dently intended to prepare the public mind, advocates the unity of power in the last extreme, and as a truly French principle.

We believe that the so-called unity of power is unvarnished absolutism. It is indifferent who wields

it. We insist upon the supremacy, not the absolutism, of the legislature. We require the harmonious union of the co-operative whole, but abhor the unity of power.

What the French republicans demand in the name of the democracy, kings insist upon in the name of divine right. Both loudly protest against the "division of sovereignty," which can only mean a clear division of power; for what in a philosophical sense can truly be called sovereignty, can never be divided, and its division need not, therefore, be guarded against. Sovereignty is the self-sufficient source of all power, from which all specific powers are derived. It can dwell, therefore, according to the views of freemen, with society, the nation only; but sovereignty is not absolutism. It is remarkable how all absolutists, monarchical or democratic, agree on the unity of power.10

66

10 Innumerable official instances might be cited. The king of Prussia, when, in May, 1847, he delivered his first throne speech to the united committees of the provincial estates, which were to serve as a substitute for the expected estates general, appealed in advance to his people," against everything we are accustomed to call constitutional. "My people does not want a participation of representatives in ruling, nor the division of sovereignty, nor the breaking up of the plenitude of royal power," &c. General Bonaparte wrote to the Directory, May 14, 1796: "One bad general is even better than two good ones. War is like govern

....

Power, according to its inherent nature, goes on increasing, until checked. The reason is not that

power is necessarily of an evil tendency, but because without it, it would not be power." Montesquieu says: "It is a lasting experience that every man who has power is brought to the abuse of it. He goes on until he finds its limits."12 And it is so with every man," because it lies in the very nature of power itself. The reader is invited to re-peruse the Federalist on this weighty subject.13

The unity of power doubtless dazzles, and thus is the more dangerous. The French ought to listen to their own great countryman. He He says: "A despotic government (and all unity of power is despotic) strikes the eye (saute pour ainsi dire aux yeux); it is uniform throughout: as it requires nothing but passions to establish it, all sorts of people are sufficiently good for it."

1914

Our own Webster, in his speech on the presidential protest, delivered the following admirable passage on the subject of which we treat, and on liberty in general-a passage which I give entire, in spite of its length, because I cannot find the courage

ment, it is a matter of tact"-words which Mr. Girardin quotes with approval, and as an authority for his theory of the best government, consisting in a succession of perfectly absolute single rulers to be appointed, and at pleasure recalled by universal suffrage.

11 This I have endeavored plainly to show in the Political Ethics. 12 Esprit des Loix, xi. 5.

13 Mr. Madison's paper on The Meaning of the Maxim, which requires a Separation of the Departments of Power, examined and ascertained. Federalist, No. XLVII. and sequ.

14 Esprit des Loix, book vc. 14.

VOL. I.-15

to mutilate it. I have tried to select some sentences, but it seemed to me like attempting to break off some limbs of a master work of sculpture which has happily come down to us entire.1

Mr. Webster said: "The first object of a free people is the preservation of their liberty, and liberty is only to be preserved by maintaining constitutional restraints and just divisions of political power. Nothing is more deceptive or more dangerous than the pretence of a desire to simplify government. The simplest governments are despotisms; the next simplest limited monarchies; but all republics, all governments of law, must impose numerous limitations and qualifications of authority, and give many positive and many qualified rights. In other words, they must be subject to rule and regulation. This is the very essence of free political institutions.

"The spirit of liberty is, indeed, a bold and fearless spirit; but it is also a sharp-sighted spirit; it is a cau

15 The speech was delivered in the Senate of the United States on the 7th of May, 1834. If I might place myself by the side of these men I would refer the reader to the Political Ethics, where I stated that despotism is simple and coarse. It is like a block of granite, and may last in its unchanging coarseness a long time; but liberty is organic with all the delicate vitality of organic bodies, with development, growth and expansion. Despotism may have accretion, but liberty widens by its own vital power, and gains in intensity as it expands. The long duration of some despotisms decides nothing. Longevity of states is indeed a requisite of modern civilization, but if we must choose, who would not prefer a few hundred years of Roman liberty, to the thousands of Chinese dreary mandarinism and despotism? Besides, we must not forget that a shoe once trodden down to a slipper, will always serve longer in the slip-shod capacity of a slipper than it did as a decent shoe.

of man.

tious, sagacious, discriminating, far-seeing intelligence; it is jealous of encroachment, jealous of power, jealous It demands checks; it seeks for guards; it insists on securities; it entrenches itself behind strong defences, and fortifies itself with all possible care against the assaults of ambition and passion. It does not trust the amiable weaknesses of human nature, and therefore it will not permit power to overstep its prescribed limits, though benevolence, good intent and patriotic purpose come along with it. Neither does it satisfy itself with flashy and temporary resistance to its legal authority. Far otherwise. It seeks for duration and permanence. It looks before and after; and, building on the experience of ages which are past, it labors diligently for the benefit of ages to come. This is the nature of constitutional liberty; and this is our liberty, if we will rightly understand and preserve it. Every free government is necessarily complicated, because all such governments establish restraints, as well on the power of government itself as on that of individuals. If we will abolish the distinction of branches, and have but one branch; if we will abolish jury trials, and leave all to the judge; if we will then ordain that the legislator shall himself be that judge; and if we place the executive power in the same hands, we may readily simplify government. We may easily bring it to the simplest of all possible forms, a pure despotism. But a separation of departments, so far as practicable, and the preservation of clear lines of division between them, is the fundamental idea in the creation of all our con

stitutions; and, doubtless, the continuance of regulated liberty depends on maintaining these boundaries.”16

Unity of power, if sought for in a wide-spread democracy, must always lead to monarchical absolutism. Virtually it is such; for it is indifferent what the appearance or name may be, the democracy is not a unit in reality; yet actual absolutism existing, it must be wielded by one man. All absolutism is therefore essentially a one-man government. The ruler may not immediately take the crown; the pear may not yet be ripe, as Napoleon" said to Sieyes; but it soon ripens, and then the avowed absolute ruler has far more power than the king whose absolute power is traditional, because the tradition itself brings along with it some limitations by popular opinion. Of all absolute monarchs, however, it is true that "it is the vice of a pure (absolute) monarchy to raise the power so high and to surround it with so much grandeur that the head is turned of him who possesses it, and that those who are beneath him scarcely dare to look at him. The sovereign believes himself a god, the people fall into idolatry. People may then write on the duties of kings and the rights of subjects; they may even constantly

16 Page 122, vol. iv. of the Works of Daniel Webster. I have not transcribed this long passage without the permission of those who have the right to give it.

To my mind it appears the most Demosthenian passage of that orator. Perhaps I am biased, because the extract maintains what I have always asserted on the nature of liberty, and what has shown itself with such remarkable clearness and undraped nakedness in the late French affairs.

17 I mean Napoleon the Real.