OF REVOLUTIONS IN MIXED GOVERNMENTS.
Polybius remarks,[360] that the best form of government is that which is
composed of a due admixture of monarchy, aristocracy and democracy. He
affirms that his assertion may not only be proved from reason, but from
the evidence of fact, and cites the Spartan constitution in proof, which
was modelled upon that very plan by Lycurgus. He adds too, that to
perpetuate the duration of his government,[361] he united the peculiar
excellencies of all the best governments in one form, that neither of
the three parts, by swelling beyond its just bounds, might ever be able
to deviate into its original inborn defects: but that whilst each power
was mutually drawn back by the opposite attraction of the other two,
neither power might ever preponderate, but the balance of government
continue suspended in its true æquipoise.
From the observance of this nice adjustment of the balance of
government, he foretells the duration or fall of all mixed governments
in general. He adds, that as all government arises originally from the
people; so all mutations in government proceed primarily from the
people also. For when once a state has struggled through many and great
difficulties, and emerged at last to freedom and wealth, men begin to
sink gradually into luxury, and to grow more dissolute in their morals.
The seeds of ambition will spring up, and prompt them to be more fond of
contending for superiority in the magistracy, and carrying their point,
in whatever they had set their hearts upon, than is consistent with the
welfare of the community: when once these evils are got to a head in a
country so circumstanced, the change must necessarily be for the worse;
because the principle of such change will rise from the gratification,
or disappointment of the ambition of the chief citizens, with respect to
honours and preferments; and from that insolence and luxury arising from
wealth, by which the morals of the private people will be totally
corrupted. Thus the change in government will be primarily effected by
the people. For when the people are galled by the rapine and oppression
of those in power, arising from a principle of avarice; and corrupted,
and elated with an undue opinion of their own weight, by the flatteries
of the disappointed, which proceed from a principle of ambition, they
raise those furious commotions in the state, which unhinge all
government. These commotions first reduce it to a state of anarchy,
which at last terminates in absolute monarchy and tyranny.
I have here given the sentiments of Polybius (and almost in his own
words) from that excellent dissertation on government, preserved to us
in the sixth book of his history, which I would recommend to the perusal
of my countrymen. He there traces government up to its first origin. He
explains the principles, by which different governments arose to the
summit of their power and grandeur, and proves, that they sunk to ruin
by a more or less rapid progress, in proportion as they receded more or
less from the first principles on which they were originally founded. He
survived the ruin of all the Grecian republicks, as well as Carthage,
and lived (as he more than once tells us) to see the Romans masters of
the known world. Blest with parts and learning superior to most men of
his time, joined to the most solid judgment, and the experience of
eighty-two years; no man better understood the intrinsick nature of
government in general. No man could with more certainty foretel the
various mutations, which so frequently happen in different forms of
government, which must be ever in a fluctuating state, from the
complicated variety of the human passions. Nor can any man give us
better hints, than he has done, for guarding against the effects of
those dangerous passions, and preserving the constitution of a free
people in its full force and vigour. Of all the legislators (which he
knew of) he prefers Lycurgus, whom he looks upon rather as divinely
inspired, than as a mere man. He esteems the plan of government, which
he established at Sparta, the most perfect, and proposes it as a general
model worthy the imitation of every other community; and he remarks,
that the Spartans, by adhering to that plan, preserved their liberty
longer than any other nation of the known world.
I cannot help observing upon this occasion, that our own constitution as
settled at the revolution, so nearly coincides with Lycurgus’s general
plan of government (as laid down by Polybius) where the monarchy was for
life, and hereditary, that it seems, at first sight, to have been formed
by that very model. For our plan of government intended to fix and
preserve so just a proportion of the monarchick, aristocratick, and
democratick powers, by their representatives, king, lords, and commons;
that any two of those powers might be able jointly to give a check to
the other, but not to destroy it, as the destruction of any one power
must necessarily induce a different form of government. This is the true
basis of the British constitution, the duration of which must absolutely
depend upon the just equilibrium preserved between these three powers.
This consequently is the unerring test, by which every unbiassed and
attentive considerer may judge, whether we are in an improving state, or
whether, and by what degrees, we are verging towards ruin. But as I aim
at reformation not satire; as I mean no invidious reflections, but only
to give my sentiments with that honest freedom, to which every Briton is
entitled by birthright, I shall just state from Polybius, the means by
which all mixed governments have originally deviated from those first
principles, which were the basis of their rise and grandeur: how by this
deviation they tended towards their decline, and that those means
acquiring additional force from that very decline, necessarily produced
those evils, which accelerated the destruction of every free people. As
the remarks of this most judicious historian, are founded upon long
experience, drawn from undeniable facts, to many of which he himself was
eyewitness,[362] they will not only carry greater weight, but will
enable us to form a right judgment of our own situation, as it is at
present circumstanced.
Polybius observes, that of all the mixed governments ever known to him,
that of Lycurgus alone was the result of cool reason and long study. The
form of the Roman republick, on the contrary, was the production of
necessity. For the Romans came at the knowledge of the most proper
remedies for all their political evils, not by dint of reasoning, but by
the deep felt experience of the many and dangerous calamities, with
which they had so long and so often struggled. I do not in the least
doubt, but that excellent form of government established by our rude
Gothick ancestors, wherever their arms prevailed, arose from the same
cause, necessity founded upon experience. Every mixed government
therefore, where the three powers are duly balanced, has a _resource_
within itself against all those political evils to which it is liable.
By this _resource_, I mean, that joint coercive force, which any two of
these powers are able to exercise over the other. But as nothing but
necessity can authorize the exercise of this power, so it must be
strictly regulated by those principles, on which the government was
founded. For if by an undue exercise of this power, any one of the three
should be diminished, or annihilated, the balance would be destroyed,
and the constitution alter proportionally for the worse. Thus in
Denmark, where the monarchy was limited and elective, the people,
exasperated by the oppressions of the nobility, who had assumed an
almost despotick power, out of a principle of revenge threw their whole
weight into the regal scale. Frederick the third, (the then reigning
monarch) strengthened by this accession of power and the assistance of
the people, compelled the nobility to surrender their power and
privileges. In consequence of this fatal step taken by the people, the
monarchy, in the year 1660, became absolute and hereditary. Lord
Molesworth observes upon this occasion, in his account of Denmark, that
the people of Denmark have since felt by sad experience, that the little
finger of an absolute prince is heavier than the loins of a hundred
nobles.
The late revolution of government in Sweden, though arising from the
same principles, took a very different turn. Charles the twelfth, brave
even to enthusiasm, and as insatiably fond of glory as the ambitious
Alexander, had quite tired out and exhausted his people, by his
destructive expeditions. But when that fortunate shot from the town of
Frederickshal gave repose to his own country as well as to a great part
of Europe, the states of Sweden, no longer awed by a warlike monarch
(who had usurped a despotick power) and a veteran army, again resumed
the exercise of their own inherent powers. Stimulated by a desire of
vengeance for the evils they had already suffered, and the fear of
smarting again under the same evils, they beheaded Gortz, the minister
of their late monarch’s oppressions, and left the crown no more than the
bare shadow of authority. For though they continued the monarchy for
life and hereditary, yet they imposed such rigid terms upon their
succeeding kings, as reduced them to a state of dependance and impotence
nearly equal to a doge of Genoa or Venice. We see, in both these
instances, the revolution in government effected by the union of two
powers of the government against the third. The catastrophe indeed in
both nations was different, because that third power which was obnoxious
to the other two, was different in each nation. In the former of these
instances, the people, fired with resentment against the nobility, and
instigated by secret emissaries of the crown, blindly gave up their
whole power to the king, which enabled him to deprive the nobility (the
second estate) of their share of power, and bring the whole to centre
in the crown. Thus the government in Denmark was changed into absolute
monarchy. In the latter, the senate took the lead during the
_interregnum_, which followed the death of Charles, and changed the
government into aristocracy. For though the outward form of government
indeed is preserved, yet the essence no longer remains. The monarchy is
merely titular, but the whole power is absorbed by the senate,
consequently the government is strictly aristocratick. For the people
were by no means gainers by the change, but remain in the same state of
servitude, which they so much complained of before. Thus in all
revolutions in mixed governments, where the union of two injured powers
is animated by the spirit of patriotism, and directed by that salutary
rule before laid down, which forbids us to destroy, and only enjoins us
to reduce the third offending power within its proper bounds, the
balance of government will be restored upon its first principles, and
the change will be for the better. Thus when the arbitrary and
insupportable encroachments of the crown under James the second, aimed
so visibly at the subversion of our constitution, and the introduction
of absolute monarchy; necessity authorized the lords and commons (the
other two powers) to have _recourse_ to the joint exercise of that
restraining power, which is the inherent _resource_ of all mixed
governments. But as the exercise of this power was conducted by
patriotism, and regulated by the above-mentioned rule, the event was the
late happy revolution; by which the power of the crown was restrained
within its proper limits, and the government resettled upon its true
basis, as nearly as the genius of the times would admit of. But if the
passions prevail, and ambition lurks beneath the mask of patriotism, the
change will inevitably be for the worse. Because the restitution of the
balance of government, which alone can authorize the exercise of the two
joint powers against the third, will be only the pretext, whilst the
whole weight and fury of the incensed people will be directed solely to
the ends of ambition. Thus if the regal power should be enabled to take
the lead by gaining over the whole weight of the people, the change will
terminate in absolute monarchy; which so lately happened in Denmark, as
it had happened before in almost all the old Gothick governments. If the
aristocratick power, actuated by that ambition, which (an extreme few
instances excepted) seems inseparable from the regal, should be able to
direct the joint force of the people against the crown, the change will
be to an aristocratick government, like the present state of Sweden, or
the government of Holland, from the death of William the third, to the
late revolution in favour of the stadtholder. If the power of the people
impelled to action by any cause, either real or imaginary, should be
able to subvert the other two, the consequence will be, that anarchy,
which Polybius terms, the ferine and savage dominion of the people.[363]
This will continue until some able and daring spirit, whose low birth
or fortune precluded him from rising to the chief dignities of the state
by any other means, puts himself at the head of the populace inured to
live by plunder and rapine, and drawing the whole power to himself,
erects a tyranny upon the ruins of the former government; or until the
community, tired out and impatient under their distracted situation,
bring back the government into its old channel. This is what Polybius
terms the circumvolution of governments;[364] or the rotation of
governments within themselves until they return to the same point. The
fate of the Grecian and Roman republicks terminated in the former of
these events. The distracted state of government in this nation, from
1648, to the restoration of Charles the second, ended happily in the
latter, though the nation for some years experienced the former of these
catastrophes under the government of Cromwell.
I have here given a short, but plain general analysis of government,
founded upon experience drawn from historical truths, and adapted to the
general capacity of my countrymen. But if any one desires to be
acquainted with the philosophy of government, and to investigate the
ratio and series of all these mutations, or revolutions of governments
within themselves, I must (with Polybius) refer him to Plato’s
republick.
The plan of a good and happy government, which Plato lays down, by the
mouth of Socrates, in the former part of that work, is wholly ideal, and
impossible to be executed, unless mankind could be new moulded. But the
various revolutions of government (described above) which he treats of
in the latter part, was founded upon facts, facts which he himself had
been eyewitness to in the numerous republicks of Greece and Sicily, and
had fatally experienced in his own country Athens. The divine
philosopher, in that part of his admirable treatise, traces all these
mutations up to their first source, “the intemperance of the human
passions,” and accounts for their various progress, effects and
consequences, from the various combinations of the same perpetually
conflicting passions. His maxims are founded solely upon the sublimest
truths, his allusions beautiful and apposite, and his instructions alike
applicable to publick or private life, equally capable of forming the
statesman or the man.
[360] Polyb. Hist. lib. 6. p. 628.
[361] Id. ibid. p. 638-9.
[362] Polyb. lib. 3. p. 223.
[363] Δημοκρατία θηριώδης. Polyb. p. 638.
[364] Πολιτειῶν ἀνακύκλωσις. Polyb. p. 637.