INFLUENCE OF GOVERNMENT UPON THE LONGEVITY OF NATIONS.
Misgovernment defined--Athens, China, Spain, Germany, Italy, etc.--Is
not in itself a sufficient cause for the ruin of nations.
I am aware of the difficulty of the task I have undertaken in attempting
to establish a truth, which by many of my readers will be regarded as a
mere paradox. That good laws and good government exert a direct and
powerful influence upon the well-being and prosperity of a nation, is an
indisputable fact, of which I am fully convinced; but I think that
history proves that they are not absolute conditions of the existence of
a community; or, in other words, that their absence is not necessarily
productive of ruin. Nations, like individuals, are often preyed upon by
fearful diseases, which show no outward traces of the ravages within,
and which, though dangerous, are not always fatal. Indeed, if they
were, few communities would survive the first few years of their
formation, for it is precisely during that period that the government is
worst, the laws most imperfect, and least observed. But here the
comparison between the body political and the human organization ceases,
for while the latter dreads most the attack of disease during infancy,
the former easily overcomes it at that period. History furnishes
innumerable examples of successful contest on the part of young
communities with the most formidable and most devastating political
evils, of which none can be worse than ill-conceived laws, administered
in an oppressive or negligent manner.[48]
Let us first define what we understand by bad government. The varieties
of this evil are as various as nations, countries, and epochs. It were
impossible to enumerate them all. Yet, by classing them under four
principal categories, few varieties will be omitted.
A government is bad, when imposed by foreign influence. Athens
experienced this evil under the thirty tyrants. Yet she shook off the
odious yoke, and patriotism, far from expiring, gained renewed vigor by
the oppression.
A government is bad, when based upon absolute and unconditional
conquest. Almost the whole extent of France in the fourteenth century,
groaned under the dominion of England. The ordeal was passed, and the
nation rose from it more powerful and brilliant than before. China was
overrun and conquered by the Mongol hordes. They were ejected from its
territories, after having previously undergone a singular
transformation. It next fell into the hands of the Mantchoo conquerors,
but though they already count the years of their reign by centuries,
they are now at the eve of experiencing the same fate as their Mongol
predecessors.
A government is especially bad, when the principles upon which it was
based are disregarded or forgotten. This was the fate of the Spanish
monarchy. It was based upon the military spirit of the nation, and upon
its municipal freedom, and declined soon after these principles came to
be forgotten. It is impossible to imagine greater political
disorganization than this country represented. Nowhere was the authority
of the sovereign more nominal and despised; nowhere did the clergy lay
themselves more open to censure. Agriculture and industry, following the
same downward impulse, were also involved in the national marasmus. Yet
Spain, of whom so many despaired, at a moment when her star seemed
setting forever, gave the glorious example of heroic and successful
resistance to the arms of one who had hitherto experienced no check in
his career of conquest. Since that, the better spirit of the nation has
been roused, and there is, probably, at this time, no European state
with more promising prospects, and stronger vitality.[49]
A government is also very bad, when, by its institutions, it authorizes
an antagonism either between the supreme power and the nation, or among
the different classes of which it is composed. This was the case in the
Middle Ages, when the kings of France and England were at war with their
great vassals, and the peasants in perpetual feud with the lords. In
Germany, the first effects of the liberty of thought, were the civil
wars of the Hussites, Anabaptists, and other sectaries. Italy, at a
more remote period, was so distracted by the division of the supreme
authority for which emperor, pope, nobles, and municipalities contended,
that the masses, not knowing whom to obey, in many instances finished by
obeying neither. Yet in the midst of all these troubles, Italian
nationality did not perish. On the contrary, its civilization was at no
time more brilliant, its industry never more productive, its foreign
influence never greater.
If communities have survived such fearful political tempests, it cannot
well be said that national ruin is a necessary cause of misgovernment.
Besides, wise and happy reigns are few and far between, in the history
of every nation; and these few are not considered such by all.
Historians are not unanimous in their praise of Elizabeth, nor do they
all consider the reign of William and Mary as an epoch of prosperity for
England. Truly this science of statesmanship, the highest and most
complicated of all, is so disproportionate to the capacity of man,[50]
and so various are the opinions concerning it, that nations have early
and frequent opportunities of learning to accommodate themselves to
misgovernment, which, in its worst forms, is still preferable to
anarchy. It is a well-proved fact, which even a superficial study of
history will clearly demonstrate, that communities often perish under
the best government of a long series that came before.[51]
FOOTNOTES:
[48] It will be understood that I speak here, not of the political
existence of a centre of sovereignty, but of the life of an entire
nation, the prosperity of a civilization. Here is the place to apply the
definition given above, page 114.
[49] This assertion will appear paradoxical to those who are in the
habit of looking upon Spain as the type of hopeless national
degradation. But whoever studies the history of the last thirty years,
which is but a series of struggles to rise from this position, will
probably arrive at the same conclusions as the author. The revolution of
1820 redeems the character of the nation. "The Spanish Constitution"
became the watchword of the friends of constitutional liberty in the
South of Europe, and ere thirteen months had fully passed, it had become
the fundamental law of three other countries--Portugal, Naples, and
Sardinia. At the mere sound of those words, two kings had resigned their
crowns. These revolutions were not characterized by excesses. They were,
for the most part, accomplished peacefully, quietly, and orderly. They
were not the result of the temporary passions of an excited mob. The
most singular feature of these countries is that the lowest dregs of the
population are the most zealous adherents of absolutism. No, these
revolutions were the work of the best elements in the population, the
most intelligent classes, of people who knew what they wanted, and how
to get it. And then, when Spain had set that ever glorious example to
her neighbors, the great powers, with England at the head, concluded to
re-establish the former state of things. In those memorable congresses
of plenipotentiaries, the most influential was the representative of
England, the Duke of Wellington. And by his advice, or, at least, with
his sanction, an Austrian army entered Sardinia, and abolished the new
constitution; an Austrian army entered Naples and abolished the new
constitution; English vessels of war threatened Lisbon, and Portugal
abolished her new constitution; and finally a French army entered Spain,
and abolished the new constitution. So Naples and Portugal regained
their tyrants, and Spain her imbecile dynasty. For years the Spaniards
have tried to shake it off, and English influence alone has maintained
on a great nation's throne, a wretch that would have disgraced the
lowest walks of private life. But the day of Spanish liberty and Spanish
_independence_ will dawn, and perhaps already has dawned. The efforts of
the last Cortes were wisely directed, and their proceedings marked with
a manliness, a moderation, and a firmness that augur well for the future
weal of Spain.--H.
[50] Who is not reminded of Oxenstierna's famous saying to his son: "Cum
parva sapientiâ mundus gubernatur."--H.
[51] It is obvious that so long as the vitality of a nation remains
unimpaired, misgovernment can be but a temporary ill. The regenerative
principle will be at work to remove the evil and heal the wounds it has
inflicted; and though the remedy be sometimes violent, and throw the
state into fearful convulsions, it will seldom be found ineffectual. So
long as the spirit of liberty prevailed among the Romans, the
Tarquiniuses and Appiuses were as a straw before the storm of popular
indignation; but the death of Cæsar could but substitute a despot in the
stead of a mild and generous usurper. The first Brutus might save the
nation, because he was the expression of the national sentiment; the
second could not, because he was one man opposed to millions. It is a
common error to ascribe too much to individual exertions, and whimsical
philosophers have amused themselves to trace great events to petty
causes; but a deeper inquiry will demonstrate that the great
catastrophes which arrest our attention and form the landmarks of
history, are but the inevitable result of all the whole chain of
antecedent events. Julius Cæsar and Napoleon Bonaparte were, indeed,
especially gifted for their great destinies, but the same gifts could
not have raised them to their exalted positions at any other epoch than
the one in which each lived. Those petty causes are but the drop which
causes the measure to overflow, the pretext of the moment; or as the
small fissure in the dyke which produces the _crevasse_: the wall of
waters stood behind. No man can usurp supreme power, unless the
prevailing tendency of the nation favors it; no man can long persist in
hurrying a nation along in a course repulsive to it; and in this sense,
therefore, not with regard to its abstract justness, it is undoubtedly
true, that the voice of the nation is the voice of God. It is the
expression of what shall and must be.--H.