2.4. 4. Of the Relation of Laws to the Nature of Monarchical Government.
The intermediate, subordinate, and dependent powers constitute the
nature of monarchical government; I mean of that in which a single
person governs by fundamental laws. I said the intermediate,
subordinate, and dependent powers. And indeed, in monarchies the prince
is the source of all power, political and civil. These fundamental laws
necessarily suppose the intermediate channels through which the power
flows: for if there be only the momentary and capricious will of a
single person to govern the state, nothing can be fixed, and of course
there is no fundamental law.
The most natural, intermediate, and subordinate power is that of the
nobility. This in some measure seems to be essential to a monarchy,
whose fundamental maxim is: no monarch, no nobility; no nobility, no
monarch; but there may be a despotic prince.
There are men who have endeavoured in some countries in Europe to
suppress the jurisdiction of the nobility, not perceiving that they were
driving at the very thing that was done by the parliament of England.
Abolish the privileges of the lords, the clergy and cities in a
monarchy, and you will soon have a popular state, or else a despotic
government.
The courts of a considerable kingdom in Europe have, for many ages,
been striking at the patrimonial jurisdiction of the lords and clergy.
We do not pretend to censure these sage magistrates; but we leave it to
the public to judge how far this may alter the constitution. Far am I
from being prejudiced in favour of the privileges of the clergy;
however, I should be glad if their jurisdiction were once fixed. The
question is not whether their jurisdiction was justly established; but
whether it be really established; whether it constitutes a part of the
laws of the country, and is in every respect in relation to those laws:
whether between two powers acknowledged independent, the conditions
ought not to be reciprocal; and whether it be not equally the duty of a
good subject to defend the prerogative of the prince, and to maintain
the limits which from time immemorial have been prescribed to his
authority.
Though the ecclesiastic power be so dangerous in a republic, yet it
is extremely proper in a monarchy, especially of the absolute kind. What
would become of Spain and Portugal, since the subversion of their laws,
were it not for this only barrier against the incursions of arbitrary
power? A barrier ever useful when there is no other: for since a
despotic government is productive of the most dreadful calamities to
human nature, the very evil that restrains it is beneficial to the
subject.
In the same manner as the ocean, threatening to overflow the whole
earth, is stopped by weeds and pebbles that lie scattered along the
shore, so monarchs, whose power seems unbounded, are restrained by the
smallest obstacles, and suffer their natural pride to be subdued by
supplication and prayer.
The English, to favour their liberty, have abolished all the
intermediate powers of which their monarchy was composed. They have a
great deal of reason to be jealous of this liberty; were they ever to be
so unhappy as to lose it, they would be one of the most servile nations
upon earth.
Mr. Law, through ignorance both of a republican and monarchical
constitution, was one of the greatest promoters of absolute power ever
known in Europe. Besides the violent and extraordinary changes owing to
his direction, he would fain suppress all the intermediate ranks, and
abolish the political communities. He was dissolving
[25]
the monarchy by his chimerical reimbursements, and seemed as if he even wanted
to redeem the constitution.
It is not enough to have intermediate powers in a monarchy; there
must be also a depositary of the laws. This depositary can only be the
judges of the supreme courts of justice, who promulgate the new laws,
and revive the obsolete. The natural ignorance of the nobility, their
indolence and contempt of civil government, require that there should be
a body invested with the power of reviving and executing the laws, which
would be otherwise buried in oblivion. The prince's council are not a
proper depositary. They are naturally the depositary of the momentary
will of the prince, and not of the fundamental laws. Besides, the
prince's council is continually changing; it is neither permanent nor
numerous; neither has it a sufficient share of the confidence of the
people; consequently it is capable of setting them right in difficult
conjunctures, or of reducing them to proper obedience.
Despotic governments, where there are no fundamental laws, have no
such kind of depositary. Hence it is that religion has generally so much
influence in those countries, because it forms a kind of permanent
depositary; and if this cannot be said of religion, it may of the
customs that are respected instead of laws.
Footnotes
[25]
Ferdinand, king of Aragon, made himself grand master of the
orders, and that alone changed the constitution.
