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[From Mr. IIolyoake.~}
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A NEW
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Defence of the Ballot
In Consequence of Mr. Mill's Objections to it.
BY
*
George Jacob Holyoake.
*
s®
: political Error is like a Serpent alive at both ends—if severed it may still sting:
A while it wriggles it lives: and those who mean to end it must—chop at it.
V
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[FOURTH EDITION."]
LONDON:
BOOK STORE, 282, STRAND, W.C.
1868.
[threepence.] "
�PREFACE.
'
reads these few pages, will see the occasion of them. Since many
politicians have treated the same subject, it will seem presumption or
weariness for me to recur to it; but experience teaches that long standing
error, and especially Political error is like a serpent alive at both ends__
if severed it may still sting : while it wriggles it lives: and those who
meali to end it must—chop at it.
This statement of the case of the Ballot was made at the Council of the
London Reform League. Mr. Edmond Beales, the President, expressed
in the name of the Council, approval of the argument and Mr. A cl and
moved that it be printed, and with a view to its circulation, at this time,
in the Branches of the Reform League and other Political Societies.
While the Third Edition was in the press, Lord Hartington spoke upon
the subject of these pages at Standish, and Mr. Hughes, M.P., at Frome.
Their conjoint Speeches sum up the sentimental objections to the Ballot.
Lord Hartington says “ all public duties ought to be performed openly,
especially the great constitutional duty electors owe to their country.”
. One would fall prostrate before the moral elevation assumed by this noble
lord, did not one see that he is careless whether the great “ duty ” be
performed or not: since he has at no time proposed that its discharge be
made obligatory upon the elector. His lordship connives at the desertion
of the “ duty they owe to their country ” by half the electoral community
who do not vote, and are not obliged to vote at all; and so of Mr. Hughes,
who alleges that “open voting is more manly than secret voting,” but takes
no account of the compulsion of voting openly : Is that manly ? The de
pendent voter can be taken by the nose as soon as he has given his vote,
and he has to submit to it. And is this Mr. Hughes’ theory of Electoral
manliness ? As an officer of volunteers, Mr. Hughes thinks it good judg
ment to take them into the field in an attire which does not expose them
by conspicuousness to the enemy, but he would take up his electors to the
Poll ticketed like a target. Like the Spectator, Mr. Hughes appears to
regard it unmanly in Liberals to use discretion in fighting.
G. J. H.
20, Cockspur Street, 8. W.
�A
New Defence of the Ballot.
It is incumbent upon those who took part in limiting the discussions of the
Reform League to its own programme, to show that the subjects which the League
is pledged to promote, are capable of occupying its members and interesting the
public. It was for this reason that I asked last year for an opportunity of calling
attention to the arguments by which the claim to the Ballot may be supported,
and at our Meeting at St James’s Hall, on the 28th of January, I indicated, in a
short speech, the reasons I now more fully state.
For years past, the subject of the Ballot has been thought to be insipid—it has
been felt to be growing obsolete—it has been much assailed by defamatory and con
temptuous epithets. As a Beacon-light of the Liberal party, it has burned of
late years, but fitfully. One who utters nothing lightly on questions of public
moment—Mr. J. S. Mill, M.P. has declared that “ the Ballot ought to form no
part of a measure for reforming the representation of the people.”
Even now, ardent advocates of the Ballot—as Mr. Noble—speak of it apologetically,
as something which they wish the people were strong enough to do without, and
only defend it as a political necessity of the time—warranted by the presence of
intimidations which excuse the weak for desiring the protection of the Ballot—
but which the manly s/iould, and the patriotic otherwise wouZd, instinctively reject
These opinions, and these concessions indicate the modern misconception of the
uses and dignity of the Ballot. Instead of apologising for desiring the Ballot, we
ought to apologise for being without it, it being a mark of manliness to demand it,
and of independence to possess it. The Ballot is the weapon of the strong and of
the strong only—a condition of individuality of action and a necessary complement
of enfranchisement.
Mr. Mill, who like Jeremy Bentham, is a master of what an American would
call “ iron-clad phrases ”—says that the Ballot means “ secret suffrage.” It is
this very quality which makes it invaluable. Secret suffrage is Free suffrage—
secret suffrage means an impenetrable, an impassable, a defiant suffrage.
Bribery cannot touch it—-intimidation cannot reach it—that delicate instrument
in Electioneering Mechanics, known as the political screw—cannot operate upon it.
There is a right and a wrong side in most things—yet in arguing upon the Ballot
it is suggested that that which is secret must be wrong altogether. There are two
descriptions of secrecy—an infamous secrecy and an honourable secrecy. The base
kind of secrecy is that employed in mean, furtive, or criminal acts; as when a
man lies, or conceals the truth in giving evidence, or clandestinely filches from
another. But there is a second description of secrecy which is manly, as when I
lock my doors against intrusive or impertinent people—or when I exclude others
�4
from meddling with my affairs without my consent—or when I provide for the
protection of my own interests in my business or my family. This is necessary and
justifiable secrecy. In these cases I merely exercise the right of personal privacy
*
in what concerns me primarily, vitally, and concerns me alone. Privacy is my
protection. For guarding my personal interests in the state the Ballot is all this
to me.
The Ballot is not “ secret voting ” in the bad sense of being the act of an un
avowed agent—done in an unrecognized manner—and for a venal object. The
Ballot is secret suffrage in the legitimate sense of privacy and security. The voter
is a known person—he is selected by the state—his qualifications are approved—he
is an appointed elector—he has recognized interests at stake—he is an instructed
and informed agent. The Candidates who offer themselves to represent him have
appealed to him—they have addresed him—they have set forth their claims before
him—he has a duty assigned him to his country and his conscience. Now there
is only one method by which he can discharge this duty. It is only by the use
of a secret suffrage that he can come personally forward in a way in which corrup
tion can have no hope of arresting him, and intimidation no chance of diverting
or deterring him from indicating who shall be his responsible agent to represent his
views—tax his resources, protect his interests—and attempt in his name to increase
the freedom, honour and repute of his native land.
All this independence of action, is my business as a voter, and if that indi
viduality of action which Mr. Mill so usefully vindicates, is to be secured to me—
voting must be left my business. It is no affair of my neighbour how I vote, or
for whom I vote, or why I vote—since I exercise no power or freedom which he does
not equally possess, and which I do not equally concede to him. I am said to be
an “ independent ” elector, I am told it is my duty to be independent; then why
should any one want to know how I vote ? I am not called upon to consult my
neighbour as to what I shall do. If I am obliged to consult him he is my master,
but he has no business with a knowledge of my affairs, and if he wants it he
is impertinent—if he insists upon it he is offensive—and means me mischief if I
decline to do his bidding.
Open voting was invented by persons who had an interest in persuading the
people they were free, when all the while they were under effectual control.
Those who devised open voting knew what they were about. It did not matter
much who had votes, so long as the aristocracy, the landlords, or labour-lords
could always know who gave votes against them. Poes any one suppose that with
the feelings which the governing classes entertained towards the people, that they
would give the suffrage to any number of the people, to do with it what they
pleased, and use it in a manner unknown, and therefore uncontrollable ?_ The
governing classes in State and Church would have been idiots, with their distrust
of the multidude, to have parted with vital power, that they could no longer check.
It would have been in their eyes an act of wholesale abdication. They saw in the
Ballot the removal of the dam which kept the deluge from their doors.
The “manipulators of mankind” who devised open Voting, knew it must be
submitted to, because they were able to enforce it, but they looked to its being
decried and resented from the first moment its purport was seen: it never occurred
to them that future patriots could be found to applaud it, and that philosophy, would
discover political virtue in it. Tyranny may hope yet that some one will discover
that oppression is a scheme for developing the manliness of slaves.
* There is a good and bad publicity as well as a good and bad privacy. That is a good publicity
when a man is accorded the Victoria Cross. That is a villainous publicity, when, for instance an
Elector is convicted of selling his vote.
�Reformers on the other hand clung to the Ballot with the instinct of self-pre
servation. Then their national pride was assailed and they were told (Lord Palmer
ston was great at this) that it is un-English to fight the hattie of freedom with
precaution. According to this reasoning the use of armour plates is cowardly, and
it is un-English for a gunner to fire from a casemate.
I esteem the courage of individuality as highly as Mr. Mill, hut there is no
reason why individuality should not take care of itself. It is madness, not manli
ness in a man who opposes his single head to twenty swords. His fool-hardiness
will merely deter others, and the reputation for courage he will acquire will not
outlive the Coroner’s Inquest upon him.
Individuality like other virtues is subject to the law of self-preservation. There
might be more individuality of character than there is if every man was his own
policeman. There might be more personal resolution than there is, if every man
rejected the enervating equality of the law, which protects the weak against the
strong. Then even the coward must fight and the weak must struggle or perish. But
that is insanity of individuality which wantonly enters upon unequal conflicts; and
open voting is of the same order of fatuity. Secret suffrage is the Needle-gun which
places the proletariat and the proprietor upon an equality in the electoral combat.
The theory of Representative Government calls upon me to delegate my power
to another for a given time. Once in seven years I am master of the situation—
afterwards I am at the mercy of the Member of Parliament I elect. He may tax
me, he may compel the country into war, he may be a party to base treaties, he
may limit my liberty, he may degrade me as an Englishman, but I am bound by
his acts. From election to election—he is my master. I must obey the laws he
helps to make, or he will suspend the Habeas Corpus Act and put a sword at my
throat, or fire upon me with the latest improved Rifle he has made me pay for in
the Estimates.
I may howl but I cannot alter anything. My only security is that a time will
come when I shall be master again. I shall taste of power for one supreme mo
ment, when I shall stand by the Ballot Box. Then I can displace the member
who has betrayed me, and choose another representative in his stead. But if the
Candidate, or friends of the Candidate, subject me to espionage as I approach the
Polling Booth, he can defy me and perpetuate his power to cheat me. If, because
a man’s politics are not of the Government pattern, Sir Richard Mayne (who always
treats the working class as a criminal class) is minded to place him under sur
veillance, as a political suspect—that is intolerable, yet this is not more so than
that the Parish Overseer should be placed in the Polling Booth to watch how
he votes, and report it to whomsoever it may concern. This is to legalize the
“ tyranny of the majority.”
Disguise it as you may, the device of open voting is mere political insolence. I
am told that the vote is “ a trust ” then let me be trusted with it! I am not
trusted so long as my use of it is watched. If I choose to vote openly that is my
bravery, my pride, my ostentation, or my hardihood—if I am forced to vote openly
that is the badge of my inferiority—it is the sign that I am not to be trusted. The
open voter who is compelled to be so, is under surveillance—he is kept under the
eye of his masters—he carries only a political Ticket-of-Leave, and is duly reported
to the political police—his landlord, his employer, his customer, or his priest.
My power of secrecy is the sign of my independence, and I treat as my enemy
all.who, under any pretext, would impose upon me the degradation of publicity. I
repeat, in order to impress it, that under the representative system the state
accords to me but one minute of independence in seven years, namely, the mo
ment when I give my vote. My interests, my preferences, my honour, my con
science, my country are then in my own keeping; and neither my neighbour, nor
my employer, nor my landlord, nor the Government, shall, if I can help it, control
�6
me then. If I am to share the responsibility of a citizen I will be free. But to be free
I must have the power of defiance—and. there is no defiance save in secrecy. I am
ever at the mercy of those who retain in their hands the power of knowing what
I do at the Polling Booth.
It is asked why should the member of Parliament be compelled to vote openly_
it the elector votes secretly ? I answer, because the member is the responsible
agent—the elector is the master—the elector delegates to the member the power of
life and death, of freedom or coercion over him ; and he has therefore the right to
know how this power is exercised, and to recall it one day, if need be. It is the
elector who gives dignity to the member, not the member who gives dignity to the
elector. The elector never abdicates his manhood or mastership; and so long as the
Constitution secures him this independence, he yields to the law, to which he con
sents by his representative—a proud obedience, which otherwise no cunning could
win and no,force exact.
1 do not say the Ballot gives wisdom, I only say that it gives freedom. A man
may give a silly vote secretly as well as openly. It is true that with the Ballot a
man is free to be a fool—but without it he is not free to be wise—politically. But
you cannot disenfranchise men for being fools—if you were to do that you would
make such abstractions from the present constituencies that in many towns and
counties there would be no voters left to elect anybody.
This argument invalidates no one of these ordinarily advanced in favour of the
Ballot. It is still true that the Ballot would frustrate Bribery—baffle intimidation
and economise the expense of elections ; but if it made them dearer I should reason
as I do, for independence is worth all it costs.
Since the days of Defoe there has been a clamour for the Ballot in England —
because the Liberals were narrower in the throat and tenderer in the head than
their opponents. The Tories excel in shouting and fighting. They are more certainly
. the violent than they are the “ stupid ” party. At the last election in Rochdale the
Reformers with the thickest heads had to be placed in the front. Only patriots with
craniums of a well ascertained density were able to serve their country at the Poll;
and as a general rule, where the Candidate’s purse invigorates the contest, the
peculiarity of a free and independent elector is—a bandaged head.
With a secret suffrage the voter, Mr. Mill says, is “ under no inducement to
defer to the wishes of others.” True he is under no arbitrary inducement—but he
remains under the natural inducements of sympathy, of conviction as to its utility
or rightfulness, to consult the wishes of others. He ought to be under no other
inducements. If the wishes cf others are to be made compulsory upon him, the honest
course is to set him aside and let the “ others,” whose wishes are to prevail vote
for him. I refuse to be bound by any consideration, or by any coercion of publicity,
to vote as “ others ” wish. If I am taxed “ others ” will not pay my taxes—if I am
oppressed or degraded “ others ” will not bear my dishonour. I therefore repudiate
any coercive obligation to vote as “ others ” wish—whether in days of peace or
strife, now, or at any time.
A strong point against secret suffrage, is, as Mr. Mill puts it, that the mean or
selfish can do the base thing and “ escape shame or responsibility.” But these
knaves do this now under open voting—they always make things pleasant for
themselves. You cannot reach them except by administering Lynch law at the
Polling Booth, or pursuing them by a Vigilance Committee.
|
If the base or selfish are to be coerced by exposure and risk, it should be done to
« ’ jurymen- base jurors may set the rascal free, or hang the innocent through prejudice, or inattention to evidence—but if to expose these you were to subject all
jurymen to the danger of publicity, you would have fewer honest verdicts than
you get now. You get justice done by giving security to those who award it—and
this is the only way of getting honest votes at the Poll.
�1
r Mr. Mill is a leader, who allures all who seek light, by the luminousness of « >.
thought which he sheds over every subject he treats, and his conclusions are
usually stated with such lucid force, that allegiance becomes a necessity of the
understanding: and I should hesitate to dissent from him, did not long experience
and passionate conviction, assure me that it ought to be done. Mr. Mill’s
<
eminence, sincerity and perspicacity, have lent to the case of the opponents
of the Ballot a dignity and weight, with which they were unable them
selves to invest it. But it is contrary to Mr. Mill’s principles or practice to desire
Reformers to acquiesce in his arguments, unless convinced by them. All he asks is,
that which he has a right to ask—that his views shall prevail unless good reasons
can be given against them. We all desire, as much as Mr. Mill, or Mr. Hughes,
or Mr. Gladstone, that manliness shall prevail among Englishmen. What I ask is
that manliness shall have fair play. But that is a mere mania for manliness, which
would prohibit the conditions of its action. It no doubt would be one form of
manliness to send our merchantmen out into a sea, infested and kept infested with
pirates. But it is far more manly in a nation to sweep the sea clear of pirates, and
keep it clear. Open voting invests the sea of politics with pirates, and it is no
»
more decent in those who happen to be able to fight, to do so, than it is lawful for
those who are able to protect themselves when assaulted, to take the law into
their own hands, and exempt the judge from the duty of punishing the offenders.
I maintain therefore, that the secret suffrage is English, because it is English to
be free and defiant. Manliness does not consist in living under the obligation of
fighting, but in the capacity of fighting when fighting is inevitable. The compul
sion of open voting enables the Briber to follow the scoundrel who has sold his
country, to see that he renders his vote to the Candidate who has had the baseness
to buy it. Since voting is made open, and not also compulsory—it does nothing to
ensure individuality of character. For it enables the coward to skulk his duty at
the Poll, and subjects him who shows himself there to all the social penalties of
publicity. On some it entails violence, on others loss of employment or connections,
it may'be £5, it may be £500 a year, according a voter’s extent of business—and to
expose him to these risks represses, not promotes, individuality. Individuality is
a quality which requires encouragement to grow—but it must possess a ferocious
vitality if it developes itself under the treatment, to which public voting subjects it.
The Individuality of action, Mr. Mill aims at, is only to be obtained out of a
quickened conscience and an intellect open to truth, left to exercise itself in a fair
field, where facts can act. You can no more get men through the wicket
gate of the Poll, where they may be marked for reprisals and penalties, than you
can get cattle through the butcher’s door after they smell blood. Those whom you
do get there at dangerous elections, are mostly they who are too poor, or too obscure
to be hurt, or those who care not what follows—until it overtakes them; then as many
of them that are harmed, ever after run screaming about the world against the cost
liness of being a Reformer, creating reaction everywhere. When a Voter comes to
grief in this way, and has to look to friends for aid; neither he nor his friends
like the situation: and if he regards his- difficulty as one of the casualities of
patriotism, thoughtfully provided by Liberal politicians, lest sacrifices should be
deficient among their followers, the household' of the weak-headed Voter, quickened
by consequences, take a very different view of the matter : and do more than any
enemies can, to spread disaffection in ranks, where the policy of the generals is to
keep up the manliness of their troops, by exposing their families to the fire of the
foe. In military affairs the commander prides himself on affording all possible
shelter to his forces. It is only in political warfare, that generals take credit
for exposing their troops to fatal reprisals.
It is because I am an advocate of “ Individuality ” that I am an advocate of the
Ballot. The ruler, the master, the priest, always suspect that the human machine
will go wrong, unless they wind it up and keep the key in their pocket. Every man
,
•
»
�likes to have his hand on his neighbour’s shoulder. I would take it off onee in
every seven years. You see I advocate no terrible innovation. I would trust the
grown-up taxpayer with the control of his own affairs, for one minute at every Gen
eral Election. This is all that the Ballot means.
In argument, no question is met unless it is met on the strongest ground the op
ponent takes. To call the Ballot “ secret voting,” is the most damaging epithet
an adversary applies to it, I, therefore, accept Mr. Mill’s phrase. The term which
the friends of the Ballot would select, is that of Free voting. Personal voting is a fair
term for it. A man votes, as he marries, not for his neighbour’s satisfaction, but for his
own. Mr. Mill says, that if a voter may go wrong, “ but the feeling of responsi
bility to others may keep him right, the friends of the Ballot admit that not secrecy,
but publicity should be the rule.” I, a friend of the Ballot, refuse to admit this.
Whether the voter goes right or wrong, I stand by his freedom. He is responsible
to no publicity. He is responsible alone to his sense of right and the public good.
A “ secret suffrage ” would not, as some fear, convert life into a strategem. Secrecy
is like salt—an entire meal of salt would be highly unpalatable, but a little salt
sprinkled over a meal, approves itself to the taste of all nations. And a little
(wise- and conditional) secrecy sprinkled upon the Ballot box, makes a vote palatable
to the conscience, and sweetens the politics of the Kingdom.
We hear on all hands to day from Parlia’mentary Members, an admission which
has humiliation in it. They are saying to their constituents that the intimidation,
menaced by the Tories, is driving us to the Ballot. This is indeed an un-English
confession. If the Ballot be a wrong thing, nothing should drive Reformers to it.
The Ballot is spoken of as a sort of dastard’s refuge, which the heroic Reformers
should despise. I for one decline the Ballot on these terms. If it be a mere craven
security, or an ignoble defence, Reformers should have none of it. Some Candidates
say if the people demand it, it must be conceded. But if it be a wrong thing in
itself, I would neither concede it, nor acquiesce in conceding it—however the people
might demand it. We will not send the Hon. Mr. Berkely annually to the Bar of
Parliament to plead for a cowardly democracy. We will accept all the responsix
bility of freedom. We adopt no disguise of the slave and obey no instinct of the
fool. The bravado of open voting does not conceal from us that it is an acknow
ledgment of the right of others to control us. We repudiate that, and therefore
we resent as an outrage any attempt to subject’us to the manipulation of others.
*
The Ballot is the imperial attribute of the Sovereign Elector, whose province it'is
to impose responsibility upon the Representative, the elector himself being responsi
ble to the law alone, should he sell the birth-right of his freedom, his Vote—in
which case it should be forfeited for evermore.
At a General Election I would make no question supreme. Every Candidate
should be accepted on his general merits, and the ground of his recognized capacity
and public services. But I would ask of every new Candidate “Do you mean to
vote for the Ballot—not merely acquiesce in it, if you must; not, merely vote for
it, if others do—but do you mean it?—do you care for it ?—will you be at trouble
to secure it, and establish forthwith, for me as an Elector, my rightful and un
assailable independence at the Poll ? ”
•Let any one who doubts this, read Mr. Hepworth Dixon’s notable Address on EreeVoting, delivered
at Guildford, April 23rd, 1868. He will there see how James I. and Charles I. dealt with the
Ballot Box.
For Distribution a Cheaper Edition is Published.
Single Copies, Id.; Twelve, tod.; Twenty-five, Is. Post Free. Apply—
Mr. Howell, Secretary, Reform Teague, 8, Adelphi Terrace, London, TF C. '
�
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Title
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A new defence of the ballot in consequence of Mr. Mill's objections to it
Description
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Edition: 4th
Place of publication: London
Collation: 8 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
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Holyoake, George Jacob
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Book Store
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1868
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G5220
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Political science
Suffrage
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (A new defence of the ballot in consequence of Mr. Mill's objections to it), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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English
Conway Tracts
Great Britain-Politics and Government-19th Century
John Stuart Mill
Political reform
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ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL CLASSIFICATION
OF NATIONAL INSTITUTIONS.
A
E
LECT
DELIVERED AT THE BRISTOL INSTITUTION
FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. LITERATURE
AND THE ARTS, Mauch 4th, 1867,
BY
»
W.
F. N. NEWMAN,
Emeritus Professor of Univ. Coll., London; formerly Fellow of
Balliol College, Oxford.
7
U.V
LONDON:
TRUBNER & Co., 60, PATERNOSTER ROW,
BRISTOL :
T, KERSLAKE & Co., PARK STREET.
1867.
i
PRICE SIXPENCE.
♦
♦
�HUMU
�THE PHILOSOPHICAL CLASSIFICATION
OF NATIONAL INSTITUTIONS.
It is rash to give a name to a lecture before it is prepared ;
but I was forced to do so, in order that it might be adver
tised. I now fear that the title may suggest something
erroneous. The popular classification of forms of government
does not profess to be philosophical, but it is not on that
account wrong. I do not wish to supersede it, nor to super
impose any ready-made system on other minds, but only to
stimulate thought and inquiry.
The popular classification, modified from that of the old
Greeks, divides governments into royalties and republics;
subdivides royalty on the one hand into elective and here
ditary, on the other into despotic and constitutional. Re
publics are subdivided into aristocracies and democracies ;
and perhaps aristocracies again into close or oligarchical,
and open or liberal. Some such nomenclature we must use
for conciseness, although we may be thoroughly aware of its
insufficiency. That governments bearing the same name
often differ widely, must be notorious even to those who are
not students of history. A superficial acquaintance with the
newspaper must make us aware that constitutional royalty is
not quite the same in Spain as in England. But to know
that there are differences is one thing, and to know whither
to look for the causes of difference, for the active forces, is
another thing. To give some aid in this research, is my
present object.
�4
Let me begin with Monarchy.
Consider the position of an Arab chieftain. Whether
his descent from a previous chieftain is or is not a decisive
weight in accepting him as chief, yet, as he holds his post for
life, he is really a king; a regulus, as Latins would say, if not
a rex. His functions are, to be judge, and captain in war,
and to guide the movements of the tribe for pasture, and for
occasional agriculture or traffic. A boy or a woman or a
weak man would not suit; hence the succession cannot be
fixed ; the elective principle must have some play. Towards
the foreigner he is supreme, and his decisions are unques
tioned. Even at home his rule might seem arbitrary, no
written limitations or coronation oath being thought of, and
no organs having been invented to check or punish tyranny.
But his people are armed, they are homogeneous, and they
are few. They are known to one another, they have close
mutual sympathies. In such a condition, the tyranny of a
chief against one is keenly resented by all. Old custom gives
them an idea of notorious right. All feel themselves under
the rule of law, and not of caprice; and for military necessity
are willing that the law should be very severe. Thus they
have as full a sense of internal freedom and of manliness as
we can have; and it is seldom that any real tyranny of a
chief can last long, since his whole power depends on the
good will of his tribe.
But let that happen, which has been commoner among
Tartars than Arabs. Let one tribe conquer other tribes; let
the conquering chieftain or his son and grandson become lord
of many tribes, little known to one another, and having but
feeble mutual sympathy. The pride of the monarch is
swollen by the wide extent of his sway. The severities of
war, necessary to constrain submission and retain conquest,
habituate the conquering tribe to commit ruthless deeds
without criticism or scruple. The restraints against injustice
�5
and tyranny are thrown down, as regards a majority of the
subjects. Ere long, when a new generation has grown up
under vassalage, the king finds that he could, if the occasion
arose, arm them against his own tribe ; nor can his power to
do this remain a secret. In this way a real despotism grows
up, even though all the subjects be armed warriors, with no
other home than a camp. Want of homogeneity in the sub’
ject races is here the cardinal point which has elevated the
ruler above law and turned the people into mere vassals.
If this simple case be clearly understood, and duly fixed
in the mind, it will furnish us with an easy key to the action
of institutions far more complicated. In this connection I
may observe, that there is a stone with which Englishmen
often pelt the French. We say, that “they love equality
more than freedom.” I am not about to applaud the theory,
which bids us long for a judicious despot; but I would
suggest, that the phenomenon criticised by us in the French
admits of another interpretation. To define political freedom
is very hard, and therefore it is so hard to combine the efforts
of multitudes for its. attainment; but to suppress privilege
is an idea distinct and intelligible, and the suppression is
sometimes either a useful step towards freedom or an im
portant instalment. Legislators cannot always go right; but
the surest way to take the sting out of bad laws, is to insist
that the mischief shall be universal. When their sting is
felt by the legislators themselves, relief is not far distant.
But let me appeal to a case nearer home than France. When
William the Norman, having stept into the place of King of
England, irritated the English into local revolts and conquered
them in detail by his foreign troops, the Saxons were largely
dispossessed and degraded, and could form no organization
able to throw off their conqueror. The first relief came from
quarrels between Norman princes, who were driven to bid for
Saxon support; but no firm liberty was possible, until the
�*6
Normans felt the King’s power very painfully, and fused their
own cause into that of the Saxons. To make Norman and
Saxon equal before the law was a first necessary step towards
freedom. First, it saved the Saxon from much oppression in
detail; next, it produced a homogeneous nation, all equally
interested to resist encroachments of the King. To aim at
equality as the first object in order of time, was consistent
with esteeming freedom as higher in importance.
From the Norman and Saxon era, let us pass to the
Ottoman empire. The Ottomans were a Turkoman or Tartar
people, who, after conquering the area which we now call
Turkey, took up all Mussulmans into the ruling race, but
gave to Christians toleration only, and refused to them the
right to carry arms. Being exempted from military service,
and not severely taxed by the imperial government, the
Christians might seem to have some advantage over the
Mussulman. All such reasoning proceeds on happy ignorance
of suffering under despotism. Except under ferocious mad
men, such as history teaches us to have sometimes disgraced
thrones and appalled mankind, the chief sufferings come to a
subject people, not from the intended injustice of the supreme
despot, but from the underlings of despotism, or from unequal
law, and still more from the haughtiness of a favoured race.
Where the superior race or order carries arms in daily life,
and the inferior orders are forbidden to carry arms, the whole
country is, as it were, permanently pressed down under an
army of occupation. An armed race, under no military
responsibility, thinks it has a natural right to command, to be
insolent, and if insolently answered, to repay words with
blows; and as the courts of law are sure to be in the exclusive
possession of the ruling race, redress can only in very extreme
cases be attained for the violences of arrogance. The subject
race is hereby perpetually humiliated, perpetually reminded
of its subjugation. To overthrow the privilege of the.superiorj
�order, to introduce practical equality, is in itself of greater
moment than to lessen the imperial despotism: nay, it may
even be strictly beneficial to the subject races to intensify that
despotism, if this be an essential prerequisite for crushing the
privileges of an order. The Sultan’s best intended edicts
have hitherto proved ineffectual, because he cannot enforce
them upon the Ottomans.
This will suffice to indicate how very much more com
plicated are the existing constitutions of the world than our
nomenclature expresses. Where a people is not homogeneous,
but is divided into castes or orders, two or three constitutions
may co-exist. The rule of an old Egyptian king over the
Warrior caste was comparable to that of our Henry II. over
his barons great and small. The relations of the same King
to the priestly or literary caste was perhaps not unlike that
of William III. of England to his Parliament. But the
lower castes were under threefold despotism,—the despotism
of a king, the despotism of an army, and the despotism of
an aristocracy. Only it was softened by the fact of being a
native despotism, and we may-presume that hereditary reli
gious law secured to the lowest people their scanty but wellunderstood rights.
A topic which cannot come forward at all in a very
small state, whatever its organic name, is of the utmost
importance in a large state or rather empire; I mean the
extent to which the management of revenue is centralized.
The empires of the ancient Persians and of the modern
Ottomans, with huge faults, had the merit of often leaving large
local self-government to subject populations, either placing
natives in authority over them, or leaving them to construct
their own organization. To gratify the conquered by respect
ing their manners, laws and innocent habits, is of course
good; but to reserve funds, sacred to the locality, for the
repair of roads and bridges, aqueducts, canals and tanks, is
�even of vital importance. When an Indian community is
annexed to the English dominion, and in consequence its
upper classes are forthwith ejected in mass from high office,
perhaps into beggary, this is hard to endure; but far harder is
it to be deprived of a local treasury, so as to lose all power to
keep up the machinery of their daily food. If, in conse
quence, the canals and roads fall out of repair, and the people
suffer such famine as they could not suffer under a native
tyrant, whose all they are, it matters little to them whether
a Company or a Viceroy and his Council, an Empress or a
Parliament, rule at the distant seat of Government. An
English Parliament, to whom lies the appeal of Indian sub
jects against the British Executive, is not likely to lose a
wink of sleep because a hundred thousand Indians are starved
to death; and, in fact, it only learns of the danger when
remedy is too late. No form of government, no good will, no
energy in the central administration, can compensate for the
frightful blunder of fusing the local revenues of an empire
into one treasury.
Conquest naturally draws after it temporary distinctions
of political right. A conquered people are seldom at once
admitted into posts of power and trust. Even when disaffec
tion is no longer feared, differences of language, of sentiment,
or of moral character, may interpose difficulty, and generally
make men timid as to imparting power. We cannot criticise
a ruling race while its exclusions are strictly temporary; that
is, while it opens a door of access to power, and proposes
equality of right as the early goal. Yet the bolder course has
ere now proved itself the wiser. Admitted equality soon
soothes the pang of defeat, and the vanquished become proud
of belonging to a greater community. Even rude barbarian
leagues have often swelled rapidly into astonishing power by
adopting into absolute equality and cordial citizenship all
whom they conquer, and all the discontented or aspiring who
�9:
will join them. Thus the rude JEtolians of declining Greece
displayed suddenly a strength unsuspected. Thus league
after league of the wild Germans became formidable to the
Roman empire. To the same principle, intensified by a
fanatical impulse, must be ascribed the Mohammedan con
quests of old on the area of Asia and North Africa, in more
recent times over Central Africa. All who join them and
accept the religion are at once themselves accepted as com
rades and equals : this is the magic charm which welds
together heterogeneous natures and wild men.
Transition is certainly apt to be difficult. To aid the
transition from conquest into equality, the process followed
by ancient Rome was notoriously so effectual that one or
other modern nation might have been expected to follow it,
especially England in her Indian empire. The Romans recog
nized several degrees of civil status. The highest, of course,
was the Roman franchise; next to this, the Latin franchise;
below this, the Italian franchise and that of the extra Italian
provincials; then there was the right of the freedmen; and
lowest of all, the wholly disfranchised slaves. There was a
time when it would have been liberal and praiseworthy,
perhaps expedient, to introduce on the area of British India a
legal distinction between British nnd Indian citizenship, if,
simultaneously, select persons or classes of the natives had
been adopted into the British franchise, and a general method
of entrance, with reasonable conditions, had been opened to
personal merit and ostensible loyalty. But the English Par
liament, against the will of the East India Company, preferred
to proclaim in 1833 the principle of legal equality. If this
be real, it is certainly the grander, wiser and nobler method ;
but if it remain a mere name, it does but insult and irritate;
it brands the ruling power with hypocrisy, and would make
the wisest administration impotent to pacify discontent.
If we turn to the greatest monarchy and oldest society in
�10
the world, that of China, there we see a' wholly homogeneous
people, although of several languages, not only without caste,
but without an order of nobility, as nobility is understood by
us. Office alone there gives nobility, and the office is attained
by merit, according to their estimate of merit. My present
business is to point out the great diversity between monarchy
and monarchy, between despotism and despotism. First let
us contrast China with Turkey. In both the monarch will be
called by Europeans a despot; yet in both the despotism is
sharply checked by antique precedent at least as effectually
as under our Plantagenets and Tudors. The monarch may
deal rudely, or perhaps cruelly, with individuals, but cannot
with impunity attack the public. And this is true of all
homogeneous masses, as of France ever since the privileges of
nobility have been overthrown. But while China and Turkey
have so much in common, if we think only of the Sultan’s
rule over Mussulmans; the two powers are seen to be in
tensely different as soon as the relations of Mussulmans to
Christians are comprehended.
Contrast despotic China with despotic Russia, and a
totally new point of diversity appears. In Russia there is a
nobility, possessed of vast masses of land. This is a point of
which hitherto I have purposely said nothing. It is one of
the greatest elements in politics, and is generally regarded as
the foundation of aristocracy; yet so far is it from being in
any opposition to monarchy, that it is very hard for it to
exist except under the shadow of monarchy. It may indeed
continue after monarchy has been destroyed ; as happened in
ancient Greece, in ancient Italy, and in the Southern States
of the great American republic : and when it exists in a
republic, as in early Rome, it may propagate itself by con
quest. Notwithstanding these exceptions, aristocracy based
on great landed estates, in the general history of the world,
has little permanence except in conjunction with a monarchy
�11
which fosters it, and is fostered by it in turn. They cohere
like a double star, and make a system essentially different
from either separately. The difficulty which aristocracy has
of existing without monarchy is in fact denoted by the
modern acceptation of the term republic, which is practically
identified with democracy. Aristocratic republics are so rare,
that we almost forget their possibility.
Land being the element on which our life is passed, as
well as the mine out of which our food is extracted, he who
can controul the land cultivated by others, and the land on
which others dwell, wields a political power; and when the
estate is large, we may call it a regal power : nor, except as
the delegation of a regal power, does it seem possible to find
a legal origin for large estates. Evidently an order of great
proprietors has preoccupied a large fraction both of the royal
power and of the national revenues. In siding with the
people, it will be a most effectual check on the Crown, and
may establish the public liberties, as it did against our
^Plantagenets; or in siding with the Crown against the people,
as more often happens, it will press very heavily on a nation.
Indeed the rights over land claimed and exercised by land
lords are generally greater than those which the purest
despotic power dares to exercise against a homogeneous
people. In Russia, with which I am comparing China, we
find a very paradoxical phenomenon. A monarch able to
follow a policy of his own, is generally disposed to raise up
the commonalty as a balance against a powerful nobility.
But the Russian Czars, without any necessity, under no con
straint from the nobles,—of their own free motion, as far as
I have been able to learn,—by a series of edicts called ukases,
in the course of several centuries, gradually depressed the
cultivators of the soil from freemen into serfs, and from serfs
into slaves. The process was so gradual and stealthy, that
the victims never understood it; and while groaning under
�12
the tyranny of their masters, looked fondly to the Czar as
their only protector, not knowing that the edicts of the Czars
alone had put them under that tyranny. By this strange
process, probably without foreseeing how it would act, the
despotic power of the Russian Emperor became too great for
any thing but assassination to controul: for the nobles could
never dare to arm their dependents against him. The two
elements, territorial nobility and peasant serfdom, in Russia (I
mean in Russia as she was, before our Russian war taught
the Emperor the necessity of a free peasantry) gave to the
monarchy a moral aspect quite different from that of China
or of Turkey.
I proceed to show how Aristocracy changes its mean
ing and its practical workings while retaining its name. No
better illustration can be wished than the old Roman republic
will furnish. On the expulsion of Tarquin the proud, the
patrician aristocracy became supreme, and the plebeians
found themselves without legal organs and wholly defence
less. Being themselves the army of the State, they were not
only formidable, but, when united and resolute, irresistible.
Hence in a series of years they extorted concession after
concession; yet found themselves still oppressed, still miser
able, even when they could by an effort of will controul the
legislation. In 130 years they discovered that the thing
needful was, to secure half of the supreme Executive for
their own order; and from the day that this was attained,
the whole history of Rome changed its course. This first
period of the republic is that of noxious aristocracy, while the
patricians, however often outvoted in the Legislature, kept
the supreme Executive to themselves.—The second period, to
speak roughly and avoid unnecessary detail, is that during
which the Senate was elected by merit. This was the prime,
the only flourishing period of Rome as a nation. It lasted
less than a century and a half. Aristocracy then answered
�13
to its real name. It was not an order basing its power on
land, but it was the “ government of the best.” Sismondi, a
historian of a temperament nowise democratic, declares as a
historical fact, that every aristocracy degenerates from the
day that it becomes hereditary. It is hardly too much to
say, that hereditary aristocracies are saved from contempt and
ruin only by new creations. The Roman aristocracy in its
prime was elective, not hereditary; yet the sons of nobles,
emulating the industry and public spirit of their sires, were
generally elected, and many a great family stood firmly aloft
in successive generations,—quite as many in Rome as in
modern England, if you compare their thousands to our
millions.—But (you may ask) how was this selection of merit
managed? Were the centurions and tribunes of the army
forced to undergo a literary examination, in order to discover
their patriotism, their public spirit, their promptitude, their
justice, their freedom from class-prejudice, or their moral
courage ? Did examiners allot to them 100 marks for skill
in the Oscan language, 150 for the Etruscan literature, and
300 for scanning and interpreting the songs of the Salian
priests ? Not at all. The Romans of that age went to work
in a ruder way; but it proved effectual. A plebeian law,
called the Ovinia tribunicia, was passed, without asking leave
of the Senate, by which the Censors were to elect into the
Senate men out of every rank (of officers), under oath* that
they would pick out the best men they could find. Under
* It is disagreeable to have to confess, that the passage of Festus is
corrupt, from which alone we here derive our knowledge. The important
word jurati (on oath) is obtained only by an emendation of curiati. Although
the correction is conjectural, it carries conviction with it. In the edition of
O. Muller, the words of Festus are
“ Donee Ovinia tribunicia intervenit, qua sanctum est ut censores ex
omni ordine optimum quemque curiati in senatu legerent.” Read, “jurati in
senatum legerent.” The correction jurati was suggested first by Meyer. It
is regarded as certain by Bellermann, and is in harmony with the oath which,
Zonaras says, was imposed on the Censors.
�14
this regulation, the Roman Senate soon contained (as virtue
was then understood) whatever of highest virtue the nation
could furnish. The Senate commanded the absolute confi
dence of the nation; it claimed the most heroic sacrifices,
and was promptly obeyed. Concord (with few exceptions)
and energy reigned through the whole State, and Rome soon
(alas!) became too powerful for all her neighbours. In the
first period, aristocracy certainly rested on hereditary landed
rights or claims, obscurely as we understand them. In the
second period, the aristocracy was one of merit. It was a
distinction for life, open to every deserving citizen. Utterly
diverse as were these two systems, their diversity has no
other titles than Close and Open Aristocracy. Under each
system, the popular assembly was nominally supreme, and
its “ command” was law.
That great and terrible enemy of Rome, the Carthaginian
Hannibal, on the field of Cannae slew not only 40,000 Roman
commoners, 2,500 knights, and more than 90 senators; he
slew also the Roman constitution. At least, it is clear, that
from this era the Censors ceased to interpret their oath as
binding them to choose the best man, but followed a principle
of routine which did not give at all the same results. To
supply the huge gap made by Hannibal in the Senate a
special dictator was created, who had not moral courage or
consciousness of knowledge adequate to his difficult task.
With the high approbation of the public, says Livy, he
elected 177 persons to fill the empty benches, by a mere
mechanical examination of the names in the public books.
Henceforth merit was interpreted to mean, the having held
certain high offices, without any inquiry how they had been
filled. The tumultuous populace, who under very various
influences voted young soldiers into their first civil office,
henceforth virtually elected them into the Senate. The
aristocracy was still elective ; yet from this day it was
�15
morally different. In fact, from this era the aristocracy
tended once more to become practically close. Very few men
of new families were henceforth elected. Nearly all the
senatorial contemporaries of Cicero dated their family great
ness as high as the second Punic war, and it was very hard
for a Marius or even a Cicero to rise, against the efforts of
the new nobility.
At the same time I must not conceal, that soon after the
overthrow of Hannibal a cause of degeneracy set in, so
powerful, that it must probably in every case have over
whelmed all constitutional check. Roman general^ carrying
armies into Asia, assumed a right (“in the public interest,”
of course it was said) of making wars at their own discretion ;
and as the general was sure to enrich himself and his friends
by it, the Romans (as Gibbon satirically puts it) conquered
the world in self-defence. The plebeians at first seldom
relished it; but the spirit which is called patriotism cried
out, “ Now that we are in for the war, we must go through
with it.” In consequence, to borrow Michelet’s emphatic
words, the bones of the Roman plebeians whitened every
shore of the Mediterranean, and the sons of the men whom
they conquered stepped into their places with the name of
citizens, while really clients of a princely oligarchy bloated
with the plunder of prostrate nations. "What shall we call
the Government of Rome in this third era ?
An Aristotle might reply, it is evidently an oligarchy,
the perverted form of aristocracy. Yet the most beggarly of
the citizens had equal votes with the highest and noblest, and
their vote was supreme, whether to pass laws, or to elect
magistrates up to the highest, and by such elections fill the
Senate ; also to declare war or peace, and dispose of the entire
fortunes of the provincials : nay, says Polybius, by Jupiter !
the vote of the common people can lessen the private fortune
of senators. Thus the State was in theory under the rule of
�16
perverted democracy, and in fact was swayed by an imperial
aristocracy verging ever to oligarchy.
If time allowed, and we were able to go into the history
of Venice, an entirely new phase of aristocracy would there
open itself. But I hasten to a very few remarks on
democracy. As conceived of by the ancients, a democracy
could not act except on a small scale. In fact, Aristotle says
that a polity (or organised constitution) cannot have so few as
ten citizens, or so many as a hundred thousand. A democracy
formed in a single city, where the poorest citizens assemble in
folkmote to settle the highest affairs of State, at home and
abroad, is very different from the more complicated organiza
tion which we see in Switzerland, with confederated cantons
and representative government. Much more does it differ
from the massive institutions of the great American republic,
Which is probably the most complicated political mechanism
in the whole world. To secure a voice and a hearing for
every interest, to obtain tranquil deliberation after hearing
and before judgment, is the aim of the highest and best
democracies. If this end be attained, the rights and the
interests of the many are established, and from this the rich,
the learned, the able, are in no danger of suffering. But
when, as in the past has generally happened, the rich and the
able (or, perhaps I ought to say, the crafty) do their utmost
to corrupt democracy, by bribery and by drink, by hired
ruffians and by intrigue; if democracies could not be crushed
by violence, they might be expected to perish by contempt.
Their vices are almost always chargeable on the cabals of
oligarchs.
Time reminds me that I must pass to an important topic
not yet touched on,—a topic essentially affecting every form
of Government, yet not hinted at in their names. I refer to
the existence of great colonies, as parts of an imperial polity.
When colonies are formed over a continuous continental area,
�17
the problem of colonial organization is comparatively easy.
It was pretty well solved by the Romans : it has been far
more completely solved by the United States of America.
The object is, to effect a real adherence and ultimate consoli
dation of every colony with the mother state, who supports
the colony in infancy, imparts rights as fast as they can be
used, and exacts duty as early as it can be fulfilled ; until the
colony, fully grown, is adopted into absolute equality and is
finally incorporated with the mother. When the imperial
institutions are so impartial and so flexible as to fulfil these
conditions, the machinery suffers no strain, and the moral
character of the government remains unchanged. But the
case is widely different when the colonies are separated from
the mother country or from the imperial centre by wide tracts
of sea, and incorporation is difficult or impossible. Such
were the colonies of Tyre and ancient Athens; such also those
of Portugal, of Spain, of Holland and of England. Athens,
with certain exceptions, left her colonies to shift for them
selves from the beginning, neither giving protection nor ex
pecting allegiance. Whatever grave objections may be urged
against this, it at least did not derange or burden the mother
city. But the conduct of modern Europe towards her trans
marine colonies has been in every respect the opposite.
Allegiance over them has been claimed, protection has been
given, and with the protection a jealous exclusionism has
been enforced. In fact, so soon as any country fell into a
colonial position, by the absenteeship of its central executive,
it has been liable to suffer a frightful drain of capital, together
with the crippling of industry and other colonial degradation.
The false political economy of past centuries taught that the
use of extra European colonies was, to swell the mercantile
navy and enhance the mercantile profits of the mother country.
I have read that when the merchants of Cadiz complained to
the Spanish Government that their wines were falling in
�18
j
demand, the Government replied by sending out an order to
Mexico to root up all the vines in that colony. Our own
Lord Chatham, who stood forth as champion of our American
colonies and condemned the attempts of the English Parlia
ment to tax them, declared that he would not consent to the
colonists manufacturing for themselves so much as a horse
shoe nail. To cripple their marine, under the idea that this
would enlarge our own, was a fixed object of policy with
English ministers of every school. Under the blighting
influence of the commercial theories then prevalent, most
European colonies felt bitterly aggrieved. So too Sicily, first
under Spain, then under Naples, not as a conquered province,
but as a royal inheritance, yet suffered under the blight of
absenteeship. Time forbids me to press the still more strik
ing case of Hungary under her Austrian dynasty. I may
barely allude to the colonial position of Ireland, and to the
avowed policy of William the Third’s English Parliament to
cripple the manufactures of Ireland by way of benefit to the
manufactures of England. My sole object in these references
is, to insist that colonies are apt to break up the unity of a
nation exactly as do foreign conquests: and that if our
nomenclature were philosophical and perfect, it would take
cognizance of the change. If it cannot, we must beware of
fine names, as liable to hide fallacies; and remember that
Constitutional Monarchy and Parliamentary Government may
mean one thing to one part of an empire, and a very different
thing to another.
But you may think it full time to ask me, on what more
philosophical principle national constitutions can possibly be
classified. I will sketch certain outlines in reply. The first
class of organised communities is that in which personal will
rules. This is the barbaric stage of crude despotism. It has
nevertheless been perpetuated into civilized regions and ages
by unhappy contingencies; as in despotic France, Spam and
�19
Russia ; on a smaller scale in Italian princedoms ; and worst
of all, in systems of slavery. In contrast to the Rule of
Personal Will is the Rule of Law. When law is righteous, to
be subject to it is our highest benefit, our highest glory ; and
while we suppose it to be righteous, subjection to it nurtures
our manliness, and in many respects trains us virtuously.
But nations which profess subjection to law split here into
two classes. The one class holds the law to be unchangeable,
as having come down from the obscure and distant past.
Such were the old theocracies; such the Turkish rule in
modern days; such also the Chinese institutions, although
not ostensibly religious. If the unchangeable law be ample,
and no great interests uncontemplated by it have arisen, the
nation neither needs nor can admit legislative organs : at most
it has doctors of law, whose duty it is to report traditional
judgments or to interpret a received code. This I hold to be
the second class of states. When the law has been skilfully
adapted to the people (and this is sufficiently proved by their
steady adherence to it from a distant past), it ensures for them
a certain amount of well-being, so long as foreign nations let
them alone, and while they do not try their own hand at con
quest. It is by an instinct of self-defence that China and
Japan have repelled the intrusion of Europeans. The Otto
mans, living by themselves, would have been frugal and
virtuous; but their institutions could not be so modified as to
embrace Christians into equal citizenship. By conquering,
they spoiled their own position. Institutions belonging to
this second class, having an unchangeable law, pay the
penalty of being inflexible. In long time they fall out of
harmony with the changed circumstances of mankind. In
the third class of institutions it is pronounced that law ought
indeed to be righteous and sacred, but is in fact only that
approximation to right which fallible men have attained.
Therefore it must not be unchangeable, but it must be sus-
�20
ceptible of repeal or addition under strictly formal regulations.
This is the reign of Secular, as opposed to Theocratic Law!
We find Theocracies chiefly in Asia.
Through deficiency of historical knowledge, we can
scarcely go higher into antiquity than the free States of
Greece for examples of legislation by deliberations and solemn
voting; yet this very thing seems natural to Europe, and
therefore to man : for it grew up among the rude Italians, the
ruder Gauls, the very barbarous Germans; and we find it in
the Slavonic Bohemians and Sarmatian Magyars. Man, says
Aristotle, is a political animal: and in the rudest tribes we
often find germs of the highest political developments.
We are now apt to think of the theocratic or unchange
able system of law as belonging only to ages long past. Yet
it avails but little to admit in the abstract that law is change
able, if in practice a large and cardinal part of the law is
withdrawn from criticism, and is avowed to be unchangeable,
just because it is very old. If a community has undergone
but little internal change, even its oldest laws may still be
very suitable; but if the condition of the people has largely
changed, then the age of a law is no recommendation. Insti
tutions expedient to guard against the despotism of a warrior
king, while a nobility was struggling for the public liberties
together with its own, may become noxious in a totally new
conjuncture of affairs. Claims over land which are endurable
where land is plentiful and people few, may be unendurable
where people are numerous and land scarce. Exceptional
privileges, established in an era at which some worse dangers
had to be repelled, may be manifestly indefensible when those
dangers are past. A state in which there are privileged
orders, whose privileges are treated as inviolable and as
closed against inquiry and legislation, can hardly be referred
to the third or European class : it rather belongs to the
Asiatic, Chinese or Theocratic class, which attributes a divine
�21
sacredness to its oldest, and perhaps to its most mischievous
institutions.
But, however important the enacting of good law, the
impartial enforcement of law is more vital still. To gain fair
ness and intelligence in the tribunals is perhaps, of all the
items which make up freedom, the hardest. The English
have aimed at it through their jury-system. Yet through
many a dreary page of English history the juries have been
so put under terror and the judges so bent upon conviction,
that the tribunals have been stigmatised as dens of murderers.
Hitherto it would seem, that no human institution equals a
free jury for defending the innocent. It is by no means so
efficient for punishing the guilty. But with some diffidence
I suggest, that we know almost nothing of a constitution,
until we know what are its provisions for the administration
of justice.
At the same time, equality before the tribunals is essential
foi all justice, and it is extremely difficult to attain this
equality for social rights, if there be not full political equality.
On this rock all systems which admit diversities of franchise
are apt to founder. Exclusion of a race, a class, or a sex
from political power appears inevitably to entail an inability
to defend itself from social injustices. This it is which forces
philanthropy to put on the garb of political partizanship, and
claim power for the weaker classes of society, as for the negro
freedmen of the United States, or for intelligent and delicate
Indians of Bengal. This consideration probably decided our
great Reform ministry of 1833 to insist upon the absolute
political equality of Indians to English, excluding the Indians
from only tye two high offices of Governor-General and
Commander-in-Chief.
Again, in the study of a national constitution we do not
know much of its practical working, until we learn what are
�22
i
its laws of land, in what masses land is held by individuals,
and what powers landholders have to legislate landed rights
to themselves. Sometimes to know these things may at once
pour a flood of light over the state of affairs. If we were to
discover that in Japan the great nobility, holding the land in
large masses, had for six centuries wielded decisive uncontroulable power over legislation, while the cultivators had not
even had a voice in the legislative assembly, much less a vote,
we should at once confidently infer that the interests both of
the peasants and of the public had been unscrupulously sacri
ficed. The unseen and unheard are sure to suffer, and the
more gradual the enactments which confiscate their right, the
more subtle and the more permanent is the mischief. It is
not the powerful, but the weak, who most need legislative
protection.
I have already alluded to the vital importance of in
violable local treasuries, so that the moneys gathered for road
tolls or works of irrigation should not be spent in war or
wasted in court-display. This is in fact but one illustration
of a great principle, which my limits forbid me to develop.
An empire ought not to be like a sensitive animal body of
the highest class, which is killed at once by a wound in the
heart or brain. Every part should be ordinarily self-support
ing, with life and strength to spare ; though each is reinforced
by the common life of the system. Such an empire is rather
like an Indian banyan, in which every great branch throws
its own separate stem into the earth ; and there striking root,
draws for itself an independent nourishment, without in
terrupting its vital relations with the parent stock. It has
been said by some, that each part of an empire should exhibit
the central institutions in miniature. If this be impossible,
yet at least every part should have an active political life,
competent for self-support.
�23
But it is time for me to sum up.
Assuming the rule of personal will to be left behind in
the past, the topics to be primarily studied in a national con
stitution, as of far higher importance than any of the current
names, are :—1. The bona fide openness of the institutions to
legislative correction.
2. The apparatus for correcting
defective law. 3. The equality of all persons before the
tribunals. 4. The securities taken for the impartiality of the
tribunals. 5. The laws of land. 6. The extent to which
every locality has a self-sufficiency to sustain its own existence; to suppress violence and maintain its needful supplies.
To tell us how many of these problems are well solved in
a particular constitution, is to give us very valuable know
ledge concerning it; but to tell us that it is a royalty or a
republic, that it is Christian or Pagan, is almost to tell us
nothing at all.
,
At the same time, historical experience hitherto con
verges to the belief that none of these important topics can
be permanently well treated without freedom of speech and
press, free juries, and representative institutions ; and that at
the bottom of all must rest homogeneous political right.
For justice internally, for strength externally, for patriot
ism and national spirit, evidently the shell of a constitution is
of less importance than that common interest which equality
of right gives and exceptional privilege tends to destroy.
France is a powerful country, under whatever government
and cannot be greatly misgoverned, because she is inwardly
homogeneous, and conscious of a single nationality. Russia,
though embarrassed by Poland, imperfectly emancipated
herself, and not clear of difficulties from the Cossack Church,
is tending rapidly to a condition of homogeneity on a still
grander scale. The United States, if they successfully sur
mount the still contested struggle, and establish the coloured
races in absolute equality with the white, will become greater
�24
than Russia and by far the first community in the world.
But, for the fate of empires which are not homogeneous, we
have but to recall such names as Assyria and Babylon, Persia
and Macedonia; in which a dominant race enforced temporary
supremacy over reluctant subjects, whom it never adopted
into equality. Imperial Rome was wiser, though far from
wholly wise, and never really large hearted ; yet she secured
powerful support in every conquered country by her bestowal
of the Roman franchise. Very imperfect as was the liberality,
and terrible the serfdom and slavery, yet even so, she earned
by it an astonishing cohesion in spite of feeble Emperors. In
contrast we have recently seen how Austria,—from the hetero
geneousness of her dominion and the ingenious folly by which
she forfeited affection and all moral claims to allegiance,—
crumbled ^before foreign attack. When an imperial bubble
bursts, many will moralise, more will triumph, a few will
pity; but their pity comes to the fallen with all the force of
insult.
. ' .
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ARROWSMITH PRINTER, QUAY STREET, BRISTOL,
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Dublin Core
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Pamphlet
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Title
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On the philosophical classification of national institutions.
Creator
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Newman, Francis William [1805-1897.]
Description
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Place of publication: London; Bristol
Collation: 24 p. ; 21 cm.
Notes: : A lecture delivered at the Bristol Institution for the Advancement of Science, Literature and the Arts, March 4th, 1867. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. The title page cites the author as F.N. Newman which has been corrected to a W in ink by (presumably) Conway. Printed by Arrowmsith, Quay Street, Bristol.
Publisher
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Trubner & Co. ; T. Kerslake & Co.
Date
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1867
Identifier
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G5211
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (On the philosophical classification of national institutions.), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Subject
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Political Science
Conway Tracts
Political Science