an intense light on the working of a Presidential government at the
time when government is most important--is but a vast continuous
commentary on these reflections. It would, indeed, be absurd to press
against Presidential government AS SUCH the singular defect by which
Vice-President Johnson has become President--by which a man elected to
a sinecure is fixed in what is for the moment the most important
administrative part in the political world. This defect, though most
characteristic of the expectations[4] of the framers of the
Constitution and of its working, is but an accident of this particular
case of Presidential government, and no necessary ingredient in that
government itself. But the first election of Mr. Lincoln is liable to
no such objection. It was a characteristic instance of the natural
working of such a government upon a great occasion. And what was that
working? It may be summed up--it was government by an UNKNOWN QUANTITY.
Hardly any one in America had any living idea what Mr. Lincoln was
like, or any definite notion what he would do. The leading statesmen
under the system of Cabinet government are not only household words,
but household IDEAS. A conception, not, perhaps, in all respects a true
but a most vivid conception of what Mr. Gladstone is like, or what Lord
Palmerston is like, runs through society. We have simply no notion what
it would be to be left with the visible sovereignty in the hands of an
unknown man. The notion of employing a man of unknown smallness at a
crisis of unknown greatness is to our minds simply ludicrous. Mr.
Lincoln, it is true, happened to be a man, if not of eminent ability,
yet of eminent justness. There was an inner depth of Puritan nature
which came out under suffering, and was very attractive. But success in
a lottery is no argument for lotteries. What were the chances against a
person of Lincoln's antecedents, elected as he was, proving to be what
he was? Such an incident is, however, natural to a Presidential
government. The President is elected by processes which forbid the
election of known men, except at peculiar conjunctures, and in moments
when public opinion is excited and despotic; and consequently if a
crisis comes upon us soon after he is elected, inevitably we have
government by an unknown quantity--the superintendence of that crisis
by what our great satirist would have called "Statesman X". Even in
quiet times, government by a President, is, for the several various
reasons which have been stated, inferior to government by a Cabinet;
but the difficulty of quiet times is nothing as compared with the
difficulty of unquiet times. The comparative deficiencies of the
regular, common operation of a Presidential government are far less
than the comparative deficiencies in time of sudden trouble--the want
of elasticity, the impossibility of a dictatorship, the total absence
of a REVOLUTIONARY RESERVE. This contrast explains why the
characteristic quality of Cabinet Governments--the fusion of the
executive power with the legislative power--is of such cardinal
importance. I shall proceed to show under what form and with what
adjuncts it exists in England.
[4] The framers of the Constitution expected that the vice-president
would be elected by the Electoral College as the second wisest man in
the country. The vice-presidentship being a sinecure, a second-rate man
agreeable to the wire-pullers is always smuggled in. The chance of
succession to the presidentship is too distant to be thought of.
NO. III.
THE MONARCHY.
I.
The use of the Queen, in a dignified capacity, is incalculable. Without
her in England, the present English Government would fail and pass
away. Most people when they read that the Queen walked on the slopes at
Windsor--that the Prince of Wales went to the Derby--have imagined that
too much thought and prominence were given to little things. But they
have been in error; and it is nice to trace how the actions of a
retired widow and an unemployed youth become of such importance.
The best reason why Monarchy is a strong government is, that it is an
intelligible government. The mass of mankind understand it, and they
hardly anywhere in the world understand any other. It is often said
that men are ruled by their imaginations; but it would be truer to say
they are governed by the weakness of their imaginations. The nature of
a constitution, the action of an assembly, the play of parties, the
unseen formation of a guiding opinion, are complex facts, difficult to
know and easy to mistake. But the action of a single will, the fiat of
a single mind, are easy ideas: anybody can make them out, and no one
can ever forget them. When you put before the mass of mankind the
question, "Will you be governed by a king, or will you be governed by a
constitution?" the inquiry comes out thus--"Will you be governed in a
way you understand, or will you be governed in a way you do not
understand?" The issue was put to the French people; they were asked,
"Will you be governed by Louis Napoleon, or will you be governed by an
assembly?" The French people said, "We will be governed by the one man
we can imagine, and not by the many people we cannot imagine".
The best mode of comprehending the nature of the two Governments, is to
look at a country in which the two have within a comparatively short
space of years succeeded each other.
"The political condition," says Mr. Grote, "which Grecian legend
everywhere presents to us, is in its principal features strikingly
different from that which had become universally prevalent among the
Greeks in the time of the Peloponnesian War. Historical oligarchy, as
well as democracy, agreed in requiring a certain established system of
government, comprising the three elements of specialised functions,
temporary functionaries, and ultimate responsibility (under some forms
or other) to the mass of qualified citizens--either a Senate or an
Ecclesia, or both. There were, of course, many and capital distinctions
between one Government and another, in respect to the qualification of
the citizen, the attributes and efficiency of the general assembly, the
admissibility to power, etc.; and men might often be dissatisfied with
the way in which these questions were determined in their own city. But
in the mind of every man, some determining rule or system--something
like what in modern times is called a CONSTITUTION--was indispensable
to any Government entitled to be called legitimate, or capable of
creating in the mind of a Greek a feeling of moral obligation to obey
it. The functionaries who exercise authority under it might be more or
less competent or popular; but his personal feelings towards them were
commonly lost in his attachment or aversion to the general system. If
any energetic man could by audacity or craft break down the
Constitution, and render himself permanent ruler according to his own
will and pleasure, even though he might govern well, he could never
inspire the people with any sentiment of duty towards him: his sceptre
was illegitimate from the beginning, and even the taking of his life,
far from being interdicted by that moral feeling which condemned the
shedding of blood in other cases, was considered meritorious: he could
not even be mentioned in the language except by a name (_tyrannos_,
despot) which branded him as an object of mingled fear and dislike.
"If we carry our eyes back from historical to legendary Greece, we find
a picture the reverse of what has been here sketched. We discern a
government in which there is little or no scheme or system, still less
any idea of responsibility to the governed, but in which the mainspring
of obedience on the part of the people consists in their personal
feeling and reverence towards the chief. We remark, first and foremost,
the King; next, a limited number of subordinate kings or chiefs;
afterwards, the mass of armed freemen, husbandmen, artisans,
freebooters, &c.; lowest of all, the free labourers for hire and the
bought slaves. The King is not distinguished by any broad, or
impassable boundary from the other chiefs, to each of whom the title
Basileus is applicable as well as to himself: his supremacy has been
inherited from his ancestors, and passes by inheritance, as a general
rule, to his eldest son, having been conferred upon the family as a
privilege by the favour of Zeus. In war, he is the leader, foremost in
personal prowess, and directing all military movements; in peace, he is
the general protector of the injured and oppressed; he offers up
moreover those public prayers and sacrifices which are intended to
obtain for the whole people the favour of the gods. An ample domain is
assigned to him as an appurtenance of his lofty position, and the
produce of his fields and his cattle is consecrated in part to an
abundant, though rude hospitality. Moreover he receives frequent
presents, to avert his enmity, to conciliate his favour, or to buy off
his exactions; and when plunder is taken from the enemy, a large
previous share, comprising probably the most alluring female captive,
is reserved for him apart from the general distribution.
"Such is the position of the King in the heroic times of Greece--the
only person (if we except the herald, and priests, each both special
and subordinate) who is then presented to us as clothed with any
individual authority--the person by whom all the executive functions,
then few in number, which the society requires, are either performed or
directed. His personal ascendancy--derived from Divine countenance
bestowed both upon himself individually and upon his race, and probably
from accredited Divine descent--is the salient feature in the picture:
the people hearken to his voice, embrace his propositions, and obey his
orders: not merely resistance, but even criticism upon his acts, is
generally exhibited in an odious point of view, and is indeed never
heard of except from some one or more of the subordinate princes."
The characteristic of the English Monarchy is that it retains the
feelings by which the heroic kings governed their rude age, and has
added the feelings by which the Constitutions of later Greece ruled in
more refined ages. We are a more mixed people than the Athenians, or
probably than any political Greeks. We have progressed more unequally.
The slaves in ancient times were a separate order; not ruled by the
same laws, or thoughts, as other men. It was not necessary to think of
them in making a constitution: it was not necessary to improve them in
order to make a constitution possible. The Greek legislator had not to
combine in his polity men like the labourers of Somersetshire, and men
like Mr. Grote. He had not to deal with a community in which primitive
barbarism lay as a recognised basis to acquired civilisation. WE HAVE.
We have no slaves to keep down by special terrors and independent
legislation. But we have whole classes unable to comprehend the idea of
a constitution--unable to feel the least attachment to impersonal laws.
Most do indeed vaguely know that there are some other institutions
besides the Queen, and some rules by which she governs. But a vast
number like their minds to dwell more upon her than upon anything else,
and therefore she is inestimable. A republic has only difficult ideas
in government; a Constitutional Monarchy has an easy idea too; it has a
comprehensible element for the vacant many, as well as complex laws and
notions for the inquiring few.
A FAMILY on the throne is an interesting idea also. It brings down the
pride of sovereignty to the level of petty life. No feeling could seem
more childish than the enthusiasm of the English at the marriage of the
Prince of Wales. They treated as a great political event, what, looked
at as a matter of pure business, was very small indeed. But no feeling
could be more like common human nature as it is, and as it is likely to
be. The women--one half the human race at least--care fifty times more
for a marriage than a ministry. All but a few cynics like to see a
pretty novel touching for a moment the dry scenes of the grave world. A
princely marriage is the brilliant edition of a universal fact, and, as
such, it rivets mankind. We smile at the Court Circular; but remember
how many people read the Court Circular! Its use is not in what it
says, but in those to whom it speaks. They say that the Americans were
more pleased at the Queen's letter to Mrs. Lincoln, than at any act of
the English Government. It was a spontaneous act of intelligible
feeling in the midst of confused and tiresome business. Just so a royal
family sweetens politics by the seasonable addition of nice and pretty
events. It introduces irrelevant facts into the business of government,
but they are facts which speak to "men's bosoms" and employ their
thoughts.
To state the matter shortly, royalty is a government in which the
attention of the nation is concentrated on one person doing interesting
actions. A Republic is a government in which that attention is divided
between many, who are all doing uninteresting actions. Accordingly, so
long as the human heart is strong and the human reason weak, royalty
will be strong because it appeals to diffused feeling, and Republics
weak because they appeal to the understanding.
Secondly. The English Monarchy strengthens our Government with the
strength of religion. It is not easy to say why it should be so. Every
instructed theologian would say that it was the duty of a person born
under a Republic as much to obey that Republic as it is the duty of one
born under a Monarchy to obey the monarch. But the mass of the English
people do not think so; they agree with the oath of allegiance; they
say it is their duty to obey the "Queen," and they have but hazy
notions as to obeying laws without a queen. In former times, when our
Constitution was incomplete, this notion of local holiness in one part
was mischievous. All parts were struggling, and it was necessary each
should have its full growth. But superstition said one should grow
where it would, and no other part should grow without its leave. The
whole cavalier party said it was their duty to obey the king, whatever
the king did. There was to be "passive obedience" to him, and there was
no religious obedience due to any one else. He was the "Lord's
anointed," and no one else had been anointed at all. The Parliament,
the laws, the press were human institutions; but the Monarchy was a
Divine institution. An undue advantage was given to a part of the
Constitution, and therefore the progress of the whole was stayed.
After the Revolution this mischievous sentiment was much weaker. The
change of the line of sovereigns was at first conclusive, If there was
a mystic right in any one, that right was plainly in James II.; if it
was an English duty to obey any one whatever he did, he was the person
to be so obeyed; if there was an inherent inherited claim in any king,
it was in the Stuart king to whom the crown had come by descent, and
not in the Revolution king to whom it had come by vote of Parliament.
All through the reign of William III. there was (in common speech) one
king whom man had made, and another king whom God had made. The king
who ruled had no consecrated loyalty to build upon; although he ruled
in fact, according to sacred theory there was a king in France who
ought to rule. But it was very hard for the English people, with their
plain sense and slow imagination, to keep up a strong sentiment of
veneration for a foreign adventurer. He lived under the protection of a
French king; what he did was commonly stupid, and what he left undone
was very often wise. As soon as Queen Anne began to reign there was a
change of feeling; the old sacred sentiment began to cohere about her.
There were indeed difficulties which would have baffled most people;
but an Englishman whose heart is in a matter is not easily baffled.
Queen Anne had a brother living and a father living, and by every rule
of descent, their right was better than hers. But many people evaded
both claims. They said James II. had "run away," and so abdicated,
though he only ran away because he was in duresse and was frightened,
and though he claimed the allegiance of his subjects day by day. The
Pretender, it was said, was not legitimate, though the birth was proved
by evidence which any Court of Justice would have accepted. The English
people were "out of" a sacred monarch, and so they tried very hard to
make a new one. Events, however, were too strong for them. They were
ready and eager to take Queen Anne as the stock of a new dynasty; they
were ready to ignore the claims of her father and the claims of her
brother, but they could not ignore the fact that at the critical period
she had no children. She had once had thirteen, but they all died in
her lifetime, and it was necessary either to revert to the Stuarts or
to make a new king by Act of Parliament.
According to the Act of Settlement passed by the Whigs, the crown was
settled on the descendants of the "Princess Sophia" of Hanover, a
younger daughter of a daughter of James I. There were before her James
II., his son, the descendants of a daughter of Charles I., and elder
children of her own mother. But the Whigs passed these over because
they were Catholics, and selected the Princess Sophia, who, if she was
anything, was a Protestant. Certainly this selection was statesmanlike,
but it could not be very popular. It was quite impossible to say that
it was the duty of the English people to obey the House of Hanover upon
any principles which do not concede the right of the people to choose
their rulers, and which do not degrade monarchy from its solitary
pinnacle of majestic reverence, and make it one only among many
expedient institutions. If a king is a useful public functionary who
may be changed, and in whose place you may make another, you cannot
regard him with mystic awe and wonder; and if you are bound to worship
him, of course you cannot change him. Accordingly, during the whole
reigns of George I. and George II. the sentiment of religious loyalty
altogether ceased to support the Crown. The prerogative of the king had
no strong party to support it; the Tories, who naturally would support
it, disliked the actual king; and the Whigs, according to their creed,
disliked the king's office. Until the accession of George III. the most
vigorous opponents of the Crown were the country gentlemen, its natural
friends, and the representatives of quiet rural districts, where
loyalty is mostly to be found, if anywhere. But after the accession of
George III. the common feeling came back to the same point as in Queen
Anne's time. The English were ready to take the new young prince as the
beginning of a sacred line of sovereigns, just as they had been willing
to take an old lady, who was the second cousin of his
great-great-grandmother. So it is now. If you ask the immense majority
of the Queen's subjects by what right she rules, they would never tell
you that she rules by Parliamentary right, by virtue of 6 Anne, c. 7.
They will say she rules by "God's grace"; they believe that they have a
mystic obligation to obey her. When her family came to the Crown it was
a sort of treason to maintain the inalienable right of lineal
sovereignty, for it was equivalent to saying that the claim of another
family was better than hers: but now, in the strange course of human
events, that very sentiment has become her surest and best support.
But it would be a great mistake to believe that at the accession of
George III. the instinctive sentiment of hereditary loyalty at once
became as useful as now. It began to be powerful, but it hardly began
to be useful. There was so much harm done by it as well as so much
good, that it is quite capable of being argued whether on the whole it
was beneficial or hurtful. Throughout the greater part of his life
George III. was a kind of "consecrated obstruction". Whatever he did
had a sanctity different from what any one else did, and it perversely
happened that he was commonly wrong. He had as good intentions as any
one need have, and he attended to the business of his country, as a
clerk with his bread to get attends to the business of his office. But
his mind was small, his education limited, and he lived in a changing
time. Accordingly, he was always resisting what ought to be, and
prolonging what ought not to be. He was the sinister but sacred
assailant of half his ministries; and when the French Revolution
excited the horror of the world, and proved democracy to be "impious,"
the piety of England concentrated upon him, and gave him tenfold
strength. The Monarchy by its religious sanction now confirms all our
political order; in George III.'s time it confirmed little except
itself. It gives now a vast strength to the entire Constitution, by
enlisting on its behalf the credulous obedience of enormous masses;
then it lived aloof, absorbed all the holiness into itself, and turned
over all the rest of the polity to the coarse justification of bare
expediency.
A principal reason why the Monarchy so well consecrates our whole state
is to be sought in the peculiarity many Americans and many utilitarians
smile at. They laugh at this "extra," as the Yankee called it, at the
solitary transcendent element. They quote Napoleon's saying, "that he
did not wish to be fatted in idleness," when he refused to be grand
elector in Sieyes' Constitution, which was an office copied, and M.
Thiers says, well copied, from constitutional monarchy. But such
objections are wholly wrong. No doubt it was absurd enough in the Abbe
Sieyes to propose that a new institution, inheriting no reverence, and
made holy by no religion, should be created to fill the sort of post
occupied by a constitutional king in nations of monarchical history.
Such an institution, far from being so august as to spread reverence
around it, is too novel and artificial to get reverence for itself; if,
too, the absurdity could anyhow be augmented, it was so by offering an
office of inactive uselessness and pretended sanctity to Napoleon, the
most active man in France, with the greatest genius for business, only
not sacred, and exclusively fit for action. But the blunder of Sieyes
brings the excellence of real monarchy to the best light. When a
monarch can bless, it is best that he should not be touched. It should
be evident that he does no wrong. He should not be brought too closely
to real measurement. He should be aloof and solitary. As the functions
of English royalty are for the most part latent, it fulfils this
condition. It seems to order, but it never seems to struggle. It is
commonly hidden like a mystery, and sometimes paraded like a pageant,
but in neither case is it contentious. The nation is divided into
parties, but the crown is of no party. Its apparent separation from
business is that which removes it both from enmities and from
desecration, which preserves its mystery, which enables it to combine
the affection of conflicting parties--to be a visible symbol of unity
to those still so imperfectly educated as to need a symbol.
Thirdly. The Queen is the head of our society. If she did not exist the
Prime Minister would be the first person in the country. He and his
wife would have to receive foreign ministers, and occasionally foreign
princes, to give the first parties in the country; he and she would be
at the head of the pageant of life; they would represent England in the
eyes of foreign nations; they would represent the Government of England
in the eyes of the English.