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SECTION II.

The Subject continued.

THERE is certainly a very great degree of singularity in 419 all the circumstances we have been describing: those persons who are acquainted with the history of other countries cannot but remark with surprise that stability of the power of the English crown,-that mysterious solidity, that inward binding strength, with which it is able to carry on with certainty its legal operations, amidst the clamorous struggle and uproar with which it is commonly surrounded, and without the medium of any armed threatening force. To give a demonstration of the manner in which all these things are brought to bear and operate, is not intended to be attempted here; the principles from which such demonstration is to be derived, suppose an inquiry into the nature of man, and of human affairs, which rather belongs to philosophy (though to a branch hitherto unexplored) than to politics; at least such an inquiry certainly lies out of the sphere of the common science of politics (a). However, there is a very material reason 420 for introducing all the above-mentioned facts concerning the peculiar stability of the governing authority of England, inasmuch as they lead to an observation of a most important political nature; which is, that this

(a) It may, if the reader pleases, belong to the science of meta. politics, in the same sense as we say metaphysics; that is, the science of those things which lie beyond physical or substantial things. A few more words are bestowed upon the same subject at the end of this chapter.

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stability allows several essential branches of English liberty to take place, which, without it, could not exist. For there is a very essential consideration to be made in every science, though speculators are sometimes apt to lose sight of it, which is this-in order that things may have existence, they must be possible; in order that political regulations of any kind may obtain their effect, they must imply no direct contradiction, either open or hidden, to the nature of things, or to the other circumstances of the government. In reasoning from this principle, we shall find that the stability of the governing executive authority in England, and the weight it gives to the whole machine of the state, has actually enabled the English nation (considered as a free nation), to enjoy several advantages which would really have been totally unattainable in other European states, whatever degree of public virtue we might even suppose to have belonged to the men who acted in those states as the advisers of the people, or, in 421 general, who were intrusted with the business of framing the laws.

One of these advantages, resulting from the solidity of the government, is, the extraordinary personal freedom which all ranks of individuals in England enjoy at the expense of the governing authority. In the Roman commonwealth, for instance, we behold the senate invested with a number of powers totally destructive of the liberty of the citizens: and the continuance of these powers was, no doubt, in a great measure, owing to the treacherous remissness of those men to whom the people trusted for repressing them, or even to their determined resolution not to abridge those prerogatives. Yet, if we attentively consider the constant situation of

affairs in that republic, we shall find, that though we should suppose those persons to have been ever so truly attached to the cause of the people, it would not really have been possible for them to procure to the people an entire security. The right enjoyed by the senate, of suddenly naming a dictator, with a power unrestrained by any law, or of investing the consuls with an authority of much the same kind, and the power it at times assumed of making formidable examples of arbitrary justice, were resources of which the republic could not, perhaps, 422 with safety have been totally deprived; and though these expedients frequently were used to destroy the just liberty of the people, yet they were also very often the means of preserving the commonwealth.

Upon the same principle we should possibly find that the ostracism, that arbitrary method of banishing citizens, was a necessary resource in the republic of Athens.

It is therefore a most advantageous circumstance in 423 the English government, that its security renders all such expedients unnecessary, and that the representatives of the people have not only been constantly willing to promote the public liberty, but that the general situation of affairs has also enabled them to carry their precautions so far as they have done. And, indeed, when we consider what prerogatives the crown, in England, has sincerely renounced; that, in consequence of the independence conferred on the judges, and of the method of trial by jury, it is deprived of all means of influencing the settled course of the law, both in civil and criminal matters that it has renounced all power of seizing the property of individuals, and even of restraining, in any manner whatsoever, and for the shortest time, the liberty of their persons- we do not know which we

ought most to admire, whether the public virtue of those who have deprived the supreme executive power of all those dangerous prerogatives, or the nature of that same power, which has enabled it to give them up without ruin to itself,—whether the happy frame of the English government, which makes those in whom the 424 people trust, continue so faithful to the discharge of their duty, or the solidity of that same government, which can afford to leave to the people so extensive a degree of freedom.

Again, the liberty of the press, that great advantage enjoyed by the English nation, does not exist in any of the other monarchies of Europe as it does in England, however well established their power may at first seem to be; and it might even be demonstrated that it cannot so exist in them. The most watchful eye, we see, is 425 constantly kept in those monarchies upon every kind of publication; and a jealous attention is paid even to the loose and idle speeches of individuals. Much unnecessary trouble (we may be apt at first to think) is taken upon this subject; but yet, if we consider how uniform is the conduct of all those governments, how constant and unremitted are their cares in those respects, we shall become convinced, without looking farther, that there must be some sort of necessity for their precautions.

In republican states, for reasons which are at bottom the same as in the before-mentioned governments, the people are always kept under the greatest restraints by those who are at the head of the state (1). In the Roman

(1) See De Tocqueville's view of the political institutions of America.-EDITOR.

commonwealth, for instance, the liberty of writing was curbed by the severest laws (b): with regard to the freedom of speech, things were but little better, as we may conclude from several facts; and many instances may even be produced of the dread with which the private citizens, upon certain occasions, communicated their 426 political opinions to the consuls, or to the senate.

With respect, therefore, to this point, it may again be 427 looked upon as a most advantageous circumstance in the English government, that those who have been at the head of the people have not only been constantly disposed to procure the public liberty, but also that they have found it possible for them to do so; and that the remarkable strength and steadiness of the government have admitted of that extensive freedom of speaking and writing which the people of England enjoy. A most advantageous privilege this! which, affording to every man a mean of laying his complaints before the public, procures him almost a certainty of redress against any act of oppression that he may have been exposed to; and which leaving, moreover, to every subject a right to give his opinion on all public matters, and, by thus influencing the sentiments of the nation, to influence those of the legislature itself (which is sooner or later obliged to pay a deference to them), procures to him a sort of legislative authority of a much more efficacious and beneficial nature than any formal right he might enjoy of 428

(b) The law of the Twelve Tables had established the punishment of death against the author of a libel: nor was it by a trial by jury that they determined what was to be called a libel. SI QUIS CARMEN OCCENTASSIT, ACTITASSIT, CONDIDISSIT, QUOD ALTERI FLAGITIUM FAXIT, CAPITAL ESTO.

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