9.2. 2. That a confederate Government ought to be composed of States
of the same Nature, especially of the republican Kind.
The Canaanites were destroyed by reason that they were petty
monarchies, that had no union or confederacy for their common defence;
and, indeed, a confederacy is not agreeable to the nature of petty
monarchies.
As the confederate republic of Germany consists of free cities, and
of petty states subject to different princes, experience shows us that
it is much more imperfect than that of Holland and Switzerland.
The spirit of monarchy is war and enlargement of dominion: peace and
moderation are the spirit of a republic. These two kinds of government
cannot naturally subsist in a confederate republic.
Thus we observe, in the Roman history, that when the Veientes had
chosen a king, they were immediately abandoned by all the other petty
republics of Tuscany. Greece was undone as soon as the kings of Macedon
obtained a seat among the Amphyktyons.
The confederate republic of Germany, composed of princes and free
towns, subsists by means of a chief, who is, in some respects, the
magistrate of the union, in others, the monarch.
