GOVERNMENT. SECTION 1. THE pleasure of governing must certainly be exquisite, if we may judge from the vast numbers who are eager to be concerned in it. We have many more books on government than there are monarchs in the world. Heaven preserve me from making any attempt here to give instruction to kings and their noble ministers their valets, confessors, or financiers. I understand nothing about the matter; I have the profoundest respect and reverence for them all. It belongs only to Mr. Wilkes, with his English balance, to weigh the merits of those who are at the head of the human race. It would, besides, be exceedingly strange if, with three' or four thousand volumes on the subject of government, with Machiavel, and Bossuet's "Policy of the Holy Scripture," with the "General Financier," the "Guide to Finances," the "Means of Enriching a State," &c. there could possibly be a single person living who was not perfectly acquainted with the duties of kings and the science of government. . Professor Puffendorf,* or, as perhaps we should rather say, baron Puffendorf, says that king David, having sworn never to attempt the life of Shimei, his privy counsellor, did not violate his oath when, according to the jewish history, he instructed his son Solomon to get him assassinated, "because David had only engaged that he himself would not kill Shimei." The baron, who rebukes so sharply the mental reservations of the jesuits, allows David, in the present instance, to entertain one which would not be particularly palatable to privy councellors. Let us consider the words of Bossuet in his " Policy of the Holy Scripture," addressed to monseigneur the Dauphin." Thus we see royalty established according to the order of succession in the house of David and Solomon, and the throne of David is secured for * Puffendorf, book iv. chap. 11, article xiii. ever,* (although, by the way, that same little joint-stool called a 'throne,' instead of being secured for ever, lasted, in fact, only a very short time.)" By virtue of this law, the eldest son was to succeed to the exclusion of his brothers, and on this account Adonijah, who was the eldest, said to Bathsheba, the mother of Solomon, "Thou knowest that the kingdom was mine, and all Israel had recognized my right; but the Lord hath transferred the kingdom to my brother Solomon." The right of Adonijah was incontestible. Bossuet expressly admits this at the close of this article. "The Lord has transferred" is only a usual phrase, which means, I have lost my property or right, I have been deprived of my right. Adonijah was the issue of a lawful wife; the birth of his younger brother was the fruit of a double crime. "Unless, then," says Bossuet, "something extraordinary occurred, the eldest was to succeed." But the something extraordinary, in the present instance, which prevented it was, that Solomon, the issue of a marriage arising out of a double adultery and a murder, procured the assassination, at the foot of the altar, of his elder brother and his lawful king, whose rights were supported by the high priest Abiathar and the chief commander Joab. After this we must acknowledge, that it is more difficult than some seem to imagine to take lessons on the rights of persons, and on the true system of government from the holy scriptures, which were first given to the Jews, and afterwards to ourselves, for purposes of a far higher nature. "The preservation of the people is the supreme law." Such is the fundamental maxim of nations; but in all civil wars the safety of the people is made to consist in slaughtering a number of the citizens. In all foreign wars, the safety of a people consists in killing their neighbours, and taking possession of their property! It is difficult to perceive in this a particularly salutary" right of nations," and a government * Book ii. propos. 9. eminently favourable to liberty of thought and social happiness. There are geometrical figures exceedingly regular and complete in their kind; arithmetic is perfect; many trades or manufactures are carried on in a manner constantly uniform and excellent; but with respect to the government of men, is it possible for any one to be good, when all are founded on passions in conflict with each other? No convent of monks ever existed without discord; it is impossible therefore to exclude it from kingdoms. Every government resembles not merely a monastic institution, but a private household. There are none existing without quarrels; and quarrels between one people and another, between one prince and another, have ever been sanguinary; those between subjects and their sovereigns have been sometimes no less destructive. How is an individual to act? Must he risk joining in the conflict, or withdraw from the scene of action? SECTION. II. More than one people are desirous of new constitutions. The English would have no objection to a change of ministers once in every eight hours, but they have no wish to change the form of their government. The modern Romans are proud of their church of St. Peter and their ancient Greek statues; but the people would be glad to be better fed, although they were not quite so rich in benedictions; the fathers of families would be content that the church should have less gold, if the granaries had more corn; they regret the time when the apostles journied on foot, and when the citizens of Rome travelled from one palace to another in a litter. We are incessantly reminded of the admirable republics of Greece. There is no question that the Greeks would prefer the government of a Pericles and a : Demosthenes to that of a pacha; but in their most prosperous and palmy times they were always complaining; discord and hatred prevailed between all the cities without, and in every separate city within. They gave laws to the old Romans, who before that time had none; but their own were so bad for themselves that they were continually changing them. What could be said in favour of a government under which the just Aristides was banished, Phocion put to death, Socrates condemned to drink hemlock after having been exposed to banter and derision on the stage by Aristophanes; and under which the Amphyctions, with contemptible imbecility, actually delivered up Greece into the power of Philip, because the Phocians had ploughed up a field which was part of the territory of Apollo? But the government of the neighbouring monarchies was worse. Puffendorf promises us a discussion on the best form of government. He tells us,' *that many pronounce in favour of monarchy, and others, on the contrary, inveigh furiously against kings; and that it does not fall within the limits of his subject to examine in detail the reasons of the latter." If any mischievous and malicious reader expects to be told here more than he is told by Puffendorf, he will be much deceived. A Swiss, a Hollander, a Venetian nobleman, an English peer, a cardinal, and a count of the empire, were once disputing, on a journey, about the nature of their respective governments, and which of them deserved the preference: no one knew much about the matter; each remained in his own opinion without having any very distinct idea what that opinion was; and they returned without having come to any general conclusion; every one praising his own country from vanity, and complaining of it from feeling. What, then, is the destiny of mankind? scarcely any great nation is governed by itself. Begin from the east and take the circuit of the world. Japan closed its ports against foreigners from the well-founded apprehension of a dreadful revolution. China actually experienced such a revolution; she Book vii. chap. 5. obeys Tartars of a mixed race, half Mantchou and half Hun. India obeys Mogul Tartars. The Nile, the Orontes, Greece, and Epirus are still under the yoke of the Turks. It is not an English race that reigns in England; it is a German family which succeeded to a Dutch prince, as the latter succeeding to a Scotch family which had succeeded an Angevin family, that had replaced a Norman family, which had expelled a family of usurping Saxons. Spain obeys a French family; which succeeded to an Austracian race, that Austracian race had succeeded families that boasted of Visigoth extraction; these Visigoths had been long driven out by the Arabs, after having succeeded to the Romans who had expelled the Carthaginians. Gaul obeys Franks, after having obeyed Roman prefects. The same banks of the Danube have belonged to Germans, Romans, Arabs, Sclavonians, Bulgarians, and Huns, to twenty different families, and almost all foreigners. And what greater wonder has Rome had to exhibit than so many emperors who were born in the barbarous provinces, and so many popes born in provinces no less barbarous? Let him govern who can. And when any one has succeeded in his attempts to become master, he governs as he can. SECTION III. In 1769, a traveller delivered the following narra tive: "I saw, in the course of my journey, a large and populous country, in which all offices and places were purchasable; I do not mean clandestinely, and in evasion of the law, but publicly and in conformity to it. The right to judge, in the last resort of the honour, property, and life of the citizen, was put up to auction in the same manner as the right and property in a few acres of land.* Some very high commissions in the army are conferred only on the highest bidder. The *If this traveller had passed through the country only two years afterwards, he would have found this infamous custom abolished, and four years after that he would have found it re-established. French Ed. |