cherish possesses a bond of unity which grows the more powerful the more
its traditions become entwined with the national life. It is chiefly the
influence of the Orthodox Church that has made a people so low in the
scale of civilization as Russia was three centuries ago, to-day so
united, so strong through its union, and so submissive to its sovereign,
for it is not less as Head of the Church than as a secular prince that
the Czar commands the reverence of his subjects[103]. Accordingly
whenever a State Church can be set up which embraces practically the
whole of the people, and when it can be associated with the government
and the movements of public life, the cohesion of the nation and the
power of the government which controls the church will be increased. Of
the possibly pernicious influence of such arrangements on such a church
and on religion I do not speak; that is quite another matter. I am only
pointing out that a Constitution will gain strength, and a nation unity,
if the ecclesiastical arrangements can be linked to those of the secular
government, assuming the people to be all attached to the same form of
faith and worship.
-----
Footnote 103:
There are of course dissenting sects in Russia, some of them counting
many adherents, but they have seldom, and in no large measure,
affected the political unity of the nation.
-----
Similarly, in so far as those who frame a Constitution can make it
provide a system of education which will give the people common ideas
and common aspirations, in so far as they can persuade the inhabitants
to use a common language, if the country is one where more than one
tongue has been spoken, or even to enjoy and meet for the enjoyment of
common festivities and games, they will be availing themselves of
influences not to be despised. The Prussian Government founded the
University of Bonn immediately after the recovery of the left bank of
the Rhine from France in 1814, and the University of Strassburg
immediately after the recovery of Alsace in 1871, in both cases with the
view of benefiting these territories and of drawing them closer to the
rest of the country by the afflux of students from other parts of it, an
aim which was realized. Indeed the non-local character of the German
Universities, each serving the whole of the lands wherein the German
tongue was spoken, powerfully contributed to intensify the sentiment of
a common German nationality throughout the two centuries (1648 to 1870)
during which Germany had virtually ceased to be a State. The Olympian,
Pythian, Isthmian, and Nemean games had no contemptible effect in
fostering the sentiment of a common national unity, as against the
barbarians, among the Greeks, who had never enjoyed and did not desire
political union. The admission of the Macedonian king to strive at the
Olympian games was a political event of high significance, for it
enabled his descendants Philip and Alexander the Great to claim to
belong to the Hellenic race.
Some of these various engines for promoting the cohesion of a nation may
seem to lie rather in the sphere of governmental action than in that of
a Constitution. Commercial freedom, however, as well as religious
compulsion on the one hand, or religious freedom on the other hand, have
been provided for by some Rigid Constitutions. So too has been the use
of certain languages. Where the Constitution is a Flexible one, the
question whether the laws regulating such matters are to be deemed a
part of the Constitution depends entirely on the practical importance
ascribed to them, since in such a Constitution there is no distinction
of form between fundamental and other provisions.
IV. HOW CONSTITUTIONS MAY REDUCE OR REGULATE THE CENTRIFUGAL FORCES.
Now let us see what Constitutions may effect in the other of the two
above specified ways, viz. what they may do to meet and grapple with,
and if possible disarm, the tendencies which make for disruption, _i.e._
the forces which, while drawing men together in minor groups within the
State, are as regards the State itself centrifugal forces.
What are these tendencies? History tells us that the chief among them
are race feeling, resentment for past injuries, grievances in respect of
real or supposed ill-treatment in matters of industry, or of trade, or
of education, or of language, or of religion, where these grievances or
any of them press on a part only of the population. If they press on the
whole population, or on the humbler classes as a whole, they are
perturbing, but not necessarily nor even probably disruptive, _i.e._
they threaten disaffection or a general revolt against the government,
rather than the severance of a particular province or the secession of a
particular section of the people. It is only with grievances which
affect one section or district, and make it desire an independence to be
obtained by separation, that we have here to deal. There must be in
every such case either a sentiment of dislike on the part of the
disaffected section towards the rest of the nation, or else a belief
that great material advantages will be obtained by separation; and the
latter of these causes is almost sure to produce the former. When two or
more of these tendencies combine in any given case, so much the stronger
does the desire for separation become.
A few illustrations will explain better than a long abstract statement
what I desire to convey. In the ancient world the thing which we call
National Sentiment was seldom a powerful factor, perhaps because the
more advanced peoples were divided into small city communities, while
the backward peoples, living under large empires like the Persian or
that of the Seleucid kings, were allowed to retain their own customs and
religion, and often their native princes, feeling the weight of
subjection only in having to pay tribute and send a contingent in war.
The only nations that gave much trouble to the Achaemenid kings of
Persia were the Egyptians, a race very peculiar and very conceited, and
the Greeks of Asia Minor. Under the Roman Empire there were wonderfully
few national revolts, probably because the imperial government pressed
equally upon all, conceded rights of citizenship pretty freely, and gave
the subjects in exchange for their own national sentiment the higher
pride of belonging to the majestic World State which had engulfed them.
The chief source of disruptive attempts lay in the monotheistic
religions. The Jews made more than one obviously hopeless rebellion.
When Christianity became the religion of the Empire, schisms and
heresies gave trouble. Africa was convulsed by the Donatist movement.
Egypt was disaffected owing to Monophysitism, and no doubt gave herself
the more readily to the Arab conquerors in respect of this disaffection.
The persecuted Montanist sectaries of Phrygia revolted in the sixth
century. It was the religious persecution of the Fire-worshipping
Sassanid kings that provoked their Armenian vassals to rebellion[104].
So in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the sentiment of
nationality having not yet reached its full strength, it was chiefly by
religious divisions that the unity of States was threatened. This was
what lost the Dutch Netherlands to Spain. This was what split up the
Romano-Germanic Empire, and made it, after the Thirty Years’ War, the
mere shadow of a State. It contributed to keep the Highlanders distinct
from the Lowland population of Scotland after the Reformation (though
other causes also were at work), and it was of course a still more
potent force in Ireland. In our own time it nearly rent Switzerland in
two in the war of the Sonderbund. Conversely, any one who notices how
little the unity of the nation has been threatened in Spain, a country
where the populations and dialects of the different provinces still
present striking contrasts, and are accompanied by diversities of
character, will be disposed to attribute this fact not merely to the
absence of natural boundaries between the provinces, but also to the
remarkable religious unity which the nation has always preserved.
-----
Footnote 104:
The dualistic Zoroastrianism of Persia seems to have taken many of the
characteristics of a monotheistic religion.
-----
In our own time, while religion is a less energetic factor, what is
called national sentiment has begun to threaten loosely compacted
States. It compelled the transformation in 1868 of the so-called
Austrian Empire into the present Dual Monarchy. It shakes the Austrian
half of that monarchy now, so sharp is the antagonism between the Czechs
of Bohemia and the other Slavic populations of Cis-Leithania and the
Germans of the Western and South-Western Crown Lands. Iceland differs
from Denmark, with which she has been politically united since 1380 (or
1397), in language, in character, and in habits, and she has therefore
struggled for autonomy, a large measure of which she obtained in 1874.
She has had some economic grievances, but sentiment has been an even
stronger element in her discontent, which, however, stopped short of a
wish to separate, as she feels herself too small to stand alone. A
strong party in Norway has desired to be divorced from Sweden, to which
she was unnaturally yoked in 1814 by the Congress of Vienna, not merely
in respect of specific complaints regarding the Foreign Office and the
consular service, but also because her people, though Lutherans like the
Swedes, are far more democratic in ideas and temper than the latter, and
because their high national pride makes them unwilling to appear to be
in any way subordinate to the sister kingdom. The case of Poland is a
simple one, because she has the memory of an independent kingdom
destroyed by force and fraud, and is different in religion, as well as
in speech, from the Russians who have annexed her. Had the peasant
population of the country shared the patriotism of the upper and middle
classes, Poland might possibly have succeeded in shaking off the yoke.
Even now her disaffection is a source of weakness to Russia. In Ireland
several currents of discontent have joined to produce the passion and
prolong the struggle for autonomy, or, in a very few of the more ardent
minds, for independence. There is the diversity of faith, which remains,
though that of language has almost vanished, a diversity embittered by
recollections of persecution. There are economic grievances, the memory
of the destruction of an industry in the last century, the more urgent
resentment at the exactions of landlords, and the peasants’ desire to
have a grip of the soil. There is an incompatibility of character and
temperament, due partly to historical conditions, partly to the old
antagonism of Celt and Teuton. All these have gone to create a passion
among the people to be recognized as a nation controlling its own
affairs, a passion which is the same in essence among those who would be
content with the possession of a subordinate legislature, and those, now
fewer than formerly, who would like to go further.
If the sources of the centrifugal force in Ireland are easily
explicable, and indeed so strong that had this force acted upon the
whole nation instead of only upon a majority which consists mainly of
the poorer and weaker part of the population, it would have before now
prevailed, those which induced the secession of the Southern States of
America are much less evident. Here there was no religious factor, nor
any revengeful feeling, nor any sense of an unjust or oppressive
control. The South had obtained more than its fair share of power and
influence in the councils of the Union. But the planters had persuaded
themselves that property in slaves and the whole slave-holding system
were threatened by the growing strength in the Northern and Western
States of an aversion to slavery, with a determination to check its
extension; and the irritation of feeling which a long struggle had
engendered, coupled with a growing dissimilarity of habits and ideas,
enabled the hot-headed oligarchy which controlled the Southern
population to drive it into separation. Possibly these causes would not
have been strong enough to provoke an armed conflict in a unified
country. It was the existence of State Governments, and the conviction
that the rights of the States, supposed to be guaranteed by the
Constitution, furnished a legal basis for secession, that spurred the
South into its desperate venture.
What then can the framing, or the manipulation in working, of a
Constitution do to reduce the power of such disruptive tendencies as we
have been considering?
They may of course be resisted by the employment of physical force. If a
government is sufficiently strong and resolute, and is supported by the
great majority of the nation, it may crush down the discontent of a
province or a section. It is however an axiom in free governments, and
ought to be an axiom in all governments, that physical force should
never be used when peaceful means will suffice. Coercion usually seems
easier, and naturally commends itself to the dull, the impatient, and
the violent, to imperious princes, arrogant ministers, and excited
majorities. But coercion, besides being a fatal expedient if it fails,
is often a bad expedient when it appears to succeed, for it leaves
smouldering discontent behind among the vanquished, and it is apt to
inflict a moral injury upon the victors, perhaps to warp for the future
their frame of government and to lower their political traditions.
Accordingly whenever a Constitution can be so drawn and worked as to
give the disjunctive tendencies just so much recognition as may disarm
their violence, and bring all sections of the nation and all parts of
the country to acquiesce in unity under one government, this course is
to be preferred. It may sometimes fail. Every expedient may fail. But it
has generally more promise of ultimate success than force has, for in a
free country force is not a remedy, but a confession of past failures
and a postponement of dangers likely to recur.
Among the methods which a Constitution may employ for the purpose
indicated, the following find a place.
It may enact certain securities against oppression, whether by the
executive or by the legislature, giving to such securities a specially
solemn sanction, and thus reassuring the minds of the citizens. This was
done by Magna Charta, by the Petition of Right, and again by the
American Federal and State Constitutions, and by the French Declaration
of the Rights of Man of 1789. It is usually done for the protection of
all subjects or citizens alike, but of course the benefit of such a
protection enures with special value for any section of the population,
or any province or group of provinces, likely to be specially exposed at
any given time to the abuses of power, because they are a minority whom
the Government, or the majority, may view with disfavour.
A Constitution may provide means for varying the general institutions or
laws of the State in such a way as to exempt particular parts of the
State from any legislation that might be opposed to their special
interests or feelings. The retention of Scotland as a distinct kingdom
after the union of the crowns in 1603, and as a distinct part of the
United Kingdom after the Treaty and Act of Union in 1707, has had most
beneficial effects in enabling Scotland to be treated separately where
it is fitting she should be. Her faith, her laws and judicature, her
system of local government, have remained almost intact, to the
satisfaction of her people, and with no injury to the cohesion of the
united monarchy[105]. Similarly the maintenance of Finland as a separate
Grand Duchy, with her own tongue, religion, laws and privileges,
guaranteed by the coronation oath of the Czar, has made the Finns loyal
and contented subjects, and has in no wise detracted from the strength
of Russia[106]. The cases of Hungary as towards the Austrian Monarchy,
and of Croatia as towards Hungary, are also in point.
-----
Footnote 105:
Though it must be admitted that the passing of legislation disapproved
by the majority of Scotch representatives, or the omission to pass
legislation which they demand, often elicits murmurs.
Footnote 106:
This wise policy seems unfortunately to be now (1900) on the point of
being abandoned, with results which every lover of freedom and
progress must regret.
-----
It may provide for relegating certain classes of affairs to local
legislatures, such as those of Croatia or Finland, areas which are not
only, like Scotland, political divisions retaining their old laws, but
also, unlike Scotland since the Union, communities enjoying local
autonomy. All Federations are managed on this system; and one can see in
the case of Canada the advantages it secures, for the Roman Catholics of
Quebec are able to have legislation diverse from that which the
Protestant majority desires in the other provinces of the Dominion.
It may assign certain administrative and, within limits, certain
legislative functions also to the inhabitants of minor local areas, such
as counties, empowering them to regulate their local affairs in their
own way. Provisions of this nature are not usually embodied in European
constitutional instruments. They are, however, to be found in the State
Constitutions of the American States. And they are really, in substance,
parts of any well-framed Constitution, for nothing contributes more to
the smooth working of a central government and to the satisfaction of
the people under it, than the habit of leaving to comparatively small
local communities the settlement of as many questions as possible. The
practice of local self-government and the love for it are not a
centrifugal force, but rather tend to ease off any friction that may
exist by giving harmless scope for independent action, and thus
producing local contentment. It is only where there exist grievances
fostering disruptive sentiments that the existence of local bodies with
a pretty large sphere of activity need excite disquiet.
It may exclude certain matters altogether from the competence of the
central government, and thereby keep them out of the range of
controversy. This principle has been wisely followed in the American and
Canadian and Swiss Federal Constitutions as regards religion in its
relations to the State. In some federations it has been similarly found
desirable to disable the several legislatures from dealing with topics
likely to produce dissensions among the members of the federation, or
otherwise to affect the cohesion of the nation. Thus in the United
States no State legislature can impose any duties on goods brought from
one State to another, nor in any wise interfere with commerce between
the States.
By these means a Constitution may prevent the disruptive forces in a
country from threatening the stability of the central government or the
unity of the State. To remove part of the material on which they might
work is to weaken their working, and to divert into safe channels the
political activity they would evoke. Although a Flexible Constitution
may accomplish this, if those who work it respect certain fundamental
principles and treat their querulous minorities in a conciliatory
spirit, the work is best done, and usually has been done, by a Rigid
Constitution, because this latter provides a guarantee to minorities, or
to subdivisions of the country, stronger than they can have under an
omnipotent legislature. In fact the existence of the grounds of
contention and possibilities of disruption we have been considering is
among the chief causes which have called Federal Governments and Rigid
Constitutions into being.
One further observation should be made before quitting this part of the
subject. Racial differences and animosities, which have played a large
part in threatening the unity of States, are usually dangerous only when
the unfriendly races occupy different parts of the country. If they live
intermixed, in tolerably equal numbers, and if in addition they are not
of different religions, and speak the same tongue, the antagonism will
disappear in a generation or two by social intercourse and especially by
intermarriage. When the right of full legal intermarriage had been
established, the fusion of the patricians and the plebs at Rome began.
So the Northmen in the tenth and eleventh centuries, so the
Norman-French in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, became blent with
the English. The Magyars and Saxons, though generally occupying
different parts of the country, and to some extent retaining each their
own speech, have in Transylvania now begun to melt into one. It is the
fact that they not only speak a different tongue but also profess a
different faith that keeps the Rumans of that province apart from both
Saxons and Magyars; and even these differences might in time cease to
operate did not these Rumans look across the mountains to a large Ruman
State into which they would gladly be absorbed. But in one set of cases
no fusion is possible; and this set of cases forms the despair of the
statesman. It presents a problem which no Constitution has solved. It is
the juxtaposition on the same soil of races of different colour.
This is a recent phenomenon in history. In the ancient world, almost all
the barbarous tribes whom Rome subdued and brought into her Empire were
sufficiently near the Italians and Hellenized Asiatics in physical
characteristics for intermarriage to go on freely. The Carthaginians,
who to be sure were not numerous, seem to have soon lost their
distinctive nationality: and that the Jews remained distinct was their
own doing, not that of the conquerors[107]. Even as towards Egyptians
and Numidians, who were certainly dark, one hears of little repulsion.
Besides, both races were intelligent, and the former in their way highly
civilized. With the African slave trade a new and a dolorous chapter in
history opens. In our own time it is the settlement of Europeans in
countries where the native holds his ground against the settler, as the
Kafir does in South Africa, and the aboriginal Peruvians and Araucanians
do in Western South America, or it is the influx of coloured immigrants,
like that of the Chinese in Western America and the Hawaiian Isles, that
raises, or threatens to raise in the future, this problem in an acute
form. A community in which there exist two or more race-elements
physically contrasted and socially unsusceptible of amalgamation cannot
grow into a really united State. If the coloured people are excluded
from political rights, there is created a source of weakness, possibly
of danger. If they are admitted, there is admitted a class who cannot
fully share the political life of the more civilized and probably
smaller element, who will not be consoled by political equality for
social disparagement, and who may lower the standard of politics by
their incompetence or by their liability to corruption. If the people of
colour are dispersed over the country among the Europeans, instead of
dwelling in masses by themselves, they may not act as a centrifugal
force, threatening secession, but they are a serious hindrance to the
working of any form of popular government that has been hitherto
devised, for they divide the population, they complicate political
issues, they prevent the growth of a genuinely national opinion.
-----
Footnote 107:
In two respects the Jews under the early Empire would seem to have
been above the average level of the civilized subjects of Rome. There
was apparently very little slavery among them; and there must have
been an exceptionally large proportion of persons able to read.
-----