1. "All things are double, one against another." (Ecclus. xlii. 25.)
The son of Sirach may have had in view the human body as divisible by
a vertical median line into two symmetrical halves. But in each of the
halves thus made, the same organ or limb is never repeated twice in
exact likeness, nor do any two parts render exactly the same service.
This variety of organs in the bodies of the higher animals is called
_differentiation_. As we descend in the animal series we find less and
less of differentiation, till we reach the lowest types, which are
little more than a mere bag, whence their name of Ascidians. In that
State which has London for its capital city, we behold one of the
highest types of political existence. Sovereignty is there divided, as
usual in modern States, into three branches, Legislative, Judicial,
and Executive. Each of these branches is shared among many persons in
various modes and degrees, so that in practice it is not easy to
enumerate and specify the holders of sovereignty, nor to characterize
so complex a polity. At the other end of the scale we may represent to
ourselves 250 "squatters" forming an independent State in the far West
of America. They are a pure democracy, and the sovereignty belongs to
them all jointly. Is a man to be tried for his life? The remaining 249
are his judges. Is a tax to be levied on ardent spirits? The 250 vote
it. Is there a call to arms? The 250 marshal themselves to war. That
clearly is the condition of minimum differentiation, where one citizen
is in all political points the exact counterpart of all the rest. Of
all polities it is the most _simple and elementary_ possible. And so
far forth as the natural order of evolution in polities, as in all
other things, is from simple to compound, this is also the _original_
polity. It is also the _residuary_ polity, that, namely, which comes
to be, when all other government in the State vanishes. Thus, if the
Powder Plot had succeeded, and King James I., with the royal family,
Lords and Commons, with the judges and chief officers of the
Executive, had all perished together, the sovereign authority in
England would have devolved upon the nation as a whole.
2. Certain monarchical writers shrink from the recognition of pure
democracy as either the first or the last term of the series of
polities. They do not recognize it as a polity at all. When there is
no governing body distinct from the mass of people at large, a
government must be formed, they say, by popular suffrage. Meanwhile,
according to them, the sovereign power rests not with the body of
electors: either it is not yet created, or it has lapsed: but as soon
as the election is made, they see sovereignty breaking forth like the
sun rising, in the person, single or composite, who is the object of
the people's choice. This would be the correct view of the matter, if
no choice were left to the electors, but they were obliged to
acquiesce in some prearranged polity, as a Monarchy, or a Council of
Ten, and could do nothing more than designate the Monarch or the
Council. Under such a restriction the Cardinals elect the Pope. But
our electors can institute any polity they see fit. They are a
Constituent Assembly. They may fix upon a monarchy or a republic, two
or one legislative chambers, a wide or a narrow franchise, home rule
or centralization: or they may erect a Provisional Government for five
years with another appeal to the people at the end of that term. More
than that. They could impose a protective duty upon corn, or endow the
Roman Catholic religion, making such protection or endowment a
fundamental law (s. iv., n. 8, p. 323), and withholding from the
government, which they proceed to set up, the power of meddling with
that law. They are then not only a Constituent but likewise a
Legislative Assembly. But this power of making laws and moulding the
future constitution of the State, what else is it but sovereign power,
and indeed the very highest manifestation of sovereignty?
3. So far we follow Suarez in his controversy with James I. The
_natural_ order of evolution certainly is, that the State should be
conceived in pure democracy, and thence develop into other polities.
But in speaking as though the natural order had always been the
_actual_ order, Suarez seems to have been betrayed by the ardour of
controversy into the use of incorrect expressions. It is true in the
abstract, as he says, that "no natural reason can be alleged why
sovereignty should be fixed upon one person, or one set of persons,
rather than upon another, short of the whole community." This is true,
inasmuch as in the abstract we view men as men, in which specific
character they are all equal. But in the concrete and real life, the
primeval citizens who start a commonwealth are rarely alike and equal,
as the founders of the American Republic at the separation from Great
Britain pretty well were, but some men, or some order of men, will so
much excel the rest in ability, position, or possessions, that the
rest have really no choice but to acquiesce in those gifted hands
holding the sovereignty.
_Readings_.--Suarez, _De Legibus_, III., iii., 6; _ib._, III., iv.,
nn. 2, 3, 4; _Defensio Fidei_, III., ii., nn. 7, 8, 9; Ar., _Pol._,
III., xiv., 12; _ib._, VIII., x., nn. 7, 8; _The Month_ for July,
1886, pp. 342-345.