"When they say the King owes his crown to the choice of his people,
they tell us that they mean to say no more than that some of the
King's predecessors have been called to the throne by some sort of
choice. Thus they hope to render their proposition safe by rendering
it nugatory." (Burke, _Reflections on French Revolution_.)
1. The great question about civil power is, not whence it first came
in remote antiquity, but whence it is now derived and flows
continually as from its source, whether from the free consent of
subjects so long as that lasts, or whether it obtains independently of
their consent. Can subjects overthrow the ruler, or alter the polity
itself, as often as they have a mind so to do? or has the ruler a
right to his position even against the will of his people? A parallel
question is, can a province annexed to an empire secede when it
chooses, as South Carolina and other Confederates once attempted
secession from the American Union?
2. These questions raise two totally different issues, which must be
first carefully distinguished and then severally answered. The first
point at issue is whether subjects may dethrone their ruler, a people
alter their polity, or a province secede from an empire, _at
discretion_. The second point is, whether the same may be done _under
pressure of dire injustice_. One little matter of phraseology must be
rectified before an answer is returned to this first point. The
question whether _subjects_ may dethrone their _ruler_ at discretion,
from the terms in which it is drawn, can lead to none but a negative
answer. From the fact that they are subjects, and this man, or this
body of men, their ruler, their allegiance cannot be wholly
discretionary. That sovereign is a mere man of straw, there is no soul
and substance of sovereign power in him, who may be knocked down and
carted away for rubbish, any moment his so-called subjects please.
Rousseau is quite clear on this point. The true debateable form of the
question is, whether the people, being themselves sovereign, can
remove at will the official persons who actually administer the State;
whether they can change the polity, and whether the inhabitants of a
province can secede. The answer now is simple: all depends upon the
polity of the particular country where the case comes for discussion.
And if so it be that the constitution makes no provision one way or
another, any dispute that may occur must be settled by amicable
arrangement among the parties concerned: if they cannot amicably
agree, they must fight. To save this last eventuality, it were well
that any claim which the people in any country may have to remove
princes and statesmen from office, to alter the polity, or to divide
the empire, should be made matter of the clearest understanding and
most express and unambiguous stipulation. Even so, such a provision
must be generally viewed with disfavour by the political philosopher,
seeing how it tends to the weakening and undermining of government;
whereas the same considerations that make out government to be at all
a boon and a necessity to human nature, argue incapacity and
instability in the governing power to be a deplorable evil. We must
add, that where the people keep in their hands any power to alter the
polity, or transfer the administration to other hands, there they hold
part at least of the sovereignty; and the alteration or transference
is effected by them, not as subjects, but as partial ruler.
3. The second point we raised was, whether a dethronement, or an
alteration of polity, or a secession, may be brought about, not indeed
at discretion for any cause, but under pressure of dire injustice. It
comes to this: May the civil power be resisted when it does grievous
wrong? Let us begin our reply with another question: May children
strike their parents? No. Not even in self-defence? when the parent is
going about to do the child some grievous bodily hurt? That is an
unpleasant question, but the answer is plain. We can make no
exceptions to the rule of self-defence. Self-defence in extreme cases
may raise the arm of a child against its parent: in a similar
extremity it may set a people in conflict with their civil ruler.
Still we regard with horror the idea of striking a parent, and speak
of it generally as a thing never to be done: so should we regard and
speak of rebellion. We should not parade it before men's eyes as a
deed to be contemplated, admired, and readily put in execution. "I
confess to you, Sir," writes Burke, "I never liked this continual talk
of resistance and revolution, or the practice of making the extreme
medicine of the constitution its daily bread."
4. The conditions under which the civil authority may be withstood in
self-defence, are fairly stated in the _Dublin Review_ for April,
1865, p. 292. We must premise, that such a course of self-defence once
publicly entered upon is like a rock rolled over the brow of a steep
mountain: down it rolls and rebounds from point to point, gathering
momentum in the descent, till in the end the ruler, once defied, has
to be dethroned, the polity subverted, the empire rent, or they who
made the resistance must perish.
"Resistance is lawful:--(1) When a government has become substantially
and habitually tyrannical, and that is when it has lost sight of the
common good, and pursues its own selfish objects to the manifest
detriment of its subjects, especially where their religious interests
are concerned. (2) When all legal and pacific means have been tried in
vain to recall the ruler to a sense of his duty. (3) When there is a
reasonable probability that resistance will be successful, and not
entail greater evils than it seeks to remove. (4) When the judgment
formed as to the badness of the government, and the prudence of
resistance thereto, is not the opinion only of private persons or of a
mere party: but is that of the larger and better portion of the
people, so that it may morally be considered as the judgment of the
community as a whole."
5. Side by side with this we will set the teaching of Leo XIII.,
Encyclical, _Quod Apostolici_.
"If ever it happens that civil power is wielded by rulers recklessly
and beyond all bounds, the doctrine of the Catholic Church does not
allow of insurgents rising up against them _by independent action
(proprio marte)_, lest the tranquillity of order be more and more
disturbed, or society receive greater injury thereby: and when things
are come to such a pass that _there appears no other ray or hope of
preservation_, the same authority teaches that a remedy must be sought
in the merits of Christian patience and in earnest prayers to God."
The words we have italicized seem to point to conditions (4) and (3)
respectively, as laid down by the writer in the _Dublin Review_.
For an instance of a king dethroned, not _proprio marte_, but with
every appearance at least of an act of the whole nation, see the
dethronement of Edward II., as related by Walsingham, _Historia
Anglicana_, I., pp. 186, 187, Rolls Series.
6. "We save ourselves the more virulent and destructive diseases of
revolution, sedition, and civil war, by submitting to the milder type
of a change of ministry." (_Times_, April 7, 1880.)
7. It is not monarchical governments alone that can ever be resisted
lawfully: but what is sauce for the king's goose is sauce also for the
people's gander. There is no special sanctity attaching to democracy.
It might seem that, since resistance requires to be justified by the
approval of "the larger and better portion of the people" (n. 4,
condition [4]) no just resistance can ever be offered to the will of
the democratic majority. But the said majority may be in divers ways
coerced and cajoled, a mere packed majority, while the malcontents may
be, if not "the larger," clearly "the better" portion of the
community. (s. iv., n. 5, p. 321.)
_Readings_.--St. Thos., _De Regimine Principum_, i., 6; 2a 2æ, q. 42,
art. 2; 2a 2æ, q, 69, art. 4, in corp.; Locke, _Of Civil Government_,
nn. 200, 201, 203, 204, 208, 209, 223, 224, 225, 227, 229, 230, 232.