembered that
since the Reform Act of 1832 ministers have become, in practice,
responsible ultimately, not to parliament, but to the House of Commons.
Apart, therefore, from democratic changes due to a wider suffrage, we
find that the House of Commons, as a body, gradually made itself the
centre of the government. Since the area of the constitution has been
enlarged, it may be doubted whether the orthodox descriptions of the
government any longer apply. The earlier constitutional writers, such as
Blackstone and J. L. Delolme, regard it as a wonderful compound of the
three standard forms,--monarchy, aristocracy and democracy. Each has its
place, and each acts as a check upon the others. Hume, discussing the
question "Whether the British government inclines more to absolute
monarchy or to a republic," decides in favour of the former alternative.
"The tide has run long and with some rapidity to the side of popular
government, and is just beginning to turn toward monarchy." And he gives
it as his own opinion that absolute monarchy would be the easiest death,
the true euthanasia of the British constitution. These views of the
English government in the 18th century may be contrasted with Bagehot's
sketch of the modern government as a working instrument.[4]
_Leading Features of Parliamentary Government._--The parliamentary
government developed by England out of feudal materials has been
deliberately accepted as the type of constitutional government all over
the world. Its leading features are popular representation more or less
extensive, a bicameral legislature, and a cabinet or consolidated
ministry. In connexion with all of these, numberless questions of the
highest practical importance have arisen, the bare enumeration of which
would surpass the limits of our space. We shall confine ourselves to a
few very general considerations.
_The Two Chambers._--First, as to the double chamber. This, which is
perhaps more accidental than any other portion of the British system,
has been the most widely imitated. In most European countries, in the
British colonies, in the United States Congress, and in the separate
states of the Union,[5] there are two houses of legislature. This result
has been brought about partly by natural imitation of the accepted type
of free government, partly from a conviction that the second chamber
will moderate the democratic tendencies of the first. But the elements
of the British original cannot be reproduced to order under different
conditions. There have, indeed, been a few attempts to imitate the
special character of hereditary nobility attaching to the British House
of Lords. In some countries, where the feudal tradition is still strong
(e.g. Prussia, Austria, Hungary), the hereditary element in the upper
chambers has survived as truly representative of actual social and
economic relations. But where these social conditions do not obtain
(e.g. in France after the Revolution) the attempt to establish an
hereditary peerage on the British model has always failed. For the
peculiar solidarity between the British nobility and the general mass of
the people, the outcome of special conditions and tendencies, is a
result beyond the power of constitution-makers to attain. The British
system too, after its own way, has for a long period worked without any
serious collision between the Houses,--the standing and obvious danger
of the bicameral system. The actual ministers of the day must possess
the confidence of the House of Commons; they need not--in fact they
often do not--possess the confidence of the House of Lords. It is only
in legislation that the Lower House really shares its powers with the
Upper; and (apart from any such change in the constitution as was
suggested in 1907 by Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman) the constitution
possesses, in the unlimited power of nominating peers, a well-understood
last resource should the House of Lords persist in refusing important
measures demanded by the representatives of the people. In the United
Kingdom it is well understood that the real sovereignty lies with the
people (the electorate), and the House of Lords recognizes the principle
that it must accept a measure when the popular will has been clearly
expressed. In all but measures of first-class importance, however, the
House of Lords is a real second chamber, and in these there is little
danger of a collision between the Houses. There is the widest possible
difference between the British and any other second chamber. In the
United States the Senate (constituted on the system of equal
representation of states) is the more important of the two Houses, and
the only one whose control of the executive can be compared to that
exercised by the British House of Commons.
The real strength of popular government in England lies in the ultimate
supremacy of the House of Commons. That supremacy had been acquired,
perhaps to its full extent, before the extension of the suffrage made
the constituencies democratic. Foreign imitators, it may be observed,
have been more ready to accept a wide basis of representation than to
confer real power on the representative body. In all the monarchical
countries of Europe, however unrestricted the right of suffrage may be,
the real victory of constitutional government has yet to be won. Where
the suffrage means little or nothing, there is little or no reason for
guarding it against abuse. The independence of the executive in the
United States brings that country, from one point of view, more near to
the state system of the continent of Europe than to that of the United
Kingdom. The people make a more complete surrender of power to the
government (State or Federal) than is done in England.
_Cabinet Government._--The peculiar functions of the English cabinet are
not easily matched in any foreign system. They are a mystery even to
most educated Englishmen. The cabinet (q.v.) is much more than a body
consisting of chiefs of departments. It is the inner council of the
empire, the arbiter of national policy, foreign or domestic, the
sovereign in commission. The whole power of the House of Commons is
concentrated in its hands. At the same time, it has no place whatever in
the legal constitution. Its numbers and its constitution are not fixed
even by any rule of practice. It keeps no record of its proceedings. The
relations of an individual minister to the cabinet, and of the cabinet
to its head and creator, the premier, are things known only to the
initiated. With the doubtful exception of France, no other system of
government presents us with anything like its equivalent. In the United
States, as in the European monarchies, we have a council of ministers
surrounding the chief of the state.
_Change of Power in the English System._--One of the most difficult
problems of government is how to provide for the devolution of political
power, and perhaps no other question is so generally and justly applied
as the test of a working constitution. If the transmission works
smoothly, the constitution, whatever may be its other defects, may at
least be pronounced stable. It would be tedious to enumerate all the
contrivances which this problem has suggested to political societies.
Here, as usual, oriental despotism stands at the bottom of the scale.
When sovereign power is imputed to one family, and the law of succession
fails to designate exclusively the individual entitled to succeed,
assassination becomes almost a necessary measure of precaution. The
prince whom chance or intrigue has promoted to the throne of a father or
an uncle must make himself safe from his relatives and competitors.
Hence the scenes which shock the European conscience when "Amurath an
Amurath succeeds." The strong monarchical governments of Europe have
been saved from this evil by an indisputable law of succession, which
marks out from his infancy the next successor to the throne. The king
names his ministers, and the law names the king. In popular or
constitutional governments far more elaborate precautions are required.
It is one of the real merits of the English constitution that it has
solved this problem--in a roundabout way perhaps, after its fashion--but
with perfect success. The ostensible seat of power is the throne, and
down to a time not long distant the demise of the crown suspended all
the other powers of the state. In point of fact, however, the real
change of power occurs on a change of ministry. The constitutional
practice of the 19th century settled, beyond the reach of controversy,
the occasions on which a ministry is bound to retire. It must resign or
dissolve when it is defeated[6] in the House of Commons, and if after a
dissolution it is beaten again, it must resign without alternative. It
may resign if it thinks its majority in the House of Commons not
sufficiently large. The dormant functions of the crown now come into
existence. It receives back political power from the old ministry in
order to transmit it to the new. When the new ministry is to be formed,
and how it is to be formed, is also clearly settled by established
practice. The outgoing premier names his successor by recommending the
king to consult him; and that successor must be the recognized leader of
his successful rivals. All this is a matter of custom, not of law; and
it is doubtful if any two authorities could agree in describing the
custom in language of precision. In theory the monarch may send for any
one he pleases, and charge him with the formation of a government; but
the ability to form a government restricts this liberty to the
recognized head of a party, subject to there being such an individual.
It is certain that the intervention of the crown facilitates the
transfer of power from one party to another, by giving it the appearance
of a mere change of servants. The real disturbance is that caused by the
appeal to the electors. A general election is always a struggle between
the great political parties for the possession of the powers of
government. It may be noted that modern practice goes far to establish
the rule that a ministry beaten at the hustings should resign at once
without waiting for a formal defeat in the House of Commons.
The English custom makes the ministry dependent on the will of the House
of Commons; and, on the other hand, the House of Commons itself is
dependent on the will of the ministry. In the last result both depend on
the will of the constituencies, as expressed at the general election.
There is no fixity in either direction in the tenure of a ministry. It
may be challenged at any moment, and it lasts until it is challenged and
beaten. And that there should be a ministry and a House of Commons in
harmony with each other but out of harmony with the people is rendered
all but impossible by the law and the practice as to the duration of
parliaments.
_Change of Power in the United States._--The United States offers a very
different solution of the problem. The American president is at once
king and prime minister; and there is no titular superior to act as a
conduit-pipe between him and his successor. His crown is rigidly fixed;
he can be removed only by the difficult method of impeachment. No
hostile vote on matters of legislation can affect his position. But the
end of his term is known from the first day of his government; and
almost before he begins to reign the political forces of the country are
shaping out a new struggle for the succession. Further, a change of
government in America means a considerable change in the administrative
staff (see CIVIL SERVICE). The commotion caused by a presidential
election in the United States is thus infinitely greater and more
prolonged than that caused by a general election in England. A change of
power in England affects comparatively few personal interests, and
absorbs the attention of the country for a comparatively short space of
time. In the United States it is long foreseen and elaborately prepared
for, and when it comes it involves the personal fortunes of large
numbers of citizens. And yet the British constitution is more democratic
than the American, in the sense that the popular will can more speedily
be brought to bear upon the government.
_Change of Power in France._--The established practice of England and
America may be compared with the constitutionalism of France. Here the
problem presents different conditions. The head of the state is neither
a premier of the English, nor a president of the American type. He is
served by a prime minister and a cabinet, who, like an English ministry,
hold office on the condition of parliamentary confidence; but he holds
office himself on the same terms, and is, in fact, a minister like the
others. So far as the transmission of power from cabinet to cabinet is
concerned, he discharges the functions of an English king. But the
transmission of power between himself and his successor is protected by
no constitutional devices whatever, and experience would seem to show
that no such devices are really necessary. Other European countries
professing constitutional government appear to follow the English
practice. The Swiss republic is so peculiarly situated that it is hardly
fair to compare it with any other. But it is interesting to note that,
while the rulers of the states are elected annually, the same persons
are generally re-elected.
_The Relation between Government and Laws._--It might be supposed that,
if any general proposition could be established about government, it
would be one establishing some constant relation between the form of a
government and the character of the laws which it enforces. The
technical language of the English school of jurists is certainly of a
kind to encourage such a supposition. The entire body of law in force in
a country at any moment is regarded as existing solely by the fiat of
the governing power. There is no maxim more entirely in the spirit of
this jurisprudence than the following:--"The real legislator is not he
by whom the law was first ordained, but he by whose will it continues to
be law." The whole of the vast repertory of rules which make up the law
of England--the rules of practice in the courts, the local customs of a
county or a manor, the principles formulated by the sagacity of
generations of judges, equally with the statutes for the year, are
conceived of by the school of Austin as created by the will of the
sovereign and the two Houses of Parliament, or so much of them as would
now satisfy the definition of sovereignty. It would be out of place to
examine here the difficulties which embarrass this definition, but the
statement we have made carries on its face a demonstration of its own
falsity in fact. There is probably no government in the world of which
it could be said that it might change at will the substantive laws of
the country and still remain a government. However well it may suit the
purposes of analytical jurisprudence to define a law as a command set by
sovereign to subject, we must not forget that this is only a definition,
and that the assumption it rests upon is, to the student of society,
anything but a universal fact. From his point of view the cause of a
particular law is not one but many, and of the many the deliberate will
of a legislator may not be one. Sir Henry Maine has illustrated this
point by the case of the great tax-gathering empires of the east, in
which the absolute master of millions of men never dreams of making
anything in the nature of a law at all. This view is no doubt as strange
to the English statesman as to the English jurist. The most conspicuous
work of government in his view is that of parliamentary legislation. For
a large portion of the year the attention of the whole people is bent on
the operations of a body of men who are constantly engaged in making new
laws. It is natural, therefore, to think of law as a factitious thing,
made and unmade by the people who happen for the time being to
constitute parliament. It is forgotten how small a proportion the laws
actually devised by parliament are of the law actually prevailing in the
land. No European country has undergone so many changes in the form of
government as France. It is surprising how little effect these political
revolutions have had on the body of French law. The change from empire
to republic is not marked by greater legislative effects than the change
from a Conservative to a Liberal ministry in England would be.
These reflections should make us cautious in accepting any general
proposition about forms of government and the spirit of their laws. We
must remember, also, that the classification of governments according to
the numerical proportion between governors and governed supplies but a
small basis for generalization. What parallel can be drawn between a
small town, in which half the population are slaves, and every freeman
has a direct voice in the government, and a great modern state, in which
there is not a single slave, while freemen exercise their sovereign
powers at long intervals, and through the action of delegates and
representatives? Propositions as vague as those of Montesquieu may
indeed be asserted with more or less plausibility. But to take any
leading head of positive law, and to say that monarchies treat it in one
way, aristocracies and democracies in another, is a different matter.