UC-NRLF 
 
IP 
 
 
 GIFT OF 
 MICHAEL REE^SE 
 
 Ok 
 

 
 
 '% 
 
 a 
 
 ^i 
 
 te*? 
 
 M 
 
 i 
 
 ISC, 
 
 '0 
 
 y#, 
 
 ■^..srrfHlI^ 
 
 ¥mMB&M 
 
 .„„ J^^] 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2007 with funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/dialogueonbestfoOOIewirich 
 
^ 
 
 A DIALOGUE C_ 
 
 BEST rOEM OF GOYERNMENT 
 
 BY THE RIGHT HONORABLE 
 
 SIE GEORGE CORNEWALL LEWIS, 
 
 BART., M.P. 
 
 ^ 
 
 OF THE 
 
 IHTIYEESITY, 
 
 LONDON 
 
 PARKER SON AND BOURN WEST STRAND 
 
 1863 
 

 7 y ^^/ 
 
 lONDON : PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLQ-WES AND SONS, STAMFOKD STREET, 
 AND CHARING CROSS. 
 
' OF THE ^ 
 
 UN-IVEESITf; 
 PREFACE. 
 
 From the birth of political speculation down to a 
 recent period, treatises on politics generally as- 
 sumed the character of enquiries into the perfect 
 state, or into the best form of government. This 
 was the exclusive object of the Kepublic of Plato. 
 Even the Politics of Aristotle, though they dealt 
 more extensively \witli feet than the Platonic 
 dialogue, aimed at determining the best form of 
 government. Theophrastus wrote a treatise Trepl 
 tt}? apL(TTr](; irokirela^. Cicero himself describes 
 his Dialogue de Hepuhlicd as an enquiry " de 
 Optimo reipublicae statu." The imaginary com- 
 monwealths, and political romances, which were a 
 favourite mode of composition in the 16th, the 
 17th, and even in the 18th century, all professed to 
 discover the perfect state : * and finally Mr. James 
 Mill, in his article on Government, in the * Ency- 
 
 - * An enumeration and Ml account of the works of this 
 class is given in the comprehensive Treatise of Professor Mohl, 
 Geschichte und lAteratur der Staatswissenschaften (Erlangen, 
 1855)^ vol. i. pp. 167-214. 
 
 a 2 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 clopaedia Britaimica/ undertook to demonstrate, 
 by an abstract and universal argument, that demo- 
 cracy is tlie best form of government. 
 
 Writings of this class have of late years become 
 rare, and in fact have nearly disappeared. Their 
 discontinuance has been owing to a prevalent con- 
 viction of their inutility. It has been thought (in 
 the words of Lord Bacon) that the philosophical 
 schemes of ideal commonwealths " are as the stars, 
 which give little light, because they are so high."* 
 Yet forms of government have not ceased to be 
 important: they still exercise an extensive in- 
 fluence upon the happiness of nations ; not only 
 do they affect the interests, but they arouse the 
 passions of mankind, and enlist large bodies of 
 fanatical partizans under their respective banners. 
 
 It has therefore seemed to me that a compact 
 statement of the principal arguments for and 
 against each form of government would be suited 
 to the wants of readers of the present generation. 
 As the best mode of accomplishing this object, I 
 liave selected the dialogue form, which affords 
 facilities for bringing on the stage the advocates 
 of conflicting opinions, without any attempt at a 
 decision, or at leading the reader to a dogmatic 
 result. 
 
 When, after the researches of a long series of 
 
 Advancement of Learning^ b. 2, c. 23, § 44, 
 
PEEFACE. T 
 
 philosophers, a science has reached a fixed and 
 established position, the dialogue would be a form 
 wholly unsuited to its treatment. No scientific 
 Avriter would now think of exhibiting the elements 
 of astronomy, or of mechanics, or of chemistry, in 
 the shape of a controversy between different inter- 
 locutors. But when philosophy was still making 
 its first efforts for the discovery of truth, Plato 
 embodied all his speculations in the form of 
 dialogues; and this mode of composition always 
 remained a favourite one among the ancients, 
 even when the reasons for its use had been greatly 
 weakened. Cicero composed nearly all his philo- 
 sophical works in the dialogue form, and Tacitus 
 used it for his discourse on the causes of the decay 
 of eloquence. Modern writers have shown less 
 fondness for this mode of treating a subject ; but 
 Berkeley thought that the state of metaphysical 
 science in his time afforded a fit opening for his 
 dialogue of the Minute Philosopher. Fontenelle 
 employed the same method for investigating the 
 question of the Plurality of Worlds ; and a dis- 
 tinguished writer of our own time has fitly treated 
 this indeterminate problem in the same form. 
 Southey and other more recent authors have like- 
 wise used the dialogue as a vehicle for promulgat- 
 ing miscellaneous opinions on political and social 
 subjects. 
 
 The philosophical dialogue possesses peculiar 
 
tl PREFACE. 
 
 advantages for presenting, distinctly, and in a 
 small compass, the opposite arguments on an un- 
 settled question. It is neither a debate nor a con- 
 versation. It has not the long speeches of the 
 one, or the incoherent, rambling, and extempora- 
 neous character of the other. It enjoys the benefit 
 of the dramatic style, and it enables conflicting 
 arguments to be put forward with an appearance 
 of conviction on each side. 
 
 I have supposed the dialogue to take place in 
 our own time and country, between four English- 
 men, belonging to the educated class. My object 
 has been to conceive each of the three recognized 
 forms, Monarchy, Aristocracy, and Democracy, as 
 represented by a sincere partizan, and to attribute 
 to him such arguments as a judicious advocate 
 might properly use. I have attempted, in succes- 
 sion, to place each government in the light in 
 which it would be regarded by an enthusiastic 
 admirer, and to suggest all the strongest objections 
 to the other governments which the advocates of 
 each would naturally urge. My aim has been to 
 conduct the controversy in such a manner as to 
 represent the strength of each case ; but I have 
 not endeavoured to exhaust the subject. A dia- 
 logue is not fitted for systematic instruction, or 
 for strict scientific treatment. 
 
 After this explanation of the plan of the com- 
 position, it is scarcely necessary for me to say that 
 
PEEFACE, TU 
 
 I do not identify myself with any one of the inter- 
 locutors, or indeed render myself responsible for 
 any of the arguments used in the dialogue. I 
 may remark, however, that I have not in any 
 • instance knowingly attributed to any of the inter- 
 locutors merely logical fallacies; fallacies which 
 turn upon verbal or formal sophisms, and which 
 are absolutely destitute of proving force. The 
 arguments which I have put in their mouths 
 seemed to me to be valid as far as they go ; though 
 they may be overborne by other more powerful 
 arguments. It is a controversy consisting of a 
 debtor and creditor account ; the difficulty lies 
 in striking the balance fairly. The weights in one 
 scale may be less heavy than the weights in the 
 other scale, but they are nevertheless weights. 
 Such is the nature of nearly all moral and political 
 problems. Where the discussion is conducted on 
 both sides by competent disputants, there are 
 almost always valid arguments in favour of each 
 of two opposite opinions. The difficulty is to 
 determine which of two sets of valid arguments 
 preponderates. 
 
 London, December, 1862. 
 
_^ %^ or THE ^ 
 
 A DIALOGUlu^IVEESIT^ 
 BEST FORM OF GOVERNMENT. 
 
 MONAKCHICUS, AKISTOCKATICUS, DEMOCRATICUS. 
 CEITO. 
 
 Ckito. 
 As you happen to have met to-day at my house, 
 and as you are all ardent politicians, I must take 
 the liberty of addressing to you a remark, which 
 concerns you all three equally. I find much less 
 difficulty in agreeing with any one of those opi- 
 nions concerning government which you hold 
 singly, and in which each differs from the others, 
 than in agreeing with the fundamental postulate 
 which you hold in common. I have heard you all 
 successively, on different occasions, express strong 
 opinions in favour of a certain form of government, 
 and wish for wars, and revolutions, and foreign 
 intervention, in short, for any measure, however 
 violent, provided that it would have the effect of 
 changing the actual form of government into that 
 form which you prefer. Your opinions on this 
 subject are absolute ; you do not attempt, or con- 
 descend, to show that a particular form of govern' 
 
 B 
 
2 A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 ment is suited to the circumstances or wants of 
 the particular people ; that it is likely to guard 
 against certain evils to which the community in 
 question are liable, or to produce certain benefits 
 of which they are destitute ; you believe that it 
 will operate like a charm, mechanically and infal- 
 libly. Now it seems to me that there is no part 
 of legislative science on which general rules are 
 so difficult to frame, or have so little value, as 
 that which concerns the best form of government. 
 I am aware that a long series of political specu- 
 lators, from Plato to James Mill, have occupied 
 themselves with the solution of this problem; but, 
 if it had been soluble, their efforts would assuredly 
 not have been so barren of useful results as they 
 must be considered to have been. No scheme of 
 a Perfect or Ideal State has worked its way into 
 the general approbation of the civilized world. 
 Even if we reject all reference to the standard of 
 popular opinion, and order all the unlearned mem- 
 bers of the great public jury to stand aside, we 
 shall find no consensus eruditorum on the subject. 
 You remember the verses which would not have 
 been so often quoted, if a large part of the world 
 did not agree in the sentiment which they contain : 
 
 For forms of government let fools contest, 
 Whate'er is best administered, is best. 
 
 Aristoceaticus. 
 . It seems to me, Crito, that your objection, 
 and the verses of Pope which you adopt, in fact 
 
BEST FOKM OF GOVERNMENT. 3 
 
 beg the question which you propose to put in 
 issue. I, and our two friends now present, differing 
 as to the political forms which we prefer, agree 
 in thinking that a certain form of government 
 offers the best prospect of ensuring the welfare of 
 the community. We are aware that a constitution 
 of government and legislation are in themselves 
 dead things, and that laws only obtain vitality in 
 their administration. But believing that the form 
 of government determines both the substance of 
 the laws and the mode in which they are adminis- 
 tered, we think that none but a good form of 
 government can be well administered, and that 
 the best form of government will be the best 
 administered. 
 
 Crito. 
 I do not deny that the administrative or ex- 
 ecutive branch of the government is, to a certain 
 extent, dependent on the constitutional forms, and 
 on the laws which are administered. It is possible 
 that in this, as in other cases. Pope may have 
 sacrificed truth to epigrammatic point. But the 
 doctrine against which I protest is that which you 
 all three uphold, and act upon, when you seek 
 each to introduce your favourite form of govern- 
 ment. No matter how prosperous or contented 
 a country may be, you are always uneasy, until 
 you have cut its constitution according to your 
 particular pattern. If a country be under an 
 aristocratic or democratic regimen, you, Monar- 
 chicus, are eager to make the government monar- 
 
 B 2 
 
% A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 chical. If the constitution of a country be either 
 monarchical or democratic, you, Aristocraticus, 
 wish to make it aristocratic. If a country be 
 ruled either as a monarchy or as an aristocracy, 
 you, Democraticus, are desirous of making the 
 government democratical. You allow nothing for 
 habit, nothing for association, nothing for histo- 
 rical recollections ; you assume that a community 
 of men can be moulded, like clay, under your 
 hands ; that they can be moved like pieces on a 
 chess-board, or like soldiers at a review. You 
 expect that your new constitution will work with 
 the truth and regularity of a machine ; that its 
 movements can be calculated beforehand, and that 
 it will infallibly produce the effects which you 
 intend it to produce. If a community is thoroughly 
 disorganized, no form of government, however 
 cunningly devised, will obtain stability, will afford 
 security to property and protection to persons. No 
 political frame could have acquired permanence 
 in France at the end of the last century. The 
 saying of the French bookseller who, on being 
 asked for a copy of the last constitution, said that 
 he did not deal in periodical publications, illus- 
 trates the state of things which then existed. 
 
 Democeaticus. 
 
 No sane man will deny the influence of habit 
 
 and association in politics, or will attempt to treat 
 
 a community of living men as an insentient 
 
 machine. I have no ambition to be another 
 
BEST FORM OF GOVERNMENT. O 
 
 Abb^ Sieyes, or to produce a series of free consti- 
 tutions from my pigeon holes, of different shapes 
 and sizes. But I must be allowed to think that 
 democracy is the best form of government, that a 
 nation can never be well governed under any 
 other form, and that a democratic people can 
 alone become enlightened and independent in its 
 judgments. I therefore wish, as far as I can, to 
 fevour the cause of democracy. I wish to preserve 
 this form of government where it exists, and to 
 introduce it wherever it does not exist. 
 
 Crito. 
 You accused me of begging the question at 
 issue, in assuming that a bad form of government 
 could be well administered. I must be permitted 
 to say in return that you beg a question, which I 
 am not prepared to concede, when you speak of a 
 " best form of government." I cannot admit that 
 there is any one form of government, which is 
 best for every community, under every variety of 
 circumstances. Compare the useful arts. Can it 
 be said that there is a best ship, a best gun, a best 
 knife, a best spade, independently of all the various 
 puqjoses to which these instruments can be ap- 
 plied ? Why are we to suppose that one form of 
 government is the best adapted for all commu- 
 nities, whatever their moral and intellectual state 
 may be? There is in particular one important 
 point of difference which the constructors of an 
 ideally perfect State quietly pass over, as if it did 
 
6 A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 not affect the conditions of their problem. I mean 
 the difference of race. Those who affirm that they 
 can determine the best form of government hold 
 that this form is equally the best for a cannibal 
 community in the Feejee Islands, for a negro, or 
 Caffre, or Hottentot tribe in Africa, for an Oriental 
 nation, for an European country. They make no 
 allowance for difference of circumstances. Their 
 theorems are as general as a proposition in Euclid, 
 or in one of the physical sciences. Those who 
 prove, by a priori arguments, that democracy* is 
 the best form of government, teach that it is best 
 for France, for Kussia, for Turkey, for China, for 
 Timbuctoo, and for Otaheite. 
 
 MONAECHICUS. 
 
 I am far indeed from thinking that democracy 
 is the best form of government, but I hold that 
 there is a best form of government. The world is 
 now nearly unanimous in favour of monarchy ; out 
 of the entire number of independent political com- 
 munities, probably ninety-nine hundredths, at least, 
 are governed by monarchical institutions. The 
 all but universal practice of mankind testifies in 
 favour of monarchy. The number of States under 
 an aristocratic or democratic government is, more- 
 over, gradually diminishing. The wars of the 
 French empire have left few remaining in Europe. 
 There were none in Africa or Asia. I hope that 
 those in America will not be of long duration. 
 Brazil (the only prosperous and well-regulated 
 
BEST FORM OF GOVERNMENT. 7 
 
 State in South America) is a monarcliy ; and the 
 Spanish repubhcs can hardly be said to have any 
 regular form of government. They alternate be- 
 tween anarchy and the capricious rule of some 
 ephemeral military dictator. The proportion 
 of mankind governed by republican institutions 
 is extremely small, and surely there is nothing 
 paradoxical in supposing that small exception to 
 disappear. 
 
 Crito. 
 I must leave Aristocraticus and Democraticus 
 to settle with you the question whether monarchy 
 is the best form of government, and whether they 
 are willing to allow my objection to be answered 
 by its assumed universality. Even if we suppose 
 that monarchy is suited to rude and barbarous 
 countries, and is best fitted for them ; if we con 
 cede ^that an African or even an Asiatic commu- 
 nity can only be governed by a despotic regimen, 
 we are not therefore entitled to infer that de- 
 spotic monarchy is best fitted for a highly civilized 
 nation. But I have another reason for maintain- 
 ing that you are not authorized in assuming with- 
 out proof that there is such a thing as a universally 
 best form of government. Such an hypothesis 
 seems to me inconsistent with one of the essential 
 distinctions between the moral and the physical 
 sciences. A characteristic mark of the moral 
 sciences is that their phenomena are in general 
 produced by a plurality of causes : a characteristic 
 mark of the physical sciences is that their pheno- 
 
S A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 mena in general involve unity of causation. It 
 is on account of the latter peculiarity that induc- 
 tive reasoning is so much easier, more direct, and 
 less fallible in the physical than in the moral 
 sciences. When we see the ground covered with 
 snow, we know that the snow fell from the cloiids. 
 When we see ice, we know that the temperature 
 has been at a certain degree of cold. But in the 
 moral sciences, it rarely happens that there is only 
 one possible cause ; and when we see an effect, a 
 plurality of causes may in general be assigned for 
 it hypothetically, without involving any theore- 
 tical absurdity. We know that bad government 
 may assume a great variety of forms : that many 
 different causes may make a people miserable, 
 poor, ignorant, discontented, and anarchical. For 
 a similar reason it is probable that there may be 
 different sorts and forms of good government, and 
 that a people may be rendered happy, prosperous, 
 contented, and orderly by different modes of rule, 
 and by different systems of legislation. 
 
 Democraticus. 
 
 I concede readily that there are different sorts of 
 bad government, but I contend that there is only 
 one sort of good government. Kectitude is one, 
 but error is multiform. 
 
 €a6\ol jxev yap aTrXcoy, Travrodaircis 8e Kaxot, 
 
 according to the verse which Aristotle quotes in 
 his * Ethics.' 
 
BEST FOBM OF GOVERNl^NT, ^'^ ^fi^« •rn- 
 
 II N I V E E S I T 
 
 Crito. \s C/J r "^^ >S\V 
 
 Truth is one, and falsehood is infi^e ^ t6t'-']r^^^>^ 
 cannot admit that tliis dictum is equally applicable 
 to conduct and practice. It is undoubtedly true 
 that there are more wrong ways than right ways ; 
 but can it be said that there is only one right 
 way ? We know that persons travelling by dif- 
 ferent roads, and in different conveyances, all 
 arrive in equal safety, and in about the same time, 
 at their journey's end. There may be more forms 
 of bad government than of good government, but 
 it does not follow that there is only one form of 
 good government. There are multitudes of forms 
 of morbid action in the human body, but it cannot 
 be said that there is only one set of physical con- 
 ditions which is consistent with health, 
 
 MONARCHICUS. 
 
 You must forgive me, Crito, if I pay little atten- 
 tion to your a priori presumptions against the pos- 
 sibility of the existence of a best form of govern- 
 ment. I meet your theoretical objections to the 
 possibility of its existence by proving that it 
 actually exists. I undertake to demonstrate that 
 monarchy is the best form of government ; and if 
 I succeed, your ingenious argumentation that there 
 cannot be a best form of government falls to the 
 ground. 
 
 Crito. 
 
 I am quite ready to listen to your proposed de- 
 monstration, but you will observe that you place 
 
10 A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 the very foundation of your argument upon a 
 narrow and a dangerous issue. If you fail in con- 
 vincing our friends Aristocraticus andDemocraticus 
 (who, like yourself, have got a panacea for the ills 
 of society) that monarchy is the best form of 
 government, you likewise fail in proving that the 
 existence of a best form of government is possible. 
 You resemble a person who should attempt to 
 convince an Atheist of the truth of revealed reli- 
 gion, without first convincing him of the existence 
 of a God. However, I will not be disputatious, or 
 seek to prevent you from proving your thesis in 
 any way in which you think it can be proved. 
 Pray give us your pleading for monarchy. 
 
 MONARCHICUS. 
 
 I am so confident of the goodness of my cause 
 that I am quite willing to stake the general pro- 
 position upon my proof of the pre-eminent advan- 
 tages of monarchy. 
 
 In the first place, then, monarchy is an institu- 
 tion juris gentium. It may be said, in strictness, 
 to be common to all nations. There is no nation 
 which has not at some period been under a mon- 
 archical regimen. The great majority of nations 
 always have been, and are now, governed as 
 monarchies. Monarchy is the universal form of 
 government in Africa and Asia ; it is nearly uni- 
 versal in Europe, the exceptions being a few in- 
 significant republics, such as Hamburg, Frankfort, 
 and the small federation of Switzerland. In 
 
BEST FORM OF GOVERNMENT. 11 
 
 America there is the federation of the United 
 States, in which both the federal government and' 
 the States' governments are democratic. With 
 regard to Mexico and the other Spanish States of 
 America, their governments have been formed on 
 the model of the United States ; but their political 
 condition is so disorganized that they can hardly 
 be said to have any settled form of government. 
 On the whole, unless you reckon each Swiss 
 canton, and each state of the American Union, as 
 a separate unit — which you are not entitled to do, 
 if a state is an independent political community — 
 you cannot enumerate half-a-dozen states, in the 
 entire world, as being under an aristocratic or 
 democratic government. 
 
 Aeistocraticus. 
 
 I shall have a word to say presently upon the 
 grounds of your enumeration ; but before I come 
 to the meaning which you attach to the word 
 monarchy, let me ask you why you omit all re- 
 ference to antiquity ? Surely you must see that 
 your doctrine of the universality of monarchy is 
 inappKcable to a period when all the civilized 
 part of the world was under a republican govern- 
 ment of some sort. It is difficult to say that 
 the whole ancient world was monarchical at a 
 time when nearly all the Greek states were re- 
 publican, and when Eome and Carthage were 
 republics. 
 
12 A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 MONAECHICUS. 
 
 All the Greek republics began by a kingly 
 government. The ancient politicians and histo- 
 rians concur in treating the patriarchal rule of an 
 hereditary king as the primitive form of dominion. 
 Kome had her seven kings ; and whatever may be 
 the authenticity of their legendary story, the in- 
 stitution of an interrex, which existed at the period 
 of contemporary annals, must be considered as 
 proving the previous existence of a royal govern- 
 ment in Eome. The envy of the citizens subse- 
 quently led to the division of power, and to the 
 establishment of oligarchies and democracies, in 
 these small communities ; but in Greece their 
 factions, their internal discords, their foreign wars, 
 their mutual jealousies and incapacity of firm 
 union, and their unwillingness to submit to mili- 
 tary discipline and to military command, led to 
 their ultimately becoming subject to the kingdom 
 of Macedon, and to other kingdoms founded by 
 Alexander s generals. Kome had more military 
 ability than the Greek States; she organized a 
 military system which enabled her to conquer 
 many neighbouring countries, and to hold them in 
 subjection ; but her military successes were partly 
 owing to her monarchical institution of a dictator, 
 to which the senate and people had the good sense 
 to submit at moments of difficulty, when the weak- 
 ness inherent in all popular institutions would 
 have been fatal to the state. Her military system, 
 however, proved in the end inconsistent with the 
 
BEST FOEM OF GOVERNMENT. 13 
 
 permanence of her republican government ; for the 
 accumulation of conquered territories formed a 
 mass too great for the Eoman senate and tlie 
 assembly of Koman citizens to wield ; the large 
 standing armies became dangerous to liberty, and 
 the generals who led them involved the country 
 in a series of civil wars which produced evils so 
 intolerable that the people were glad to take 
 refuge under the monarchical sway of Augustus. 
 He, as Tacitus says, " Cuncta discordiis civilibus 
 fessa nomine principis sub imperium recepit." The 
 people, weary of the inevitable consequences of 
 popular institutions in a state so vast as Kome had 
 become, was glad to place itself under the tutelary 
 protection of a monarchy. For several centuries 
 all the Greek and Italian communities, which had 
 formerly been governed as republics, were aggre- 
 gated under the sceptre of the Koman emperors, 
 and republican government ceased to exist in the 
 world. For about the twelve first centuries of the 
 Christian era, it is literally true that the entire 
 world was under monarchical governments ; such 
 a government as an oligarchy or democracy did 
 not exist. 
 
 Aristoceaticus. 
 I will not stop to examine your explanation of 
 the alleged failure of free institutions in antiquity. 
 I hope to give my version of the character of the 
 ancient aristocracies before our conversation comes 
 to an end. But I would ask Monarchicus whether 
 he takes no note of the Italian and German re- 
 
14 A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 publics of the Middle Ages, as modifying his pro- 
 position respecting the universality of monarchy. 
 
 MONAECHICUS. 
 
 It is undoubtedly true that after the disintegra- 
 tion of the Koman Empire, by the successive in- 
 vasions of the barbarous tribes, and the destruction 
 of the ancient civilization, a number of city com- 
 munities, resting to a great extent upon trading 
 corporations or guilds, were formed in Italy and 
 Germany, and were governed by republican insti- 
 tutions. But these mediaeval commonwealths were 
 torn by internal factions ; they afforded no models 
 of good government ; with the exception of Venice, 
 they acquired no stability ; and they fell, one after 
 another, under the dominion of native signori, 
 resembling the Greek rvpavvot, who destroyed 
 all their liberties, and reduced them to the form 
 which they presented in the last century. Some 
 few of these republics resisted the monarchical 
 tendency, and lasted until the wars of the French 
 Eevolution, w^hich extinguished all the remains of 
 independent republican government in Europe, 
 but set up some ephemeral republics, affiliated 
 with the revolutionary government of France. 
 When Napoleon had made himself master of 
 France, with the full consent of the people, whose 
 patience was exhausted by six years of revolu- 
 tionary tyranny, he handed over these republics 
 to be governed as dependent kingdoms by his 
 brothers and generals. In this way the mutual 
 
BEST FORM OF GOVERNMENT. 15 
 
 animosities of republics redound to the profit of 
 monarchy. The intrinsic weakness and inherent 
 vices of popular rule inevitably lead, sooner or 
 later, to its extinction. Monarchies rarely be- 
 come republics, but republics inevitably become 
 monarchies. Monarchy is the residuary legatee 
 of all republican states. One after another they 
 perceive their political errors, abjure their heresy, 
 and are received into the bosom of the true poli- 
 tical church — the " Alleinselig machende Kirche." 
 
 Democraticus. 
 I cannot sufficiently admire the boldness of your 
 argument, Monarchicus. If we were not sitting 
 quietly in our friend Crito's library, and if I did 
 not know that you sincerely hold the opinions 
 which you have enunciated, I should suppose that 
 you were profiting by the dictum of Juvenal : 
 
 Nam quiim magna malse superest audacia causae, 
 Creditur a multis fiducia. 
 
 Monarchicus. 
 Do not suppose that I have exhausted all my 
 arguments in favour of monarchy. If I am confi- 
 dent, my confidence rests on solid grounds. But, 
 before I proceed further, let me hear what you 
 have to say against the inference to be drawn 
 from the almost universal testimony of mankind 
 in favour of monarchy. You make the preponder- 
 ance of numbers the test of truth and the standard 
 of practice ; you decide all practical questions by 
 
16 A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 the voice of tlie majority. How comes it that you 
 refuse to apply this test to the present question ? 
 The vast majority of mankind, whether you 
 reckon them by heads or by states, has decided 
 for monarchical against republican government. 
 The republicans are numerically a miserable 
 minority of the human race. 
 
 Aristocraticus. . 
 
 As you have fairly defied Democraticus and 
 myself to a trial of arms, I will accept your chal- 
 lenge, and begin the encounter. In the first 
 place, then, I take exception to your use of the 
 term monarchy, and to the number of govern- 
 ments which you include within its signification. 
 
 Your enumeration of monarchies is founded 
 upon the popular fallacy, which assumes that 
 every king is a monarch, and that every kingdom 
 is a monarchy. Monarch is the name of a power, 
 king is merely a title. You are not authorised to 
 infer that, because the head of a state is called 
 king, is of royal rank, and succeeds to his dignity 
 by inheritance, therefore he possesses the entire 
 sovereign power, that he is despot, domtnus, or 
 master of the state, and is a monarch in the proper 
 sense of the word. Wherever there is a constitu- 
 tional king — wherever the crown is associated 
 with parliamentary assemblies, exercising a sub- 
 stantial power, there the king is not sovereign, 
 and the government is not monarchical. 
 
BEST FOKM OF GOVERNMENT. 17 
 
 MONARCHICUS. 
 
 How then do you designate a government, such 
 as that of England, with an hereditary king or 
 queen at its head ? It must surely have a name ; 
 and everybody calls it a monarchy. 
 
 Aeistocraticus. 
 
 I may be very audacious, but I consider it a 
 republic. It may not be a democratic republic, 
 but it is a republic, nevertheless. By a republic 
 I understand every government in which the 
 sovereign power is, both in form and in substance, 
 distributed among a body of persons. Where the 
 government is, both in fact and in form, or in fact 
 simply, and not in form, exercised by one person, 
 I consider the government monarchical. 
 
 MONAECHICUS. 
 
 Do not all writers agree in giving to the govern- 
 ment of England, and to other similar govern- 
 ments, formed of a king and parliament, the appel- 
 lation of " limited monarchies " ? 
 
 Aeistocraticus. 
 I am quite aware that usage is against me; 
 but when usage is inaccurate, and suggests a false 
 classification, it may be reformed. The ancients 
 spoke of the seven planets, because they conceived 
 the sun and moon, equally with the five erratic 
 stars, as revolving round the immoveable and 
 central earth. Since the establishment of the 
 
 
 
18 A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 Copernican system, we retain the term planets ; 
 but we restrict it to the five wandering stars, and 
 no longer apply it to the sun — the immoveable 
 centre ©f the system, or to the moon — ^the satel- 
 lite of the earth. The phrase " limited monarchy," 
 however, seems to me to admit of a rational 
 explanation ; and I do not object to it, provided 
 its true meaning is recognized. Where, by a 
 historical process, by gradual encroachments on 
 the power of the crown, and by gradual enlarge- 
 ment of the functions of the Houses of Parliament, 
 a line of kings, who once possessed the entire 
 sovereignty, have ceased to be monarchs in the 
 strict sense of the word, the government may be 
 called " a limited monarchy ;" that is to say, a 
 monarchy, which, having once been unlimited, 
 has since changed its character, and has acquired 
 the attributes of a republic. Still life, as a term 
 in painting, is analogous to limited monarchy, 
 since it originally denoted dead animals ; that is, 
 animals which were alive, but are so no longer. 
 In the Greek states the king was gradually 
 stripped of his power, and he retained none of his 
 former prerogatives, except that of performing 
 certain sacrifices on behalf of the state. He be- 
 came, in fact, a mere sacerdotal dignitary. The 
 same change took place at Rome : after the ex- 
 pulsion of the Tarquins, the royal office survived 
 only in the king of the sacrifices. In these states 
 the royal power was so completely obliterated, 
 that they could not with propriety be called 
 
^ OF THE ^ 
 
 BEST FORM OF GOVERNMENI'. 'J J VMJ'T? g T r 
 
 limited monarchies ; the monarchical lefement of- n VS\^ 
 government was not limited — it was destroyed. -,-_^^-^^'-^ 
 At Sparta the power of the kings was restricted ; 
 it was exercised in concert with that of the elec- 
 tive magistrates, and the general assembly of 
 citizens ; and if there had been one line of heredi- 
 tary kings, instead of two, the government of 
 Sparta would have probably been called a limited 
 monarchy ; but, as there were two parallel lines 
 of kings, the term monarchy has been considered 
 inapplicable, and it has been called a republic. 
 Aristotle and Polybius, however, in treating of 
 mixed governments, consider the monarchical 
 element as present in the constitution of Sparta, 
 on account of its kings. 
 
 MONARCHIOUS. 
 
 The powers of a constitutional king may not be 
 unlimited, like those of a monarch in an Oriental 
 state; but he has many attributes in common 
 with absolute monarchs. The head of a republic, 
 such as the Doge of Venice, or the President of 
 the United States, is subject to the laws ; but a 
 constitutional king is, like the Koman Emperor, 
 solutua legibits ; he is above the laws, not under 
 them ; according to the law of England, the " king 
 can do no wrong ;" that is to say, he can commit 
 no breach of the law, civil or criminal; he is 
 legally irresponsible. If the king of England were 
 to commit an act, which in a subject would be a 
 breach of the criminal law, he could not be put 
 
 2 
 
20 A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 upon his trial ; he could not be indicted in one of 
 his own courts. In like manner, he cannot be 
 made the defendant in a civil action, and be sued 
 for a civil injury. 
 
 Aristocraticus. 
 
 All this is very true, but it does not meet my 
 argument. With a single exception, the rules 
 which you cite have merely an antiquarian inter- 
 est, and are devoid of practical importance. They 
 are relics of a time when the kings of England 
 were, or claimed to be, monarchs in the strict 
 sense of the word. The exemption of the king of 
 England from the jurisdiction of the criminal 
 courts has no influence upon his conduct. The 
 foreign ambassadors and ministers resident in 
 England are likewise exempt from the jurisdiction 
 of our criminal courts; but, although they are 
 liable to the jurisdiction of their own courts, in 
 the event of their committing a crime in this 
 country, nobody supposes that this liability is the 
 true reason why they abstain from the commission 
 of crime. It is true that the king of England 
 cannot formally be sued in a civil action ; but that 
 which cannot be done directly, can be done indi- 
 rectly. The would-be suitor addresses a petition 
 to the Crown to do him justice. This petition, 
 which is called a Petition of Eight, is, by custom, 
 treated legally ; it is referred to the Attorney- 
 General ; and if the claim is a hom fide one, the 
 permission that right he done is granted by the 
 
BEST FORM OF GOVERNMENT. 21 
 
 Grown as of course. The claim then becomes the 
 subject of ordinary litigation. The only substan- 
 tial and operative part of the rule that the Tdng 
 can do no wrong is that which makes him politi- 
 cally irresponsible. This rule, as our ancestors 
 saw clearly, is the necessary corollary of ministe- 
 rial responsibility. Eesponsibility cannot be disso- 
 ciated from power, in a free government. If you 
 hold that the king is responsible, you cannot hold 
 that his ministers are responsible. They become 
 his agents ; he has the power to order ; they are 
 bound to obey, and he covers them with his 
 responsibility. It is impossible that the political 
 responsibility of ministers can be practically en- 
 forced, unless the king is held to be politically 
 irresponsible. Instead, therefore, of considering 
 the maxim that the king can do no wrong , in its 
 political acceptation, as a mark of an absolute 
 monarchy, I regard it as the very keystone of the 
 constitutional or parliamentary system. 
 
 MONARCHICUS. 
 
 There is another point in which all kings, 
 whether absolute or not, agree. They regard 
 themselves as forming a single caste or order : they 
 intermarry only with one another : they have cer- 
 tain modes of address, and a certain ceremonial, 
 in which they all participate, whatever their 
 power may be. The king of England, and the 
 king of the Belgians, who are associated with a 
 parliament, are admitted to be of equal rank and 
 
22 A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 dignity with kings who are not associated with a 
 parliament. Their sons and daughters are called 
 princes and princesses, and they intermarry exclu- 
 sively with one another. 
 
 Akistocraticus. 
 
 The custom to which you allude illustrates, 
 what I previously pointed out, as the characteristic 
 of this class of so-called monarchies. King is a 
 title ; it denotes a certain social rank, accompanied 
 with certain legal precedence, and with the con- 
 sequences of that precedence; but it does not 
 designate any fixed amount of political power. 
 Everybody must see that the head of a state may 
 possess the entire sovereign power, or only a por- 
 tion of the sovereign power. This is the circum- 
 stance which determines the form of government. 
 But, if he bears the title of king, and acquires his 
 dignity by inheritance, he may be treated on an 
 equality by other hereditary kings, as to social 
 rank, and its privileges, although they may pos- 
 sess the entire sovereign power, and he may not. 
 
 No idea is more familiar to us than the differ- 
 ence of political power associated with the same 
 title of office. In travelling through different 
 countries, we meet with officers bearing the same 
 title of office, but armed with different powers. 
 Nobody, again, supposes that a modern consul 
 of trade possesses the same powers as a Koman 
 consul. When we come to extreme cases of 
 this kind, the illustration is scarcely serious. 
 
BEST POEM OP GOVERNMENT. 23 
 
 One is reminded of the English traveller in 
 Germany, before the French Revolution, who 
 described himself as " Elector of Westminster " on 
 his passport. He left it to be inferred that, in 
 proportion as Westminster was a greater city than 
 Cologne or Treves, so an Elector of Westminster 
 was a greater personage than an Elector of Co- 
 logne or Treves. 
 
 MONARCHICUS. 
 
 Notwithstanding your distinctions, I must per- 
 sist in claiming the benefit of the received phrase- 
 ology, which refers all monarchies, absolute and 
 constitutional, to the same class, and opposes 
 them jointly to republics. I am sure that I shall 
 be supported by Democraticus in this claim, for 
 all republicans agree in proscribing kings in a 
 body : they make no exception for constitutional 
 kings. When the French Jacobin prayed to 
 " etrangler le dernier roi dans le boyau du dernier 
 pretre," he expressed the maxim of the republi- 
 cans of his day. I am quite willing to decide our 
 controversy by the language and conduct of 
 republicans. If it was merely their language, I 
 should attach less weight to it ; but their con- 
 victions and feelings evidently go with their 
 words. They hate a constitutional king as much 
 as they hate an absolute king. When the Ame- 
 ricans resent a combination of the crowned heads 
 of Europe, they include England, Belgiimi, and 
 Italy, not less than France and Austria. I claim 
 
24 A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 nothing but wliat the republicans concede to me 
 They do not classify constitutional monarchies 
 with republics, or recognize any afiSnity between 
 the two forms of government. I maintain that by 
 the acknowledgment of the republicans them- 
 selves, I am entitled to reckon all limited mon- 
 archies as monarchies — and if this point is 
 established, it follows that there are only two 
 republics in the world, namely, the United States 
 and Switzerland, besides Hamburg, Frankfort, and 
 any other of the free towns of Europe, which may 
 by accident have retained a nominal indepen- 
 dence. This is a far closer approach to a consermis 
 of all mankind, than can be found on any other 
 subject of government, religion, ethics, or even of 
 the useful arts ; and I repeat, that it affords a 
 powerful argument in favour of the pre-eminent 
 excellence of monarchy. 
 
 Akistockaticus. 
 
 I must protest against being bound by the 
 argumentative consequences of a phraseology, 
 which, although generally received, I hold to be 
 erroneous. The utmost to which you can drive 
 me by this mode of reasoning is, to compel me 
 to adapt my use of terms more closely to the 
 common usage. The most convenient use of 
 terms seems to me to divide governments into 
 monarchies and republics, — by a monarchy under- 
 standing a government in which one person is 
 practically sovereign ; and by a republic under- 
 
BEST FORM OF GOVERNMENT. 25 
 
 standing a government in which the sovereignty- 
 is divided among a body of persons. If this body 
 of persons is small, the state is an aristocratic 
 republic ; if the number is large, the state is a 
 democratic republic. This is the classification 
 which I consider as most correct and most com- 
 modious, and which can be most easily handled 
 in political reasoning. But if you disallow it, 
 and persist in adhering more closely to the 
 popular usage, then I would propose to make 
 two classes of monarchies, namely, — first, pure, 
 absolute, or unlimited monarchies, or monarchies 
 properly so called ; and, secondly, limited, mixed, 
 or constitutional monarchies, or monarchies im- 
 properly so called : that is, kingly governments 
 in which the king is not sovereign. Consistently 
 with this classification, I would define a republic 
 as a state in which several persons share the 
 sovereign power, with this qualification, that the 
 person at the head of the state does not bear the 
 title of king, is not of royal rank, and does not 
 succeed to his office by an hereditary title. I 
 consider this, however, merely a verbal division, 
 made in deference to a capricious and fanciful 
 usage. I regard the second class of monarchies 
 as properly belonging to the class of republics, 
 and I hold that, for all purposes of general rea- 
 soning, it ought to be deemed to be included in 
 that class. The concession which I make to you 
 is, therefore, nominal. I do not admit that all 
 the states which you call monarchical are mon- 
 
■36 A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 archies in the proper sense of the word, or that 
 the United States and Switzerland are the only- 
 two important countries in the world in which the 
 government is substantially republican. I con- 
 sider the essence of republican government to be 
 that the sovereignty is divided among a body 
 of persons, and that characteristic is to be found 
 in a limited monarchy. 
 
 MONARCHICUS. 
 
 Even if I were to admit the justice of your 
 reasoning, and to transfer your second species of 
 monarchies to the class of republics, my argu- 
 ment would not be materially weakened. The 
 number of limited monarchies is inconsiderable. 
 Few states have been able to work the system of 
 an hereditary king, really controlled by a free 
 parliament. Supposing I were to reform the two 
 sides of our account, by giving you credit for all 
 limited monarchies, the balance would still be 
 enormously in my favour. It would remain an 
 unquestionable fact that the preponderating voice 
 of mankind, in all ages, has been decisively given 
 in favour of monarchy. 
 
 Akistocraticus, 
 
 The principle of government for which I con- 
 tend, and which I regard as vital and funda- 
 mental, is plurality of persons, as opposed to 
 unity, for the possession of the sovereign power. 
 I consider the recognition of this principle as the 
 
BEST FORM OF GOVERNMENT. 27 
 
 first step in the road of good government ; with- 
 out it, no security for good government can 
 exist. The purely monarchical principle, the 
 concentration of all the sovereign power in the 
 hands of one person, seems to me the mark of a 
 rude and unimproved system. Hence the ancient 
 politicians treat it as the primitive form of govern- 
 ment. They say that when human societies were 
 first formed, and mankind emerged from their 
 original barbarism, they were governed by a 
 single chief, under a monarchical form. Mon- 
 archy, in the form of chieftainship, — the absolute 
 rule of a mihtary patriarch, — has been, and still 
 is, common to all savage tribes. It is the govern, 
 ment of the negroes of Africa ; of the savages of 
 the Pacific ; of the red men of America, so far as 
 they have any government. The rudeness of this 
 portion of mankind is such, that they have neither 
 priests, lawyers, nor physicians. The medicine- 
 man is armed with formidable privileges ; but the 
 occult powers which he invokes are magical, 
 rather than religious. The African negroes have 
 not arrived at the idea of dividing a dwelling 
 into separate rooms. If they want a second room, 
 they build a second hut. They have no writing, 
 no traditional history, and not even any tradi- 
 tional poetry. Altogether the intellectual and 
 social state of the native Africans, and of other 
 savage tribes, is such, that no argument can be 
 drawn from their practice in favour of the use of 
 monarchy by civilized nations. 
 
28 A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 I admit, likewise, that from the dawn of history, 
 down to the present day, the Oriental states have, 
 with insignificant exceptions, been governed by 
 a monarchical regimen. Even the Tyrians, 
 though they were a commercial people, and seem 
 to have had a class of wealthy merchants, were 
 ruled by absolute kings. Their colony, Carthage, 
 whose aristocratic constitution is thought by 
 Aristotle worthy of a detailed description in his 
 'Politics,' imitated its form of government from 
 the neighbouriug Greek communities of Sicily, 
 not from its own mother country. The monarchy 
 of the Oriental States is indeed an improved and 
 refined machinery, compared with that of the 
 black African races. It is founded on the satrap- 
 ical system, and by this mode of delegating and 
 distributing power, is able to govern large 
 empires. Satraps often assert their independence, 
 and the Oriental system of provincial govern- 
 ment is seldom of long duration ; but so long 
 as an Oriental empire retains its cohesion, so long 
 as the provincial governors are kept in depend- 
 ence, are compelled to pay their tribute, and to 
 furnish their quota of troops for the common 
 defence of the country, a degree of skill and 
 intelligence is implied in the successful working 
 of the system which is far above the mental capa- 
 city of an African negro. Such an empire as 
 those of Assyria and Persia in antiquity, or of 
 China, the dominions of the Great Mogul, and of 
 the Ottoman Porte in modern times, never has 
 
BEST FORM OF GOVERNMENT. 29 
 
 existed, and probably never will exist, among the 
 natives of Africa. On the other hand, the Orien- 
 tals are as inferior to the Europeans as they are 
 superior to the Africans. They have never pro- 
 duced any scientific or literary works worthy of 
 mention, except the 'Arabian Nights': their 
 domestic and social life is founded upon poly- 
 gamy ; they have contributed nothing to the 
 progress and improvement of mankind, beyond 
 the interval between the savage state and their 
 own rude civilization. All that the West owes 
 to the invention of the East is alphabetic writing 
 and the Arabic numerals. There is nothing to 
 make it probable that they will ever hereafter 
 advance beyond the condition in which they have 
 remained stationary since the days of Darius and 
 Xerxes. One of the component parts of their 
 hereditary barbarism is, in my opinion, their 
 despotic monarchy. Their entire political system 
 is constructed on the same principle as our mili- 
 tary and naval systems. The sovereign delegates 
 his power to a succession of individual officers; 
 there is no collegiate or corporate action at any 
 stage of this hierarchy. This simple and primi- 
 tive machinery may possess certain advantages 
 when applied to a community in the low intel- 
 lectual and moral state of an Oriental nation, and 
 may, on that account, be nearly universal in 
 Asia ; but I cannot admit that its prevalence in 
 that quarter of the globe raises any presumption 
 in its favour, when its applicability to the 
 
30 A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 more intelligent and refined Europeans is in 
 question. 
 
 MONAKCHICUS. 
 
 I think you must acknowledge that, if the 
 African and Asiatic nations are to be governed at 
 all, they must, so long as they retain their present 
 nature, or, at any rate, so long as they remain in 
 their present state of intelligence and morality, 
 be governed monarchically. They would be in- 
 capable of comprehending, or of using, the refine- 
 ments and niceties of a republican government. 
 But I maintain that the simplicity, which you 
 improperly call the rudeness, of monarchy, not 
 only renders it indispensable to the African and 
 Asiatic nations, but renders it advantageous to 
 the European nations. Africa and Asia must use 
 it, because they have no alternative : Europe 
 ought to use it, because, although she has an 
 alternative, that alternative is a bad one. A 
 machine may be so complex and so intricate as to 
 be troublesome to those who are capable of learn- 
 ing the rules of its management, and it may there- 
 fore be wisely discarded. 
 
 Aristoceaticus. 
 
 This is exactly the point in which I differ from 
 you. I hold that the abolition of monarchy and 
 the introduction of plural, or republican govern- 
 ment, which had its origin in Greece, was both a 
 proof of the high intelligence of the Greeks, and a 
 powerful auxiliary in the subsequent advancement 
 
BEST FORM OP GOVERNMENT. 31 
 
 of their civilization. It was at first an effect, and 
 afterwards became a conspiring cause, of their 
 superiority to the Asiatic nations, to the nations 
 which they designated as harharian. The Greeks 
 were the inventors of corporate government, of the 
 system of dividing the sovereign power among a 
 number of co-ordinate persons, whose combined 
 assent was necessary to an act of the supreme 
 authority. For this assent of the sovereign body 
 unanimity was not requisite : it could be given by 
 the majority. This system was invented by the 
 Greeks, as much as the pendulum clock was in- 
 vented by Huyghens, or the steam-engine by 
 Watt. When it was introduced by them, the 
 world had known nothing but monarchy. It is 
 the essence of a free government : without the 
 distribution of the sovereign power among a 
 body, free government cannot exist. This im- 
 portant principle in the art of government the 
 Greeks conceived clearly, and after a time they 
 applied it universally in their small city commu- 
 nities. The office of the ancient hereditary king 
 was either abolished, or converted into a sacer- 
 dotal dignity ; any individual, who, by cajoling or 
 intimidating the people, was able to make himself a 
 tyrant, or despot, was regarded as an usurper, and 
 his rule rested on force. The Greeks detested the 
 usurped and illegitimate government of one man, 
 but their application of the principle of corporate 
 government was unskilful. They either divided the 
 entire sovereignty among a few men, determined 
 
32 A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 by birth or wealth, or they divided it among the 
 entire free body of citizens. The former govern- 
 ment was called an oligarchy or aristocracy, the 
 latter a democracy. There was no contrivance for 
 delegating the sovereign power, as in the modern 
 system of Political Kepresentation. In an oli- 
 garchy, the oligarchs were independent of popular 
 election ; in a democracy, the entire people exer- 
 cised their sovereign rights directly, and without 
 appointing any representatives to act for them. 
 This unskilful appHcation of an invaluable prin- 
 ciple produced two ill results in the repubhcs of 
 antiquity, one with respect to their internal, the 
 other with respect to their external relations. 
 As to their internal relations, the ruling body in 
 an oligarchy was too independent of the people, 
 while the ruling body in a democracy was too 
 numerous for intelligent government, and was 
 liable to be stimulated to passionate decisions by 
 eloquent demagogues. As to their external rela- 
 tions, they were unable to incorporate conquered 
 territory into their own system of government, 
 upon fair and equal terms. A newly acquired 
 province became a dependency, under the ruling 
 body of citizens in the sovereign state. Never- 
 theless, with all their defects, the free govern- 
 ments of Greece and Italy produced all that was 
 precious in antiquity — their literature, their art, 
 their science, their history. It was through them 
 that the foundations of our modern European 
 civilization were laid. They were a necessary 
 
BEST FORM OF GOVERNMENT. 32f 
 
 condition for the existence of a state of society 
 and education which could not grow up under the 
 Oriental system of monarchy ; the most improved 
 method of government which the Greeks found 
 in being. 
 
 MONARCHICUS. 
 
 I cannot allow you to continue your eulogies of 
 the corporate system of government any longer 
 without protesting against the principle on which 
 it rests. There can be no corporate government 
 without decision by a majority ; this principle is 
 equally involved in oligarchical and democratic 
 government. Now decision by a majority is un- 
 questionably one of the clumsiest contrivances for 
 securing rectitude of decision which can be de- 
 vised. You may talk of the rudeness of monar- 
 chical government, but I defy you to point out 
 anytliing in monarchy so irrational as counting 
 votes, instead of weighing them ; as making a 
 decision depend, not on the knowledge, ability, 
 experience, and fitness of the judges, but upon 
 their number. Nobody, in forming his individual 
 opinion, ever resorts to such a test. No historian, 
 in commenting on the vote of an assembly, ever 
 says, that the decision was made by the majority, 
 and therefore it was right. 
 
 Aristocraticus. 
 
 Decision by a majority may be open to theore- 
 tical objections, but, on the whole, it works well 
 
84 A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 in practice, and it is necessary for securing the 
 enormous benefit of corporate government ; with- 
 out it corporate government is impossible, and we 
 must resign ourselves to pure and unqualified 
 monarchy. There are two main defects in the 
 system of absolute monarchy, which are inse- 
 parable from it as a general system, and from 
 which corporate government is exempt. The first 
 of these is, that the entire sovereign power is borne 
 by one man. His single life therefore has a pecu- 
 liar importance. K he is assassinated, the throne 
 is suddenly rendered vacant, and a fortunate pre- 
 tender may step into it. All history is full of 
 attempts on the lives of absolute monarchs, some 
 successful, others unsuccessful. Hence an abso- 
 lute monarch becomes timid, suspicious, and full 
 of jealous precautions. Cicero, in his Tusculan 
 Disputations, gives a long and curious account of 
 the contrivances to which Dionysius resorted, in 
 order to preserve his life ; contrivances, which 
 included his friends, and even his wife and 
 daughters ; and we know that after the pamphlet 
 of * Killing no Murder,' Cromwell is supposed to 
 have worn armour. Now fear, above all things, 
 renders a man cruel; and it is this distrust of 
 persons near the throne which has filled Oriental 
 palaces with murders, and has dictated the san- 
 guinary measures of Asiatic princes directed 
 against their successors, and other members of 
 their family. 
 
BEST FORM OF GOVERNMENT. 35 
 
 MONARCHICUS. 
 
 In human affairs you cannot have unmixed 
 good, and the undeniable advantages of unity in 
 government — the rapidity, the consistency, the 
 firmness — cannot be obtained without some draw- 
 backs. But when you speak of the cruelty of 
 absolute princes, I must remind you that this is 
 no peculiarity of monarchy. Some of the Greek 
 oligarchies were marked by the same vice: the 
 Spartans assassinated their helots, and Aristotle 
 tells us that in some oligarchies they took a public 
 oath " to hate tlie people, and to do them all pos- 
 sible harm." The massacres of the ancient demo- 
 cracies are well known; in the ItaKan republics 
 of the middle age they were repeated, and the 
 French revolution of 1789 shows that democracy 
 has not lost its sanguinary character, even in 
 modern times. 
 
 Aristocraticus. 
 
 I am not going to extenuate the atrocities which 
 have at certain times been committed both by aris- 
 tocratic and democratic governments ; but I think 
 I can show, when I come to my second point, that 
 an absolute monarch is far more likely to be cruel 
 than the sovereign body in an aristocracy or a 
 democracy. The second capital defect which I find 
 in monarchy is that the exercise of the supreme 
 power is influenced by the feelings, passions, inte- 
 rests, and motives which belong to a single man ; 
 
 d2 
 
8(> A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 whereas, in a corporate sovereignty, the exercise of 
 the supreme power can only be influenced by those 
 feelings, passions, interests, and motives which 
 belong to several persons in common. By ex- 
 cluding all motives which are peculiar to an indivi- 
 dual, and which cannot be shared by several per- 
 sons, you exclude some of the most pernicious and 
 antisocial motives — some of the motives which are 
 most dangerous in a ruler. Thus, to begin with 
 the quality of which we were just speaking, a body 
 of persons are rarely exposed to the fear of assas- 
 sination. Massacres on a large scale are not easy 
 of accomplishment. Even the mad Caligula wished 
 that the Eoman people had only one throat. He 
 felt the difficulty of cutting a multitude of throats. 
 Guy Faux's plot was the contrivance of a set of 
 desperadoes, and it never reached the point of 
 execution. Now, as a body of rulers are rarely in 
 fear of their lives, their policy is not tainted with 
 the consequences of fear. Hence they are exempt 
 from that motive which is the main cause of the 
 cruelty of absolute monarchs. A similar remark 
 applies to the other active passions, such as anger, 
 lust, jealousy, vindictiveness. These passions are 
 essentially personal, and cannot in general be 
 shared simultaneously by several men. It is a 
 prevailing doctrine of popular historians, that 
 kings and other monarchs have worse natures 
 than other men ; that they are more wicked and 
 more malignant than their inferiors in rank ; and 
 that this depravity is due to the defective educa- 
 

 OK TJIE 
 
 BEST FORM OF GOVERNMEl 
 
 jJinvjEsn 
 
 tion and the corrupting temptations 
 alted station. Now I am not disposed to weaken 
 a cause so good as mine, either by exaggeration or 
 by availing myself of popular prejudices. I am 
 not going to rake arguments against monarchy 
 out of the gutter of Jacobin pamphlets. I shall 
 not draw a single fact from the learning of the 
 * Crimes des Eois.' I am willing to admit that 
 monarchs, as a class, have not, by nature, been 
 worse than other men. If imperial or royal rank 
 has its drawbacks, it has also its advantages. 
 It may, in youth, remove or weaken the motives 
 for laborious study; it may expose a person to 
 many social temptations ; it may make him proud 
 and contemptuous; and may cut him off from 
 sympathy with the rest of the world. On the 
 other hand it gives him the opportunity of culti- 
 vating any humane or elevated tastes which he 
 may possess ; it imparts refinement and polish to 
 his manners ; it brings him into contact with 
 numerous persons, and, in a modern state at least, 
 makes him acquainted with their wishes and in- 
 terests. Unless his nature is thoroughly hardened, 
 and he is entirely devoid of conscience, his con- 
 spicuous position infuses in him an increased sense 
 of responsibility, and a regard for popular opinion, 
 wliich in a private station he would be without. 
 I do not therefore maintain that monarchs, as a 
 class, are naturally bad ; but I maintain that the 
 undivided possession of sovereignty is a temptation 
 which scarcely any ordinary man can resist ; and I 
 
38 A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 believe that an ordinary member of a legislative 
 body, who enjoys a fair reputation in his private 
 position, would yield to those temptations, and 
 would behave as ordinary monarchs have behaved. 
 Now the defects which I have mentioned are not 
 accidental; they are inherent in monarchy, and 
 belong to its very essence ; they are inseparable 
 from it, in every variety of its developments — in 
 barbarous and civilized, in African, Asiatic, or 
 European nations. They belong to monarchy, as 
 being the government of one ; and therefore they 
 are completely cured by dividing the government 
 among several persons, and by changing it from 
 the singular to the plural form. 
 
 MONAKCHICUS. 
 
 The singleness of power may have some dis- 
 advantages, but it is the characteristic excellence 
 of the monarchical form. A monarch may be ill- 
 disposed or foolish ; but whenever he possesses 
 virtue or wisdom, and to whatever extent he pos- 
 sesses these qualities, he can exercise them ; he is 
 not restrained by the necessity of securing the 
 assent of a majority. Now in a legislative body 
 the virtuous and the wise are always in a minority, 
 and their movements are impeded and restrained 
 by the necessity of obtaining the votes of the ma- 
 jority. A monarchy may be, but a republic wwsf 
 be, unwisely governed. 
 
best foem of government. 3d 
 
 Aristocraticus. 
 
 In order to give a complete answer to your 
 argument, I must make a comparison between the 
 free governments of ancient and modern times. 
 
 The Greeks invented corporate government, 
 based upon the decision of the majority. They 
 confined the governing power to a minority of the 
 entire community. The majority were slaves. 
 Now it is important to remark that the Greeks 
 did not invent slavery; they invented freedom. 
 In Persia and Egypt the whole community were 
 slaves. Every man might at any time be com- 
 pelled to work for the government ; but in a 
 Greek repubKc there was a privileged class of 
 citizens who were exempt from the obligation to 
 forced labour, and were themselves slave-masters. 
 This privileged class established among themselves 
 a corporate or republican government, which, 
 whether oligarchical or democratical, excluded the 
 slave-class, the most numerous part of the com- 
 munity. In a modern European st^te the whole 
 community is free ; and where parliamentary 
 government exists, the electoral body, including a 
 considerable portion of the population, appoints 
 representatives who exercise a large part of the 
 sovereign power. These persons must have suffi- 
 cient intelligence and knowledge to appear in 
 public as candidates, and to stand the ordeal of a 
 popular election. They are chosen by the votes of 
 a constituent body ; and they may be presumed to 
 possess a greater aptitude for legislative functions 
 
40 A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 than an equal number of persons taken indis- 
 criminately from the public, like the legislative 
 body in an ancient commonwealth. A consider- 
 able portion of the members of a parliament de- 
 vote themselves to legislative business, and acquire 
 a sort of professional acquaintance with the sub- 
 ject. The whole chamber ranges itself under dif- 
 ferent leaders, generally selected on account of 
 their capacity, by whose advice their followers are 
 to a considerable extent guided. In many other 
 ways (as by the appointment of select committees) 
 the crude numerical principle of decision by a 
 majority is tempered by the principle of special 
 fitness and appropriate knowledge. 
 
 MONARCHICUS. 
 
 * A modern parliament is no doubt a better engine 
 for government than an assembly of Athenian or 
 Florentine citizens meeting in the open air, and 
 listening to the inflammatory harangue of a party 
 leader; but even under your improved modem 
 system a legislative assembly is divided into poli- 
 tical parties, and the government is dependent 
 upon their rivalries and jealousies, and their com- 
 parative strength. In this manner the sovereign 
 power is swayed by contending passions, from 
 which the monarch, placed in a serene atmos- 
 phere above the region of storms, is altogether 
 exempt. 
 
best fokm of goveenment. 41 
 
 Aristockaticus. 
 The existence of political parties may be a 
 great evil in a state, when their mutual animosity 
 is such as to lead them to violent conflict with 
 each other, and to be inconsistent with their 
 acting together in one political system. When 
 political parties are so hostile and so embittered, 
 as the followers of the rival chiefs were in the 
 latter part of the Koman republic, or the Guelfs 
 and Ghibellines were in the Italian republics of 
 the Middle Ages, or the Koyalists and Jacobins 
 under the French Kevolution, they may be irre- 
 concilable with popular government, and a 
 despotic dictator may be the least bad alternative. 
 Such, according to Lucan's description, was the 
 state of the Komans during the civil wars : — 
 
 " Non erat is populus, quern pax tranquilla juvaret, 
 Quern sua libertas immotis pasceret armis." 
 
 But this is not the necessary or ordinary state 
 of things in a well-organized free community. 
 In such a community the political parties are not 
 animated by feelings of deadly hatred against 
 each other. They are divided by opinion and 
 interest, and are willing to decide their differences 
 by combat on a constitutional ground. One party 
 may be attached to existing institutions or to the 
 existing government ; another may wish for some 
 political innovation, of greater or less extent. It 
 is wholesome that such parties should exist : they 
 prevent political stagnation ; they create political 
 
42 A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 discussion; they promote political progress. It 
 is mainly by the existence of parties powerful 
 enough to secure attention to the interests and 
 arguments of a minority that political improve- 
 ment is accomplished. Entire unanimity on poli- 
 tical questions is in general an evil; political 
 chscord, up to a certain point, is an advantage to 
 a state. All received opinions on political subjects 
 cannot be right ; all existing laws cannot be wise 
 and expedient. On the other hand, dissidents 
 from established doctrines and institutions may be 
 tolerated, and, when they are in the wrong, their 
 errors may be forgiven. Even unity in matters 
 of religion is, for civil purposes, disadvantageous. 
 The existence of various sects is a guarantee for 
 religious Kberty, and a protection against religious 
 tyranny and persecution. Nothing, in a political 
 and intellectual point of view, would at present 
 be more beneficial to Italy and Spain than the 
 formation of religious sects, strong enough to 
 resist the dominant Church. If Charles V., 
 Philip II., and Louis XIV. had understood the 
 true interest and duty of a civil ruler, they would, 
 instead of extinguishing religious dissent by force, 
 rather have thro\vn, like Cadmus, a stone into the 
 midst of the conflicting parties. 
 
 MONARCHICUS. 
 
 We belong to a country in which constitutional 
 ideas have long been paramount, in which the 
 rights of a minority are respected, and in which 
 
BEST FORM OF GOVERNMENT. 43 
 
 dominant majorities are accustomed to abstain 
 from the extreme use of their superior power. 
 It is, therefore, easy for one of us to insist upon 
 the advantages of political party. But ask a 
 Frenchman whether he does not fear the excesses 
 of faction under a free government; whether he 
 expects that the rights of a majority would in his 
 country be exercised with forbearance and mode- 
 ration ; and whether he looks forward to the 
 government of France reaping any benefit from 
 what you regard as the blessings of political 
 discord. Whatever you may allege as to the 
 drawbacks of monarchy, you must admit that, in 
 general, an immunity from factious conflicts is a 
 great benefit to a state. 
 
 Aristocraticus. 
 
 I cannot admit that monarchical states are 
 altogether exempt from political parties. Poli- 
 tical parties often exist in a monarchy ; but the 
 monarch exerts himself to crush their aristo- 
 cratic leaders, because they alone have sufficient 
 strength and courage to oppose his acts. His aim 
 is to reduce the entire community to the same 
 dead level : to imitate the ancient policy of 
 cutting off the heads of the tallest poppies. 
 Louis XIV., the great organizer of continental 
 despotism, acted steadily upon this principle. He 
 used, and used with effect, various refined contri- 
 vances for weakening and lowering the heads of 
 the old French noblesse. He was particularly 
 
44 A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 solicitous of depressing the hereditary nobility 
 and the men of ancient families. Charles V. 
 had previously used his great power for weaken- 
 ing and lowering the noble families of Spain, 
 which never recovered from the benumbing 
 influence of his reign and that of his successor, 
 Philip II. At the present time a Kussian noble, 
 however large his possessions, owes his posi- 
 tion in the state exclusively to military rank, 
 which he must obtain from the personal gift of 
 the Emperor. Hereditary nobility, though the 
 object of so much blind hostility from the cham- 
 pions of democracy, has flourished most in free 
 states, and dwindles away under a pure and rigid 
 monarchy. In an Oriental state there are no 
 great families, bearing hereditary titles, or names 
 distinguished by hereditary honours. As soon as 
 a man emerges from the crowd, he becomes the 
 subject of plunder or of jealous proscription, unless 
 he is engrafted into the system of government as 
 a satrap. Even under the English government of 
 India, the jealousy felt by a foreign class of rulers 
 would prevent the formation of powerful heredi- 
 tary native families. It was in the Greek 
 republics that hereditary families (such as the 
 family of Callias at Athens), distinguished by 
 wealth and political power through several gene- 
 rations, appeared for the first time. Aristotle 
 wrote a treatise on * Nobility,' in which he dis- 
 cussed its proper definition. An Oriental, even 
 if he had been capable of composing an argumen- 
 
BEST FORM OF GOVERNMENT. 45 
 
 tative treatise, could not have written such a 
 work ; for the thing did not exist within the 
 sphere of his experience. The importance of 
 the patrician families at Kome, and the large 
 share which they bore in its political and military 
 successes, are well known. As soon as the 
 republic was extinguished, and the Eoman go- 
 vernment became despotic, the great patrician 
 families disappeared from the stage; they lost 
 their independence, the senate was converted into 
 a body of subservient sycophants, and the high 
 places of the state, once held by the u3^milii and 
 the Curii, were occupied by freedmen. The chief 
 opponents of Philip II. in the Netherlands, and 
 the chief supporters of the national and popular 
 cause against Spanish tyranny, were the heads of 
 the old nobility. In our own country, the aristo- 
 cratic leaders of the Whig party, during the last 
 century, stood up against the power of the 
 Crown, and by their independent position were 
 able to give efficient support to the popular 
 cause. If George III. had been as powerful as 
 Louis XIY., he would have reduced the leaders 
 of the Whig party to insignificance, and have 
 extinguished the party itself. The enmity which 
 despots show to political parties and to an heredi- 
 tary nobility, and the motives on which that 
 enmity is founded, prove, to my mind, that both 
 political parties, and an hereditary nobility, are 
 advantageous to a state. 
 
46 A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 MONARCHICUS. 
 
 I do not wish to pursue the argument against 
 political parties any further ; for I am confident 
 that their excesses are viewed with alarm in all 
 countries which enjoy the benefit of a monarchical 
 regimen. But with respect to the advantages of 
 hereditary nobility, I have Democraticus on my 
 side. He is more intolerant of hereditary rank 
 than I am. Burke has affirmed, in his speech on 
 Economical Keform, that kings are naturally 
 lovers of low company, and that court offices 
 with large salaries are expedient, on the ground 
 that through their influence the king is sur- 
 rounded by men of high rank, and is thus 
 prevented from gratifying his taste for flatterers, 
 parasites, and buffoons. I cannot admit that 
 this doctrine as to the prevailing tastes of kings 
 is consistent with fact. They seem to me to 
 have been generally inclined to favour hereditary 
 rank, and to choose their courtiers among persons 
 of noble birth. But, at all events, the demo- 
 cratic party is more opposed than monarch s to 
 hereditary rank, and to the power of the nobility. 
 The French Jacobins guillotined the nobles with 
 as much satisfaction as they guillotined the king. 
 If monarchs have discouraged the pretensions of 
 aristocrats, the democrats have cut off their 
 heads, or driven them into exile. Assuming^ 
 your proposition to be true, hereditary aristo- 
 cracy is discouraged in two out of the three forms 
 of government. 
 
BEST FORM OF GOVERNMENT* ^^ W^ 
 
 „ i^IVEESIT'S 
 
 Aeistoceaticus. VC4rt°^^,A^\V 
 I am now arguing against monarchy, and I am 
 not responsible for what I consider as the errors of 
 democratic doctrine. Hostility to the intellectual 
 eminence, to the personal independence, and to 
 the honest pride, which ought to characterize 
 every aristocracy, is a natural attribute of an abso- 
 lute monarchy; and it may accordingly be dis- 
 cerned among the various bad qualities of the old 
 French government. The monarchy of France, 
 from Louis XIV. down to 1789, prevented the 
 formation of a good aristocracy. It maintained 
 the nobles in the possession of their civil privi- 
 leges; and, at the same time, deprived them of 
 political power. It preserved their exemption 
 from direct taxes, and kept up the barriers be- 
 tween them and the tiers Stat; it thus rendered 
 them odious to the rest of the community. It 
 hardened the mass of the people by its habitual 
 severity, by its cruel punishments, and by its 
 system of judicial torture, which were continued 
 until the Kevolution. The frightful punishment 
 of Damiens was in 1757 ; the breaking of Galas 
 upon the wheel took place in 1762 ; the horrible 
 execution of the young Chevalier de la Barre 
 occurred in 1766. The men who, in July 1789, 
 soon after the taking of the Bastille, murdered 
 Foulon and his son-in-law Berthier, in the streets 
 of Paris; who hung them from lamp-posts, cut 
 off their heads, and carried them on pikes, thrust 
 Foulon's head in his son-in-law's face, tore out 
 
4? A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 their hearts and entrails, and even devoured them 
 from savage joy — these men had acquired their 
 ferocity under the teaching of the old monarchy ; 
 they had not learnt it in the school of Kobespierre 
 and Marat. Moreover, the old French monarchy, 
 by its frequent recourse to coups d'etat, trained the 
 people to a systematic disregard of fixed constitu- 
 tional and legal rules. By this mode of govern- 
 ment, it prepared the way for the Kevolution of 
 1789, and for Bonaparte, the two great scourges 
 of modern Europe. The generation of Frenchmen 
 which had grown up to manhood in the year 
 1789, was the creation of the old monarchy, not of 
 the Kevolution. The Kevolution was made by 
 men whose characters and opinions had been 
 formed under the monarchy, and who owed to it 
 their .training. If the French nobles had not 
 been, by the short-sighted and selfish jealousy of 
 the monarchy, withdrawn from all political life, 
 and from all the realities of business, they would 
 not have shown the feebleness, the mutual mis- 
 trust, and the incapacity to combine, which cha- 
 racterized them, as a class, during the storms of 
 the early part of the Kevolution. Instead of 
 emigrating, they would have organized a resist- 
 ance to the Convention; and, acting in a body, 
 they would easily have put down the handful of 
 ruffians who worked the Paris guillotine during 
 the Keign of Terror. Several modern writers 
 have, indeed, attempted to exhibit the French 
 Kevolution in a favourable aspect. This paradox 
 
BEST FOEM OF GOVERNMENT. 49 
 
 would have had no chance of success with the 
 contemporary generation ; it has only gained ac- 
 ceptance with those who knew the Eevolution 
 jfrom books, and profited by the equalizing laws 
 to which it had given birth. After all, however, 
 it has produced only a skin-deep conviction ; it 
 has not reached the hearts and beliefs of French- 
 men. Nothing would excite greater alarm or 
 repugnance in France than a serious attempt to 
 revive the political system of that period. 
 
 MONARCHICUS. 
 
 The old French monarchy may have had its 
 faults, but you cannot make it responsible for the 
 crimes and horrors of the Kevolution of 1789. 
 All impartial writers, whether native or foreign, 
 have concurred in regarding the philosophers of 
 the eighteenth centm-y — ^Voltaire, Kousseau, Dide- 
 rot, and their associates — as the true authors of 
 the Kevolution. It was their infidel and demo- 
 cratic writings which undermined the throne and 
 the altar, and depraved the minds of the French 
 people. When the soil had been tilled by such 
 hands, it was natural that a harvest of blood and 
 anarchy should be reaped. Burke's is the correct 
 view of the French Kevolution. It was the at- 
 tempt to start afresh, to cut off all connexion 
 with the past, to destroy the old government, and 
 to create a new government on its ruins, which 
 produced the miseries of that calamitous period. 
 Burke had the sagacity to discern the conse- 
 
 E 
 
50 A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 quences of this system, at a time when the ma- 
 jority of his countrymen were rejoicing at the 
 revolutionary changes in France. 
 
 Akistockaticus. 
 
 It is a great misfortune that the historians of 
 the French Kevolution of 1789 are, for the most 
 part, either Koyalist or Jacobin partisans. No 
 correct estimate of the French Eevolution can, in 
 my opinion, be formed, without condemning both 
 systems. In the existing histories, the historian 
 is always either pleading the cause of the Kevolu- 
 tion against the royahsts, or of the old monarchy 
 against the revolutionists. What I want is a 
 historian who will enquire whether either system 
 is good, and whether it follows that, because the 
 Kevolution was an evil, the old monarchy was not 
 also an evil. 
 
 I am not surprised to hear you repeat the state- 
 ment, so often made, that the French Kevolution 
 of 1789 was caused by the writings of the philoso- 
 phers. But you must remember that the Kevolu- 
 tion of 1789 was a great political and social con- 
 vulsion, and that the attacks of the philosophers 
 were principally directed against the church and 
 religion. The church was the great enemy to free 
 discussion on philosophical subjects. The govern- 
 ment prevented free discussion on the politics of 
 the day; but it was the church which was the 
 chief enemy of writers such as the Encyclopedistes. 
 The philosophers hated the church, and therefore 
 
BEST FOKM OF GOVERNMENT. 51 
 
 they attacked religion. The animosity of some of 
 these writers is unintelligible, until the provocation 
 •which they had received from the clergy is re- 
 membered. The author of the Systeme de la 
 Nature denounces theism with the bitterness of 
 a personal enemy; he writes against God as 
 Junius wrote against George the Third or the 
 Duke of Grafton. There have been two reforma- 
 tions of the Catholic Church ; one was the Pro- 
 testant Keformation of the sixteenth century, 
 originating in Germany ; the other was the free- 
 thinking reformation of the eighteenth century, 
 originating in France. Voltaire was the Luther 
 of the latter reformation ; but he was not a politi- 
 cal reformer. His Siecle de Louis XIV. is the 
 work of an admirer of the old monarchy. It was 
 read with enthusiasm at its first publication in the 
 reign of Louis XV., because it was thought to 
 contain a satire of the existing debasement, by 
 contrasting it with the glories of the previous 
 reign. His * Philosophical Dictionary' contains 
 some articles against cruel punishments and war ; 
 in one article he ridicules some points of etiquette 
 and titles of honour ; in another, he reprobates the 
 variety of customary laws in France: he thinks 
 that a democratic government will be mild and 
 humane, but that it is only suited to a small terri- 
 tory : he makes some general observations on the 
 comparative advantages of the three forms of 
 government; but, as Lacretelle remarks, in his 
 * History of the Keign of Louis XV.,' Voltaire 
 
 E 2 
 
52 A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 never directed his thoughts towards a political 
 revolution. Though an enemy of many of the 
 abuses of the anden regime, he was far from being 
 a democrat, a leveller, or a communist. The 
 same remark applies to most of the other French 
 philosophers of the regency and the reign of 
 Louis XV. They had no intention of undermining 
 or destroying the government of their country. 
 The monarchy of France was, on the eve of the 
 Kevolution, believed to be seated on a rock ; the 
 Eevolution was a great and universal surprise to 
 the whole of Europe. The principal and almost 
 the only anti-monarchical writer among the philo- 
 sophers was Kousseau; but he was a Genevese 
 Swiss, and a republican by birth. His Contrat 
 Social furnished the political creed of the French 
 Kevolution, and certainly an emptier and more 
 shallow performance never guided the opinions of 
 men at a great crisis. The old French monarchy 
 attempted to stifle free philosophical discussion; 
 but they utterly failed. The censorship of the 
 press w^as evaded ; but the severe prohibitory 
 laws, enforced with sufficient frequency to remind 
 the world of their existence, kept the philosophical 
 writers in a state of permanent irritation against 
 the established order of things. The true cause of 
 the Kevolution was the badness of the old French 
 government; as soon as the financial difficulties 
 of the country led to the assembling of the States 
 General, and a representative assembly, armed 
 with legislative powers, was called into being, a 
 
BEST FORM OF GOVERNMENT. 53 
 
 series of changes began, which neither the king 
 nor his ministers could control, and on which the 
 nobles looked from a distance, as helpless and 
 bewildered spectators. If the philosophers were 
 incendiaries, they were surrounded by combustible 
 materials, which the vices of the monarchical 
 government had accumulated. If Louis XVI. had 
 had the force of character and the sagacity requi- 
 site for supporting Turgot in his reforms, he might 
 have laughed at the Encyclopedie and the Contrat 
 Social, 
 
 MONARCHICUS. 
 
 It is easy to condemn a system which has fallen. 
 We know now that the French monarchy was 
 overthrowTi, and it has a plausible sound to say 
 that it fell through its own vices. In my opinion 
 it fell through a combination of unhappy acci- 
 dents, but principally through the inherent bad-» 
 ness of the men who forced themselves into powei 
 at a moment of political agitation and disturbance* 
 You yourself admit that the Kevolution was a sur* 
 prise to France. If the people had been discon- 
 tented with their government, the surprise would 
 not have been as great and as universal as it was. 
 
 Aristocraticus. 
 I can see nothing accidental iu the fall of the 
 French monarchy, except the moment at which it 
 took place. It might have been postponed, and it 
 might have taken place by other means ; but the 
 system was too bad to be permanent. 
 
(54:) A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 MONAECHICUS. 
 
 At all events the system which succeeded it was 
 still worse. Whatever the disease may have been, 
 it was not so bad as the remedy. No sane man 
 who is acquainted with the history of the time, 
 and is not blinded by some political theory, 
 would prefer the reign of Kobespierre to that of 
 Louis Xyi. For this reason I must differ from 
 your estimate of Bonaparte. He has been called 
 the heir of the Kevolution ; he was more properly 
 its executioner. If he was its heir, he was one of 
 those heirs who succeed to the inheritance by 
 killing their ancestor. He had the merit of ex- 
 tinguishing the revolutionary government at the 
 18th of Brumaire, and of establishing a substan- 
 tially monarchical government in its place. He 
 revived many of the institutions of the old mon- 
 archy ; he restored order, and a regular adminis- 
 tration of public affairs ; he made himself master 
 of France ; and the French people showed by 
 their conduct during the Kevolution that they 
 needed a master. I cannot therefore assent to 
 your doctrine that he was a scourge to modern 
 Europe. 
 
 Aristocraticus. 
 
 in order to form a correct judgment of Napoleon, 
 you must take the entire man. You must not 
 confine yourself to a part, and that too the least 
 important part, of his influence. I hold the old 
 French monarchy responsible for the state of 
 
BEST FORM OF GOVERNMENT. 55 
 
 things and the state of society which produced 
 first the Revolution and afterwards Napoleon. 
 The former was a fearful scourge to France ; the 
 latter was a fearful scourge to Europe. One of 
 the worst consequences of a bad system of govern- 
 ment is that it can hardly be eradicated by fair 
 means, and that it creates a sort of necessity for 
 an energetic, unscrupulous man who possesses the 
 strength and daring requisite for putting it down. 
 O'Connell was a man of this sort : he was created 
 by the old system of Irish government — a system 
 not so bad as the old French monarchy, but never- 
 theless very bad. His mixed influence, made up 
 of unscrupulous measures and beneficial results, 
 was described by the saying of Robert Smith, that 
 he was a man whom you ought to hang, and to 
 whom you ought then to build a monument under 
 his gallows. 
 
 Napoleon had the energy and ability necessary 
 for compressing the French Revolution; but he 
 moulded the political elements of the country into 
 a form suited to his own military policy and 
 schemes of foreign conquest. After having, by 
 his marvellous genius for war, conquered half 
 Europe, he became so intoxicated by ambition 
 that he lost more than he had gained, and thus 
 reduced France to a narrower territory than she 
 possessed at the end of the Revolution. He has 
 thus given to France a perpetual reminiscence of 
 extensive empire, and an incentive to vindictive 
 war for its recovery. He has likewise impressed 
 
56 A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 upon the whole continent of Europe a military- 
 character, and has caused the emblems of brute 
 force to be everywhere predominant. He organ- 
 ized the system of conscription and large standing 
 armies, and made every court an 4tat major, 
 
 Alas! poor Tocqueville! Would that he had 
 lived to execute his projected survey of Napoleon's 
 policy. A history of Napoleon, affording a correct 
 estimate of his character and influence, is the great 
 desideratum of modern political literature ; and no 
 such work could produce any impression on the 
 opinion of France, unless it were written by a 
 Frenchman. An unfavourable judgment of Napo- 
 leon — the only judgment consistent with truth — 
 would, if proceeding from an Englishman, be 
 infallibly attributed to national prejudice and 
 jealousy. 
 
 MONARCHICUS. 
 
 Whatever may be the military character of the 
 present age, it is certain that the nineteenth cen- 
 tury is an improvement upon the eighteenth. 
 The French Kevolution produced at least this 
 good effect, that it destroyed the aristocratic 
 privileges and legal inequalities of the eighteenth 
 century. It levelled everything before the law. 
 Its positive fruits were found intolerable ; its 
 democratic institutions were rejected by the com- 
 mon consent of France, and the country was placed 
 by Napoleon under the wholesome rule of an im- 
 partial despotism. Napoleon extracted the good 
 part of the revolutionary system — its equality ; he 
 
BEST FOKM OF GOVERNMENT. 57 
 
 excluded the bad part — its democratic govern- 
 ment. The result is that France now enjoys the 
 best form of political rule which can be contrived : 
 namely, a pure monarchy without an aristocratic 
 class. 
 
 Aeistocraticus. 
 I agree with you in your characteristic of the 
 eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but I differ 
 entirely from you in your comparative estimate 
 of them. The eighteenth is pre-eminently the 
 aristocratic century. In the sixteenth and seven- 
 teenth centuries literature and science were ad- 
 dressed to scholars and men of learning ; courtiers, 
 great lords, and fine gentlemen did not read. 
 Literature was stiff" and pedantic; most books 
 were written in Latin. But in the eighteenth 
 century a class of writers arose in France, Italy, 
 and England, who treated philosophical and even 
 scientific subjects in a style adapted to unlearned 
 persons ; their works were addressed to the edu- 
 cated classes generally, not merely to professors 
 and recluse students ; men of the world became 
 readers ; philosophy was rendered fashionable. 
 Literature had not penetrated to the general 
 public ; there were no cheap publications ; the 
 periodical press had not enlisted able writers, and 
 it exercised little influence ; there were scarcely 
 any schools for the working classes. Literature 
 was confined to the upper ranks of society, but 
 it included the whole of those . ranks. It had 
 
58 A lilALOGUE ON THE 
 
 emerged from colleges and cloisters, and had 
 entered the drawing-room. 
 
 The feelings of the aristocratic orders towards 
 the bulk of the people in the last century, though 
 proud and contemptuous, were not hostile or resent- 
 ful. Accordingly, opinion among the European 
 aristocracies had never been more liberal and 
 comprehensive than it was in the twenty years 
 which immediately preceded the French Kevo- 
 lution. If the old institutions and old govern- 
 ments had been allowed to thaw gradually under 
 the genial influence of the enlightenment which 
 at that time diffused itself among the aristocratic 
 classes of Europe, and had even penetrated into 
 the antechambers of courts and the saloons of 
 princes, the world would have been saved all the 
 bloodshed and spoliation of the French Kevolution, 
 and the devastating wars of the French Empire. 
 Above all, it would have been saved from the sus- 
 picious fear with which the governing and aris- 
 tocratic classes were taught by that disastrous con- 
 vulsion to regard the mass of the people. It was 
 not unnatural that, after the Eeign of Terror, a 
 patrician should look upon a plebeian as a monster 
 eager to devour him — as an enemy ready to 
 despoil him of his property, and perhaps to cut 
 his throat. The eighteenth century was, as I have 
 already said, peculiarly the age of aristocracy. 
 The nineteenth century is the age of democratic 
 despotism. This double character has been im- 
 pressed upon it by the French Kevolution and 
 
BEST FOKM OF GOVERNMENT. 59 
 
 Empire. The reaction against the invasions and 
 conquests of Napoleon has also given this century 
 another characteristic. It is the age of nationality. 
 The philosophical spirit of the last century was 
 hostile to the spirit of narrow nationality and ex- 
 clusive patriotism. It was cosmopolitan and com- 
 prehensive. The leading French writers of the 
 last century were tolerant in their judgments of 
 foreign countries. Their leading writers now are, 
 with some remarkable exceptions, distinguished 
 by indiscriminating prejudice and bigotry towards 
 foreign nations. In this respect, as in the others 
 above noticed, the nineteenth seems to me to have 
 fallen behind the eighteenth century. 
 
 There is often a disposition in persons of aris- 
 tocratic politics to shelter themselves under mon- 
 archy, to hoist monarchical colours, and even to 
 render themselves the instruments of a monarchical 
 policy. The English Tories, though naturally an 
 aristocratic party, have often betrayed their own 
 order, and have made themselves mere monarchists. 
 They occupied this position during the first part of 
 the reign of George III., and were willing to lay 
 the liberties of the country at the foot of the King. 
 They censured the Whigs, not for being demo- 
 cratical, but for being anti-monarchical. I am 
 not of that opinion. I am hostile to democracy, 
 but I am also hostile to monarchy. What I wish 
 to see established is the ascendancy of aristocracy 
 against monarchy on the one hand, and against 
 democracy on the other. 
 
60 a dialogue on the 
 
 Demockaticus. 
 I have hitherto remained silent, while you two 
 have been discussing the respective claims of the 
 one or the few to govern the community. But it 
 is time for me to put in a word in behalf of the 
 people, whose claims you agree in disallowing. I 
 concur in all that Aristocraticus has said against 
 monarchy, and I could strengthen his objections 
 by additional arguments. I conclude, however, 
 that he will inform us of the grounds on which he 
 would exclude the bulk of the people from all 
 share in the governing power. 
 
 Akistocraticus. 
 
 I have already given my reasons for preferring 
 a plurality of rulers to unity. I have stated my 
 grounds of difference from Monarchicus, and have 
 attempted to make them good by argument. 
 Thus far Democraticus and I are agreed. We 
 differ as to the form of plural or republican go- 
 vernment, and as to the number and character of 
 the persons who are to wield the sovereign power. 
 My position is a middle one between the two ex- 
 tremes of monarchy and democracy. I object to 
 placing the entire power of government in the 
 hands of one man ; I likewise object to distribut- 
 ing it in equal shares among all the free adult 
 males of the community. 
 
 I will now explain why, objecting to monarchy, 
 and approving of republican government, I disap- 
 prove of democracy. 
 
JY \^^ OK THE 
 BEST FORM OF GOVERNMENff.TJ TT T i^ljj J^ g J ' 
 
 The ancient democracies resembled tlie Sotith- ^TJ ^ V 
 em States of the American Union in being founded — -^-^ 
 upon a working class of slaves. No democratic 
 state existed in antiquity, in which the entire 
 community was free. In every democratic state, 
 the majority of the population was servile, and 
 excluded from political rights. Political power 
 was divided among the entire body of free citizens, 
 and was limited to them. The ancient aristo- 
 cracies and oligarchies were likewise based upon 
 a working class of slaves, but the entire citizen or 
 free class did not share in the governing power, 
 which was restricted by some qualification of 
 birth, race, wealth, or other distinction. In an 
 ancient aristocracy the demus or plebs consisted 
 of a class similar to the " poor whites " in one of 
 the Southern States of the American Union : a 
 similar class likewise existed in an ancient demo- 
 cracy, in which it possessed the chief political 
 power. 
 
 The philosophers and historians of antiquity 
 were in general favourable to an aristocracy, 
 and hostile to democratic government. They 
 held that knowledge and intelligence were essen- 
 tial qualifications in a ruler, and therefore they 
 excluded the poorer citizens from power. They 
 looked upon the demus or plebs as hostile to 
 reason and moderation, and as partaking of the 
 ochlocratic character, the antithesis of wisdom and 
 virtue. I remark incidentally that they were 
 likewise anti-monarchical, except when they con- 
 
62 A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 ceived the monarch in the idealized form of 
 Xenophon's Cyrus. 
 
 The principal defect which the ancient politi- 
 cians found in aristocratic government, was its 
 liability to be overthrown by the dissensions of 
 the leading aristocrats. This is the main objec- 
 tion which Darius, the advocate of monarchy, in 
 the debate of the Persian conspirators in Herodo- 
 tus, makes to oligarchy. Aristotle lays it down 
 that oligarchy is in general a short-lived form of 
 government, but admits that it is enduring if the 
 governing class is free from discord. Now, even 
 in antiquity, the aristocratic governments were 
 the most long-lived. Sparta retained her oligar- 
 chical constitution unchanged for many centuries. 
 The Carthaginian constitution was stable ; and the 
 Eoman government, in which the patrician influ- 
 ence was always powerful, if not predominant, 
 until the civil wars, lasted, according to the re- 
 ceived chronology, for more than four centuries. 
 This, the principal objection of the ancient poli- 
 ticians, is therefore confuted by the experience of 
 antiquity itself. Among the mediaeval govern- 
 ments, the Venetian aristocracy was likewise dis- 
 tinguished by its stability. 
 
 Democeaticus. 
 When the members of an aristocracy are leagued 
 together for the purpose of plundering and op- 
 pressing the people, they can maintain concord 
 with one another. But when the people are sa 
 
BEST FORM OF GOVERNMENT. 63 
 
 weak, that the governing aristocracy regard them 
 without fear, their mutual jealousies break out, 
 and follow their natural course. We see these 
 causes in full operation during the continuance of 
 the feudal system. The feudal system was essen- 
 tially aristocratic; when it was in vigour, the 
 people went for nothing, and the king for little. 
 The substantial power was lodged in the great 
 barons; and they were perpetually at variance, 
 and often at war, with one another. A worse 
 system of government than the feudal system can- 
 not exist, although it has pleased some modern 
 writers, from a reactionary spirit, and a love of 
 fantastic paradox, to paint it in brilliant colours. 
 The reign of our Henry III., when the country 
 was lacerated with incessant hostilities, and the 
 king was controlled by a council of "ordainers," 
 is a perfect type of the feudal system of govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Aristocraticus. 
 The feudal system was a defective form of aris- 
 tocracy. Still it had this merit, that it superseded 
 a worse system, and it served as a stepping-stone 
 to what was a better system in some countries, 
 and what might have been a better system in all. 
 It was better than the uniform anarchy and de- 
 basement which succeeded the Eoman period, 
 and the first invasions of the Teutonic tribes. 
 The feudal lords organized a resistance to the 
 king ; they often acted as a body, and they laid 
 the foundation of a corporate form of government : 
 
64 A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 the feudal assemblies of the barons and clergy- 
 were the origin of the Assemblies of Estates, in 
 which all classes of the community were repre- 
 sented. Out of the primitive Assembly of Estates 
 the Parliament of England was gradually evolved : 
 and if in other countries the Assembly of Estates 
 failed to establish its authority, and was reduced 
 to a nullity by the preponderating power of the 
 king, this was not the fault of the feudal 
 system. 
 
 However, the tendency of aristocratic govern* 
 ment to generate discord in the ruling class, is 
 not the ground on wliich the main objection to it 
 rests in modern times. The modern objection is, 
 not the mutual jealousies of the aristocrats, but 
 their supposed combination against the rest of the 
 people. Their separate interests, their exclusive 
 privileges, their anti-popular tendencies, their 
 patrician pride, their contempt for plebeians, their 
 hereditary pretensions, their titles of honour, their 
 orders of knighthood, their heraldic decorations, 
 their liveries and ostentatious equipages, have 
 furnished the principal arguments against them, 
 and have created the antipathy with which they 
 have been regarded. These assumptions and dis- 
 tinctions have wounded the feeling of equality — 
 the " as good as you " sentiment which is essential 
 to democracy. 
 
 Now I quite understand the existence of this 
 feeling, and am willing to appease it by any 
 sacrifice which is not inconsistent with good go- 
 
BEST FORM OF GOVERNMENT. 65 
 
 vernment. Envy, thougli rarely avowed, is per- 
 haps one of tlie most powerful agencies in politics. 
 I dread the Nemesis of Jacobinism, and am ready 
 to propitiate this stern and sanguinary goddess 
 by all legitimate means. But the attempt to attain 
 to perfect equality in the distribution of the 
 powers of government seems to me as absurd as 
 the attempt to attain to perfect equality in the 
 distribution of property. Pure democracy is, in 
 my judgment, as unsound in theory, and as mis- 
 chievous in practice, as communism. 
 
 Democraticus. 
 The main objection to aristocratic government 
 is the danger of entrusting political power to a 
 minority, and sometimes to a small minority. 
 The interests of a minority are separate from those 
 of the community, and often hostile to them. An 
 aristocratic class always governs for the sake of 
 its own distinct and special interests ; whereas the 
 interests of a majority of the people are identical 
 with the interests of the people at large, and if the 
 governing power is vested in a majority of the 
 people, the interests of the whole people will be 
 protected and secured. I do not defend the popu- 
 lar excesses of the French Kevolution — which you 
 yourself rightly trace to the influence of the old 
 monarchy — and I do not identify myself with 
 Jacobinism — but the feeling of hatred which the 
 conduct of the French noblesse had implanted in 
 the Tiers Etat, is, in my mind, a conclusive proof 
 
 F 
 
66 A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 of the alienation of an aristocratic class from the 
 rest of the community, i 
 
 Akistockaticus. 
 Your argument as to the necessary antagonism 
 between the interests of an aristocratic class and the 
 interests of the rest of the community, is founded, 
 in great measure, upon the example of the old 
 French noblesse ; and I entirely dispute the co- 
 gency of this example. Your reasoning confounds 
 aristocracy as a class with aristocracy as a form of 
 government. The French government was a 
 monarchy, and the monarchy used its influence 
 for corrupting the aristocratic class. It main- 
 tained the civil privileges of the nobles, and by 
 maintaining their privileges, made them unpo- 
 pular. Through jealousy of their power it with- 
 drew them from political activity, and made them 
 helpless and indolent. K the French government 
 had been aristocratic, the nobles would have pos- 
 sessed and exercised political power. There might 
 have been rivalries among them, but they would 
 at least have been free from the vices which they 
 acquired under the enervating and debasing influ- 
 ence of their royal masters. Moreover, if the 
 government had been aristocratic, the nobles 
 would have stood alone ; and it may be doubted 
 whether they would have been able, without the 
 assistance of the monarchical power, to maintain 
 the privileges which rendered them so odious: 
 they would have yielded to the democratic pres- 
 
BEST FORM OP GOVEENMENT. 67 
 
 sure. In England, where the king was not a 
 monarch, and where the aristocracy had great 
 political power, an entire equality of civil privi- 
 leges was established between the aristocratic class 
 and the rest of the community. The English 
 aristocracy and the French aristocracy of the 
 18th century present opposite appearances. The 
 former had political power, but civil equality with 
 the rest of the people. The latter were destitute 
 of pohtical power, but they possessed civil privi- 
 leges. This difference was owing to the difference 
 in the forms of government. France was an ab- 
 solute monarchy ; England was an aristocratic 
 republic. 
 
 Democraticus. 
 
 Wherever an aristocratic class exists, whether 
 in an absolute monarchy, or in an aristocratic re- 
 public, it is hostile to the people, and pursues its 
 exclusive interests at their cost. If a minority 
 obtains political power, it will abuse that power ; 
 it is only by vesting power in a majority of the 
 people that its abuse can be prevented. J£ an 
 aristocratic class governs, the interests of the 
 working people, who form the bulk of every com- 
 munity, will infallibly be disregarded. 
 
 Aristocraticus. 
 
 My wish to exclude the working people from a 
 share in the governing power is founded upon 
 their unfitness for its exercise ; not upon any 
 
 F 2 
 
b» A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 jealousy or antipathy of class. Government ought, 
 in my opinion, to be formed on the principle 
 of tutelage. I consider the uneducated classes 
 to stand to the educated classes, with respect to 
 government, in the same relation as children to 
 adults. They are disqualified by the want of 
 knowledge and intelligence, from deciding on the 
 difficult questions involved in practical legislation 
 and administration. They are moreover deficient 
 in the proprietary feeling, which is one of the 
 great safeguards of society. Living on wages 
 themselves, and associating exclusively with others 
 who live on wages, they have not that respect for 
 property which personal interest gives, and which 
 illiterate, or at the least imperfectly educated, 
 persons cannot learn from theory. It is to be 
 remembered that property is a paradox, as mono- 
 gamy is a paradox. They are both contrary to 
 the first superficial impressions of a speculative 
 mind. The paradoxical character of the institu- 
 tion of property is displayed by Paley in his apo- 
 logue of the pigeons. Dr. Johnson says that he 
 should not have been surprised, if out of ten 
 schoolboys set to write verses on Marlborough's 
 campaigns, nine had brought him Addison's simile 
 of the Angel. In like manner I might say that, if 
 ten clever youths were to begin speculating on 
 the institution of property, I should not be sur- 
 prised if nine arrived at the Platonic theory of 
 communism. Habit has reconciled us to the in- 
 stitution of property, and to the inequaKties of 
 
BEST FOKM OF GOVERNMENT. 69 
 
 social condition which it necessarily involves, and 
 has taught us to regard it as an obvious truth ; 
 but it startles the philanthropist, when he first 
 reflects upon social laws without taking anything 
 for granted. We ought not to wonder if specula- 
 tive communism finds favour among the non- 
 proprietary classes. 
 
 Democraticus. 
 I entirely dispute the doctrine of tutelage, which 
 is the basis of your theory of aristocratic govern- 
 ment. No theory of political government is, in 
 my opinion, sound, which is not founded upon 
 mistrust. It ought to be assumed that every per- 
 son who acts as the member of a minority has 
 interests hostile to those of the community. De- 
 mocracy rests upon this basis, and gives no man 
 credit for good intentions. It neutralizes his 
 sinister interests by merging him in the majority. 
 It trusts nobody ; and therefore repudiates the 
 idea of tutelage as appKed to political rule. A 
 court of chancery has no sinister interests, and 
 therefore can properly be trusted to appoint a 
 guardian for a minor ; but where is the superior 
 power which can be trusted to appoint an aristo- 
 cratical body as the government of a nation? 
 Even if an angel from heaven were to select a set 
 of governors on aristocratic principles, they would 
 soon be corrupted by the possession of power, and 
 cease to justify the preference which at first they 
 may have deserved. 
 
70 a dialogue on the 
 
 Akistoceaticus. 
 
 I do not wish for a narrow oligarchy, like the 
 Thirty Tyrants of Athens, or the Koman decem- 
 virs, nor an oligarchy with exclusive privileges 
 and impassable barriers. I wish for an aristocracy 
 of sufficient comprehensiveness to prevent personal 
 combination. Under such an aristocracy, narrow 
 interests would not influence the measures of the 
 Government. The knowledge and intelligence of 
 the ruling class (though they were not a majority 
 of the nation), controlled by publicity of discus- 
 sion and public opinion, would iu general provide 
 an adequate security against the predominance of 
 interests hostile to the community. 
 
 !Demockaticus. 
 
 In England the power of the aristocracy is 
 tempered by the influences upon which you rely ; 
 and yet in England you have had such cases as 
 that of the Com Laws, in which the landed aristo- 
 cracy laid the rest of the country under a tribute 
 for their own benefit, and raised the price of bread 
 for the sake of increasing their own rents. 
 
 Aristocraticus. 
 
 The Corn Laws were part of a policy which 
 was established on patriotic grounds, and which 
 was at one time sincerely believed, even by en- 
 lightened men, to be beneficial to the entire com- 
 munity. There has been protection for manu- 
 
BEST FORM OP GOVERNMENT. 71 
 
 facturers and merchants, and even for artizans, as 
 well as for agriculturists. It is a mistake to sup- 
 pose that the agricultural interest is, in this. 
 country, composed only of landlords the recipients 
 of rent. The tenant-farmers, who paid rent, were 
 at least as stout in their defence of the Corn Laws 
 as the landlords. I admit that the doctrine of 
 Free Trade belongs to the very A B C of politics, 
 and that a person, free from interest, who cannot 
 follow the reasoning on which it is founded, is 
 not gifted with high logical capacity. Still, the 
 example of the United States shows that a demo- 
 cratic community may embrace the policy of Pro- 
 tection, and that it does not require the prepon- 
 derance of an interested minority for its support. 
 It is moreover easy for a limited class, under a 
 democratic government, to promote their exclusive 
 interest by that process which in America is called 
 "logrolling," and which used to be well under- 
 stood, on a small scale, in Irish grand jury rooms. 
 A body which counts a certain number of votes in 
 the legislature, can sell its support to another 
 section of the chamber, for a particular question, 
 on condition of reciprocal support to its own 
 question. By a corrupt mutual bargain of this 
 kind, sectional interests can be promoted even in 
 a democratic state. It should also be borne in 
 mind that the English Corn Law of 1815 was 
 passed in the year after the war, when the belief 
 in the advantage of rendering this country in- 
 dependent of foreign supply had much influence. 
 
72 A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 Eemember, too, that protection of agriculture and 
 manufactures is not the only sort of legislative 
 protection. There is also the protection of labour ; 
 and if the supremacy of the working classes were 
 established in this country, and the elections in 
 every large town were directed by the managing 
 committee of a Trades' Union, we should probably 
 see attempts made to invest the Trade Union 
 regulations with the authority of law. 
 
 However, I am not going to maintain the pro- 
 position that aristocratic Grovernments are perfect ; 
 or that they do not, like other modes of govern- 
 ment, make mistakes. I am not a believer in the 
 infallibility of aristocracy ; I only assert that it is 
 a better form of government than either monarchy 
 or democracy. What I particularly wish to insist 
 upon, is, that democracy is essentially the govern- 
 ment of the working classes, and that tliis has 
 hitherto been an untried experiment in a large 
 European country. With the single exception of 
 Switzerland, the experiment has hitherto been 
 confined to states which are colonies of England : 
 nde pendent, like the United States ; dependent, 
 like the North American and Australian provinces. 
 The typical government of an English colony is 
 democratic; and both in the United States and 
 in Australia we have examples of popular Govern- 
 ments, in which political power is vested in the 
 working classes. But these are not old countries, 
 full of large cities which contain organized bodies 
 of artizans and operatives ; the bulk of the popula- 
 
BEST FORM OP GOVERNMENT. 73 
 
 tion is agricultural, and the cultivation is either 
 carried on by the owner himself, or he is a slave 
 master. This is a totally different social condition 
 from that which obtains in England or France; 
 and the working of a democratic government in 
 North America or Australia is therefore different 
 from what it would be in these countries. The 
 most democratic politician of antiquity never con- 
 templated an entire community of freemen, in 
 which the manual labourers, being the numerical 
 majority, should possess and exercise the govern- 
 ing power. A BovXcov 7ro\t9 — a state formed of 
 emancipated slaves — seemed to them a political 
 monstrosity. Democracy, m England or France, 
 would practically be a government of that class 
 which an ancient democrat would have considered 
 a slave class. 
 
 Democraticus. 
 It may be true, as you say, that the free dominant 
 aristocratic classes have hitherto excluded demo- 
 cratic government from Europe as a permanent 
 institution, and that it has only taken root, on a 
 large scale, in the colonies of England. But 
 this fact does not prove that it ought to be 
 excluded from the old settled populous European 
 countries, or that the working classes in those 
 countries ought not to exercise political power. 
 What is called an abuse of political power by the 
 working classes, means only that they will exercise 
 it in a manner beneficial to themselves and to the 
 bulk of the community. 
 
74 a dialogue on the 
 
 Aristooraticus. 
 
 What I object to, is the exclusive prevalence of 
 democratic power, and the untempered govern- 
 ment of the working classes. The theoretical 
 politicians, both of ancient and modem times, 
 have concm-red in eulogizing a mixed govern- 
 ment ; a government in which monarchical, 
 aristocratical, and democratical elements are 
 combined and compounded. Their language on 
 this subject is not indeed quite consistent or 
 perspicuous ; but they all agree in thinking that 
 a government should not be exclusively demo- 
 cratic. They temper aristocracy with democracy, 
 and therefore allow a certain weight to the aris- 
 tocratic element. This is the form of government 
 for which I contend ; I am quite aware of the 
 importance of numbers in a state. I know that 
 a numerical majority cannot, and ought not to be 
 overlooked in the administration of a government ; 
 but I maintain that the multitude will be better 
 governed by the Enlightened Few than by the 
 Ignorant Many. I am willing to make a com- 
 promise with democracy. I do not wish that 
 democratic influence should be altogether ex- 
 cluded ; but I cannot allow it the mastery. 
 
 Democraticus. 
 
 I can assent to no compromise. I must insist 
 upon absolute democratic supremacy. I regard 
 all aristocratic government as essentially selfish 
 
BEST FORM OF GOVERNMENT. Yg-B, k 
 
 and antipopular, and hence I treat all negociation 
 with the aristocratic enemy as an act of politi- 
 cal treason. My principles of government are 
 simple, and in their simplicity lies their excel- 
 lence. If I adhere to those principles, I cannot 
 parley with aristocracy. 
 
 Aristocraticus. 
 
 The compromise which I offer to democracy 
 is not an unreasonable one. I do not desire to 
 see an aristocracy founded exclusively on heredi- 
 tary descent, like those ancient commonwealths 
 in which a certain number of yivTj, or gentes, 
 monopolized the entire governing power. I do 
 not wish to have a number of patrician families, 
 who (as at Eome) practically fill the senate and 
 all the high offices. I wish to see a representa- 
 tive aristocratic government created by popular 
 election; but not so popular as to place the 
 entire power in the hands of the working classes. 
 The representative system has rendered a mo- 
 derate mixture of aristocracy and democracy 
 practicable without resorting to objectionable con- 
 trivances, such as the Koman method of centuries, 
 small for the rich, and large for the poor, or 
 even plural voting, as in many of our municipal 
 elections. By a proper application of the method 
 of local representation, and by the formation of 
 limited constituencies, the representation of mi- 
 norities, the great object of our modern builders 
 of Ideal States, can be legitimately accomplished. 
 
76 A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 A representative assembly is itself a sort of aris- 
 tocracy. It is a standing committee of the nation, 
 elected by tbe body of the people to manage 
 tbeir affairs. Make the elective suffrage as wide 
 as you please, and there is a vast difference 
 between such a select assembly, and the promis- 
 cuous assemblage taken from the entire free 
 population, which met in the Athenian pnyx to 
 vote upon pubKc affairs. A parliamentary assem- 
 bly acquires a limited corporate character; the 
 members of it become personally known to each 
 other ; and they gradually form almost profes- 
 sional habits of business. I would wish to see 
 such a body elected by a large number of voters, 
 sufiSciently large to prevent the predominance of 
 narrow interests, but not so large as to place the 
 representative body under an overruling demo- 
 cratic control. 
 
 Demockaticus. 
 
 Such a system as you describe would not be 
 a bad system ; but it would be good only because 
 it contained many democratic elements, and made 
 some approximation to democracy. It would be 
 better if all the aristocratic leaven were ex- 
 cluded, and if it were converted into a pure 
 democracy. 
 
 Aristocraticus. 
 
 My belief, on the contrary, is, that its goodness 
 depends upon its stopping short of democracy; 
 and upon the presence of the aristocratic leaven 
 
BEST FORM OF GOVERNMENT. 77 
 
 by which you coDsider the mass to be tainted. 
 I conceive the essence of the system to reside in 
 the mixture of its elements : I would not allow 
 any force to move directly according to its 
 original impulse ; I would always resolve it into 
 the diagonal. 
 
 Democraticus. 
 You talk, in vague terms, of the mixture of 
 aristocratic and democratic elements being ef- 
 fected by a proper arrangement of the suffrage ; 
 but you overlook the fact that an hereditary 
 nobility, possessing certain legal privileges, is 
 of the essence of aristocratic government, and 
 that this institution necessarily implies legal and 
 social inequality. It also implies a branch of 
 the legislature, founded upon hereditary privi- 
 lege. The admission of the hereditary principle, 
 unconnected with personal merit, into the govern- 
 ment, seems to me inconsistent with all sound 
 political doctrine, and on this ground alone I 
 consider the aristocratic system of rule as unte- 
 nable. 
 
 Aristocraticus. 
 I do not admit that an hereditary nobility, 
 possessed of political privileges, is essential to 
 the existence of an aristocratic government, 
 though I hold its presence in an aristocratic state 
 to be politically expedient. If the suffrage is so 
 arranged that the numerical preponderance of the 
 working classes is prevented from determining 
 
78 A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 the character of the government, I consider the 
 state as aristocratical. But I would remark that 
 the existence of two chambers is treated by most 
 politicians as expedient, and an hereditary nobi- 
 lity forms the best solution of the problem of a 
 second chamber. The hereditary privileges of a 
 nobility ought, moreover, as in England, to be 
 purely political. Beyond social precedence, an 
 English peer has no privilege unconnected with 
 his seat in the House of Lords. I also wish 
 to remind you that powerful hereditary patrician 
 families belong especially to free states ; that 
 they are altogether wanting in the Asiatic 
 despotisms ; and have been viewed with jealousy 
 by the absolute European monarchs. Unless 
 democratic habits and opinions are deeply rooted 
 in a people (as in that of the United States), 
 such families form the most powerful opponents 
 to absolute monarchy, and are the most efficient 
 safeguards of pubhc liberty. If the French had 
 not so effectually extirpated their old aristocracy 
 in their first revolution, they would have incurred 
 less danger of falling under the dominion of a 
 single master. 
 
 Democraticus. 
 
 An aristocratic government, which proscribed 
 all hereditary rank (provided such a government 
 could be supposed to exist), would disarm many 
 of my objections. But to an aristocratic class, 
 possessing hereditary political privileges, in an 
 
BEST FOEM OF GOVERNMENT. 79 
 
 aristocracy, I have a deep-rooted repugnance, and 
 no person of genuine democratic opinions can 
 ever be reconciled to it. 
 
 Crito. 
 
 Much as I object to all ideal plans of a Perfect 
 State, to all schemes of a commonwealth, inde- 
 pendent of a fixed basis of fact, I nevertheless 
 agree with you, Aristocraticus and Democraticus, 
 in repudiating Despotic Monarchy as the govern- 
 ment best fitted for a civilized European state, 
 and in holding that some form of representative 
 institutions would afford it the best chance of 
 good political management and social happiness. 
 But having made this concession to your Political 
 Idealism, I cannot go one step further. I distrust 
 all revolutionary movements, and should be un- 
 willing to resort to violence for effecting any 
 change of government. If I had the misfortune 
 to be the subject of a despotism, I should in 
 general take as my practical maxim the words of 
 Eprius Marcellus in the Koman senate at the 
 accession of Yespasian : " Se meminisse tempo- 
 rum quibus natus sit, quam civitatis formam 
 patres avique instituerint ; ulteriora mirari, prae- 
 sentia sequi; bonos imperatores voto expetere, 
 qualescunque tolerare." 
 
 I question, moreover, the applicability of repre- 
 sentative institutions to an Asiatic state. The 
 Oriental nations have hitherto been distinguished 
 by three characteristics hostile to the working of 
 
80 A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 a free government, namely, perfidy, cruelty, and 
 corruption. Where every man in a public situa- 
 tion is faithless and takes bribes, and where 
 sanguinary inflictions produce a sense of insecu- 
 rity and a desire of revenge, it is scarcely possible 
 that any form of corporate government should be 
 organized, or that men should act together as 
 colleagues and equals. Such has hitherto been 
 the nature of Asiatics ; they appear, both in 
 intelligence and morality, to be inferior to Euro- 
 peans ; and to be mentally incompetent to the 
 solution of political problems which Europeans 
 have successfully solved. An increased familiarity 
 with the Oriental character, and with the interior- 
 of Asiatic monarchies, has dissipated the illusions 
 which deceived the last century. A person who 
 had witnessed the outrages of the Taepings would 
 read with wonder the eulogies of Yoltaire upon 
 the " philosophic Cliinese " ; and a sufferer from 
 the mutiny of the native Indian army would 
 be sceptical about the mildness and gentleness 
 of the Hindu character. As to the negroes, it 
 would be ridiculous to speak of a native African 
 community as a fit subject for representative 
 government. 
 
 Democeaticus. 
 
 This is a doctrine to which I cannot subscribe. 
 It is inconsistent with religion. It supposes a 
 natural inequality in mankind, and a natural 
 unfitness in the larger part of our race for a good 
 
BEST FOKM OF GOVEENMEKT. SI 
 
 political regimen. The Britons as they are 
 described by Caesar, and the Germans as they 
 are described by Tacitus, were certainly not in 
 advance of the social state of the modern Ori- 
 entals ; and yet they have long since reached the 
 stage of civilization which fits them for representa- 
 tive government. I can see no reason why you 
 should suppose the Asiatics and the Africans to 
 be predestined to misgovernment, to be placed 
 under a natural disqualification for popular in- 
 stitutions. 
 
 Ceito. 
 I judge from experience, and I assume that the 
 Oriental nature will continue to be hereafter what 
 it has been heretofore. I must likewise dispute 
 your opinion that it is impious to suppose a 
 natural inequality in the mental capacity of dif- 
 ferent races of mankind. I see no more difficulty 
 in supposing a natural difference between a Hot- 
 tentot or a Malay and a European than in recog- 
 nizing a natural difference between a mastiff and 
 a greyhound, or between a Shetland pony and a 
 London dray-horse. 
 
 Akistockaticus. 
 
 The fitness of Asiatic and African communities 
 for representative institutions is at present purely 
 speculative. Nobody expects to see a Turkish 
 parliament, or even an Indian council at Calcutta, 
 composed of native members. I will, therefore, 
 
82 A DIALOGUE ON THE. 
 
 confine my view to civilized European, American, 
 and Australian communities. My position is 
 that, for this circle of nations, the best form of 
 government is an aristocratic representative consti- 
 tution, or, perhaps I might say, an aristocratico- 
 democratic representative constitution, provided 
 it be understood that the aristocratic element is 
 real and not fictitious or formal, and that the 
 aristocratic class has a substantive voice in the 
 government. I afiirm that good government can- 
 not be obtained by any other form; and that 
 despotic monarchy or unmixed democracy are, in 
 their several ways, objectionable, fraught with 
 mischief, and inferior to this form. This is the 
 form of government which it is the interest of the 
 leading nations of the civilized world to cultivate, 
 and to attempt to bring to perfection. 
 
 There are two great problems to be solved in a 
 representative constitution. One is the relation of 
 the representative body to its constituents, and to 
 the community at large ; the other is the relation 
 of the executive government to the representative 
 body. With regard to the first of these problems, 
 there is between us two an irreconcilable difier- 
 ence. You would extend the electoral suffrage as 
 widely as possible ; I would confine it to a certain 
 section of the free community. 
 
 Democraticus. 
 
 You may add, that I would give to the voters 
 ;the protection of secret sufirage, or what is called 
 
BEST FORM OP GOVERNMENT. 83 
 
 the Ballot, against intimidation, so as to enable 
 each voter to express his genuine and unbiassed 
 opinion, and to prevent the franchise from being a 
 mockery and an imposture, s, 
 
 Aristocraticus. 
 
 The expediency of the ballot, as a system of 
 secret voting, now rests principally on the example 
 of the Australian colonies. It is admitted that the 
 American ballot is practically a system of open vot- 
 ing, and that in the American elections votes are 
 not concealed. Now, I have no hesitation in say- 
 ing, that, in my opinion, the influence exercised at 
 elections by the landlord over the tenant, by the 
 employer over the workman, is one of the legiti- 
 mate influences of property, and ought not to be 
 disturbed. Like other moral influences, it may 
 be abused ; but public opinion is, in the long run, 
 a sufficient safeguard against its abuse. It is one 
 of the indirect means by which a preponderance 
 is secured to intelligence in an electoral system, 
 without resorting to the contrivance of plural 
 votes. 
 
 Democraticus. 
 
 I admire your candour in spuming all subter- 
 fuge, and in putting the aristocratic argument 
 against secret voting on its true ground. I know of 
 no legitimate influence of property, except its direct 
 economical uses ; I cannot consent that it should 
 be employed for a political object. It seems to 
 
 G I 
 
84 A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 me to be slieer hypocrisy to give a man a vote, 
 and to deny him the only means by which he can 
 obtain its Ml and free exercise. It is only by 
 secret voting that the working classes can give a 
 genuine expression to their opinions, and can secure 
 the return of representatives really devoted to 
 their interests. 
 
 Aristockaticus. 
 
 I am afraid that there is no chance of our com- 
 ing to any agreement on the question of the elec- 
 toral suffrage. We start from different principles, 
 and must aiTive at different results. Your doc- 
 trines are very specious, and your deductions from 
 them quite logical; but, in my opinion, your 
 system is defective, because it assumes the entire 
 community to be better than it is, in any existing 
 country, or is likely to be, within any assignable 
 period. The democratic theory of government, 
 which assumes all members of the community to 
 be equally competent judges of public affairs, is, 
 in my opinion, like the Quaker system of govern- 
 ment and international law. A Quaker lays it 
 down that, if men were true Christians, and acted 
 upon their religious principles, there would be no 
 necessity for civil government to protect you 
 against the injustice of your neighbour at home, 
 or for armies and navies to defend you against 
 the attacks of your neighbours abroad. Hence he 
 draws the conclusion that civil government and 
 piilitary force are useless, and, being useless, are 
 
BEST FORM OF GOVERNMENT. 85 
 
 pernicious. The hypothetical syllogism is valid : 
 the fallacy consists in assuming as true an hypo- 
 thesis which is made only for the sake of the 
 argument, and which is false in fact. If all men 
 were what you assume them to be, equally com- 
 petent to judge of political affairs, your theory of 
 govBrnment would be sound; but they are not 
 equally competent, and therefore your theory is 
 unsound. 
 
 Democraticus. 
 My argument does not compel me to maintain 
 that all men are equally competent to judge of 
 public affairs. What I maintain is, that all men 
 are sufficiently competent judges for the exercise 
 of the electoral suffrage, and for choosing repre- 
 sentatives ; and I further maintain that, if they 
 are not allowed this independent privilege, they 
 are at the mercy of the portion of the community 
 which governs, and that, if they escape being 
 plundered and oppressed, it will be owing to the 
 voluntary forbearance of their rulers, not to any 
 constitutional safeguard. 
 
 Aristocraticus. 
 You may think me credulous and easily duped 
 by mere appearances of virtue; but I prefer a 
 government constituted on aristocratic principles 
 (provided that the number of persons included is 
 large, and that there is no impassable barrier) to a 
 government constituted on democratic principles, 
 
86 A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 as a security for the working classes themselves. 
 I say of a well constituted aristocratic body with 
 reference to these classes, what Juvenal says of 
 the gods, " Carior est illis homo quam sibL" 
 
 Democraticus. 
 
 If aristocrats had angelic natures, your doctrine 
 would hold good ; but as long as they remain men, 
 I must be permitted to insist on such securities as 
 human institutions demand. However, I fear that 
 we make no impression on one another by our 
 arguments, and that we weary our friends by 
 our dissensions ; let us, then, pass on to your next 
 point. 
 
 . Aristocraticus. 
 
 I have already said that I consider the represen- 
 tative system as the philosopher's stone of pohtics ; 
 it is the master key which opens all locks, so far 
 as European, American, and Australian communi- 
 ties are concerned. It makes good aristocratic 
 government possible; it enables you to throw 
 your net wide enough to comprehend a sufficient 
 representation of the community ; and it reconciles 
 selection with freedom from all definite lines and 
 impassable barriers. My first condition for a good 
 representative system is, that it should be aristo- 
 cratic ; this we have discussed ; my second condi- 
 tion is, that the relation between the executive 
 and the representative body should be weU or* 
 ganized. 
 
- best fobm of government, 87 
 
 Democraticus. 
 Let us hear what you have to say on the second 
 of these points. Perhaps on this part of the sub- 
 ject you may find me less intractable. 
 
 Aristocraticus. 
 It appears to me that the principal executive 
 officers ought, if not by law, at least by a constitu- 
 tional necessity, to be members of the supreme 
 legislature. The result will be, that they will be 
 persons virtually elected by the majority of the 
 chamber for the time being. The advantage of 
 this system is, that there can never be a per- 
 manent conflict between the executive and the 
 majority of the legislature. The disadvantage is, 
 that the executive offices will be treated merely 
 as a prize of victory between the opposite parties, 
 and that parliamentary management will degene- 
 rate into a mere game of interested faction. Now, 
 when you come to the ultima ratio of government, 
 when you deal with the forces which determine 
 the seat of power, you must be prepared for a 
 considerable alloy of the bad parts of human 
 nature ; you must not expect to be able to pre- 
 vent a large infusion of selfishness, of deceit and 
 intrigue, and of corruption. All those plans of 
 constitutions which have their appropriate security 
 against every conceivable form of evil belong to 
 the imagination, not to reality. The best form of 
 government is the least bad. 
 
 Nam vitiis nemo sine nascitm" ; optimus ille est 
 Qui minimis urgetur. 
 
'88 .' A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 I am not so ignorant of the past, or so blind 
 "with regard to the present, as to believe that there 
 ever can be a parliamentary system without a 
 strong dash of selfish motives and of sinister influ- 
 ence ; but the interested play of parliamentary 
 tactics, when corrected by effectual publicity, is a 
 less evil than an immoveable executive, acting 
 independently of the supreme legislature. The 
 most powerful check upon the misconduct of a 
 parliamentary body is effective publicity ; and this 
 is best obtained by the regular publication, in the 
 newspapers, of accurate and full reports of the 
 debates, and by the comments of the press to 
 which that publication gives rise. This system is 
 now completely organized in England; and it 
 may be said with truth that the reporting of the 
 debates is a necessary complement of our parlia- 
 mentary constitution. It must be borne in mind 
 that the vices most complained of in our parlia- 
 mentary system belonged to a time when the 
 debates were surreptitiously reported, and when 
 the reports were meagre and inaccurate — when, 
 moreover, the newspapers contained only news, 
 and editorial articles on public affairs were un- 
 known. The criticism of cool and impartial by- 
 standers, who are not, like the parliamentary 
 combatants themselves, heated by the passions en- 
 gendered in the actual strife, and who do not 
 share their personal interests and personal ambi- 
 tion, is the best security for the good working of 
 a popular legislative body. 
 
best foem of government. 89 
 
 Crito. 
 
 Permit me to interpose a remark in the midst 
 of your discussion. I am not only willing but 
 desirous of giving due weight to the element of 
 race in all political questions, but there is one 
 point on which it seems to me to be carried too 
 far. I allude to the argument, sometimes used by 
 the friends of despotic government, that the Anglo- 
 Saxon race is alone fitted for representative insti- 
 tutions, on account of its calm and dispassionate 
 nature ; and that other races are incapable of ex- 
 ercising that self-control which is indispensable 
 for the orderly transaction of business in a large 
 deliberative assembly. Now debates were con- 
 ducted in large assemblies while the Teutonic 
 races were still in a barbarous or semi-barbarous 
 state ; and whatever may have been the defects 
 of the ancient commonwealths, it is certain that 
 the impossibility of obtaining a hearing in a 
 crowded senate, or even in the open air, did not 
 hold a prominent place among them. The same 
 remark applies to the mediaeval republics ; and it 
 may be confidently affirmed that if the parlia- 
 mentary governments of France and other conti- 
 nental states had not been undermined by influ- 
 ences more dangerous than the prejudice arising 
 from a few tumultuous debates in their chambers, 
 they would not have perished so speedily, or with 
 so little effort at self-preservation. 
 
90 a dialogue on the 
 
 Demockaticus. 
 The argument in question seems to me mani- 
 festly to confound a quality which is the result of 
 long habit, and of the careful training of succes- 
 sive generations of men, with a disposition inherent 
 in our nature, A long tuition in constitutional 
 forms of debate is requisite before a man can sit 
 quietly while his cherished opinions are attacked, 
 or while his own conduct and motives, or those of 
 his friends, are made the subjects of invective and 
 ridicule, and can afterwards rise to defend himself 
 in temperate argumentative language. Popular 
 government is not to be condemned because these 
 qualities do not spring full-grown from the throes 
 of a revolutionary crisis. But to revert, Aristo- 
 craticus, to your second security for the proper 
 working of a parliamentary government. I am 
 not at all unfavourable to your plan of making 
 the executive a standing committee of the supreme 
 legislature, virtually elected and kept in office by 
 the majority for the time being. I would wish the 
 democratic influence to be as powerful and search- 
 ing as possible, and to keep every part of the 
 government, executive as well as legislative, under 
 its constant control. The American plan of elect- 
 ing an irremoveable prime minister for a fixed 
 term of four years, of making the cabinet ministers 
 liis clerks, and of excluding them from the legis- 
 lative body, seems to me to be founded on a weak 
 mistrust of the democratic influence. It is a con- 
 trivance, and a foolish contrivance, for counter- 
 
BEST FORM OF GOVERNMENT. 91 
 
 acting the democratic tendency to change, and for 
 giving to the executive a stability with which, it is 
 supposed, the pressure of democratic forces would 
 be incompatible ; but I do not share those appre- 
 hensions, and am quite willing that the prizes 
 which can be safely contended for in England by 
 a selfish aristocracy, should, under a democracy, 
 be contended for by the representatives of the 
 people at large, who must in general be actuated 
 by pure and disinterested motives. 
 
 I may here say that, admiring as I do the cha- 
 racter and opinions of the great men who founded 
 the government of the United States, and believing 
 that, up to the present deplorable division, it 
 secured more happiness to the people than the 
 government of any other country upon the earth, 
 I yet cannot consent that democracy should be 
 judged by the working of the American constitu- 
 tion. The American constitution is an intricate 
 system compounded of federal and state elements ; 
 the sovereignty is partitioned between the central 
 federal power and the separate state governments. 
 Both are indeed fashioned upon democratic prin- 
 ciples ; but the constant conflict between federal 
 powers and state powers, and still more between 
 federal interests and state interests, prevents the 
 democratic element from having a perfectly free 
 play. This conflict has been particularly mani- 
 fested during the present civil war. If the United 
 States had been a nation under a simple demo- 
 cratic government, the civil war would either 
 
92 A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 never have arisen, or, if it had arisen, it would 
 not have assumed such gigantic dimensions, and 
 it would have been brought to an earlier termi- 
 nation. American politics have chiefly turned on 
 a set of compromises between the North and the 
 South, worked out through the medium of the 
 Federal Government. These compromises have 
 infected the whole public life of America, and 
 have influenced the character and conduct of all 
 its statesmen. 
 
 The exclusion of able and highly educated men 
 from political life in America, which appears to be 
 a fact, is likewise attributed to the jealous and 
 levelling spirit of democracy. I doubt whether 
 such exclusion is the invariable concomitant of 
 democracy ; and I attribute it rather to the work- 
 ing of the federal system, which splits the political 
 career into two portions, neither of which includes 
 the entire interests and concerns of the com- 
 munity. The state legislature spoils congress, 
 and congress spoils the state legislature. Wien 
 to this we add the disqualification of executive 
 officers for legislative functions, we shall find, to a 
 certain extent, an explanation of the secondary 
 position of a public man in the United States. He 
 is only one degree raised above the town coun- 
 cillor or the vestryman. I maintain therefore 
 that, so far as the government of the United States 
 has been successful, its success has been owing to 
 its democratic character ; and that so far as it has 
 been unsuccessful, its failure has been owing to its 
 
^^ OF T]J£ 
 
 BEST FORM OF GOVERNMEjifJj NIvSRSIj. 
 
 OB' 
 
 federalist character. The unsound p^ 
 American constitution is its federalist element ; 
 the sound part is its democratic element. The 
 one will survive all the storms of civil war and 
 revolution ; the other will, I hope, gradually sink 
 and disappear. 
 
 Aeistocraticus. 
 Your attempt to transfer the blame of bad elec- 
 tions in the United States from democracy to 
 federalism seems to me vain and deceptive. The 
 true cause of the election of inferior men is the 
 enormous size of the constituencies, and the class 
 to which the majority of voters belong. The 
 voters are not and cannot be personally canvassed 
 by the candidates. The elections are managed by 
 a caucus, or self-appointed committee of active 
 and unscrupulous men, who select the candidates 
 and guide the votes of the unmanageable mass of 
 electors. The tendency of an election so con- 
 ducted is to exclude men of character and ability, 
 and to bring forward second-rate men. It is a 
 system which necessarily leads to the degradation 
 of the representative character, and as the nation 
 acts through its representatives, to the degradation 
 of the nation itself. 
 
 Democraticus. 
 I do not admit that the caucus system is the 
 exclusive cause of the inferiority of the men pre- 
 ferred by the American constituencies ; but even 
 if the government and legislature are composed 
 
94 A DIALOGUE OIT THE 
 
 of second-rate men, this defect is of minor im- 
 portance, provided that the interests of the great 
 majority are faithfully represented. However, as 
 I have already said, I consider the democratic 
 state element far more important in the United 
 States than their federal system. The real life of 
 America resides in the States. If the State legis- 
 lation is scrutinized, it will be found that the State 
 laws are on the whole wisely framed, and that 
 they tend to promote the happiness of the mass 
 of the people more than the general legislation 
 of any monarchical or aristocratical government 
 which now is or ever has been. I will add that 
 the indirect effects of democratic universal suifrage 
 are far more than a compensation for the disad- 
 vantage of having second-rate rulers ; that its 
 tendency is to elevate the position and intelli- 
 gence of the individual man, and that it prevents 
 the existence of any such degraded class of men 
 as is found among the lower orders in all the 
 monarchical and aristocratical states of Europe. 
 
 Aristocraticus. 
 I must dispute your assumption that the com- 
 paratively elevated state of the mass of the popula- 
 tion in the Free States of the Union is owing to 
 universal suffrage. It seems to me to be owing to 
 economical, not to political causes. America is 
 a new and partially settled country; there is 
 plenty of unoccupied land for poor men, with 
 strong arms, to cultivate as owners ; this circum- 
 
BEST FORM OP GOVEENMENT. 95 
 
 stance gives plenty and independence to the bulk 
 of the people, and not universal suffrage. If the 
 suffrage were given to the classes in a European 
 state whom you describe as degraded, it would 
 not raise them from their degradation : their 
 social, economical, and intellectual position would 
 remain unchanged. 
 
 MONARCHICUS. 
 
 So far am I from assenting to your doctrine 
 that the Federal element is the bad part, and the 
 Democratic element the good part, of the American 
 constitution, that I hold the very reverse opinion. 
 I trace all the defective parts of their system of 
 government to democracy, and I conceive that 
 these evils have to a certain extent been kept in 
 check and repressed by the Federal influence. 
 Whatever influence the Federal Government has 
 exercised has been good : Federalism has made 
 some approach to a strong centralizing govern- 
 ment. Its tendency has been shown during the 
 present civil war, where the President has, very 
 properly, assumed an almost absolute power, and 
 has enforced martial law over the entire popula- 
 tion. It is an error to attribute the late seces- 
 sion to Federalism. If the entire country from 
 Canada to the Gulf of Mexico had been under a 
 national government, the conflict of interests be- 
 tween the North and South, and the differences 
 on the subject of slavery, might equally have pro- 
 duced a separation and a rebellion. 
 
96 A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 Democraticus. 
 
 You must forgive me, Monarchicus, if I decline 
 to follow you into the controversy about the true 
 cause of the American civil war. But this much 
 I will say, that, according to my estimate of pro- 
 bability, no attempt would have been made to 
 govern the whole country from Canada to the 
 Gulf of Mexico by a single Democratic govern- 
 ment. The fatal facilities offered by Federalism 
 for bringing enormous territories under a quasi- 
 central government have alone led to this experi- 
 ment, which was sure, sooner or later, to fail. I 
 must therefore adhere to my opinion that the 
 Federalist, far from being the strong, is the weak 
 point in the American system, and that Democracy 
 cannot be fairly tried, so long as it is combined 
 with the Federalist element. 
 
 Aeistocraticus. 
 
 When a double government, such as that of the 
 United States, has been for some time in opera- 
 tion, it is difficult to disentangle the effects of its 
 two component parts, and to assign to each its 
 proper share. The Federal Government, more- 
 over, has itself a double character. It has a 
 central character as opposed to the local and 
 separate character of the state governments; it 
 has likewise, in common with them, a democratic 
 character, because it is constituted upon a demo- 
 cratic basis. Democracy has a tendency to localize 
 
BEST? FORM OF GOVERNMENT. 97 
 
 power. It is more difficult to combine several 
 small independent democratic states under one 
 national government, than an equal number of 
 small states under a monarchical jot aristocratic 
 regimen. Democratic states, therefore, which 
 adjoin one another, unwilling to part with their 
 practical independence, naturally fall into the 
 compromise of a qualified federalism. This system 
 may have its defects ; but it is probably the best 
 arrangement which the circumstances admit. It 
 affords great advantages to small free states for 
 the management of their foreign relations. It 
 enables them to offer a more imposing front to 
 foreign nations ; to negotiate in peace with greater 
 effect ; and if war be necessary, to resort to it 
 with a better chance of success. I do not concur 
 in the doctrine that Federal government is neces- 
 sarily a bad government, and that small uncon- 
 nected democracies are invariably preferable to a 
 federal union of those democracies. Much, as it 
 seems to me, depends upon the size of the Federal 
 state; much also depends upon its territorial 
 boundaries being fixed and inexpansive, as in the 
 case of Switzerland, or upon its being liable to 
 receive new states, from time to time, bringing 
 with them large accessions of territory. 
 
 If, however, Democraticus, I were to admit the 
 truth of your doctrine, as to the weak points of 
 the United States Government not affording an 
 argument against democracy, I should remark at 
 the same time, that, upon that assumption, there 
 
 H 
 
98 A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 is no actually existing specimen of a pure demo- 
 cracy, for Switzerland is likewise a Federation. 
 With the exception of the few remains of the free 
 towns of the Middle Ages, the only democratic states 
 now in existence are (as I have already said) 
 English colonies. The United States are colonies 
 of England, now independent ; and -the State 
 governments are a mere continuation of the original 
 colonial constitutions, with certain modifications. 
 What is new in the United States is the Federal 
 bond, which you say, and say truly, impedes and 
 interferes with the free working of the democratic 
 principle. The English dependencies, which have 
 been colonized by Englishmen, such as the Austra- 
 lian, and to a great extent the North American 
 colonies, are likewise instances of democratic 
 government ; but these colonies are still subject 
 to the British crown, and are parts of the British 
 empire ; they are dependencies, though there is 
 little imperial control of their internal affairs; 
 and the legal supremacy of the mother country, 
 capable in any extreme case of being called into 
 activity, operates as a check upon the excesses of 
 the democratic spirit. It may be true that the 
 break-down of the American constitution, in the 
 present civil war, less than a century after its 
 foundation — in fact it only dates, in its present 
 form, from 1787, 75 years ago, scarcely the term 
 of a man's life — is due to its federal, rather than 
 to its democratic elements. It may likewise be 
 true that the success of the English democratic 
 
BEST FORM OF GOVERNMENT. 99 
 
 dependencies may be owing to the control of the 
 Imperial Government, sometimes exercised and 
 always impending; but in neither case have we 
 the simple element of democracy, working freely 
 and disengaged from other influences. The only 
 modern example of what a great European country 
 would be, if placed under a democratic govern- 
 ment, is furnished by the French republic of 1848 
 to 1851. This was a democracy, based on uni- 
 versal suffrage, and tried on the largest scale. 
 Yet we know the result to have been that, after a 
 short duration, it was put down by a sanguinary 
 coup d'etat, and was succeeded by a military 
 despotism. With the exception of this case, which, 
 on account of its short continuance and utter 
 failure, will certainly not be invoked by the 
 friends of democracy, there is no modem ex- 
 ample to show what France would be, or England 
 would be, if it were placed under a democratic 
 government. In reasoning upon its probable effect 
 in these countries, we have therefore no conclusive 
 experience to guide us ; we have no precedent 
 applicable without making deductions and allow- 
 ances which, to a great extent, destroy its applica- 
 bility. Simple democratic government, without 
 some tempering principle, can hardly be said to 
 exist. Now it is the rarity of democracy which 
 affords the chief argument in its favour. It profits 
 largely by the illusion of " ignotum pro mirifico ; " 
 it is judged by presumptions, not by facts; its 
 charms would undergo a great diminution upon* 
 
 H 2 
 
100 A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 close acquaintance ; but that acquaintance is not 
 to be had, for the plain reason that a simple 
 national democratic government is, in modern 
 times, only to be found in Utopia. 
 
 MONARCHICUS. 
 
 Owing to the viciousness of human nature, and 
 to the difficulty of organizing and working the 
 political constitution of a large country, the form 
 of government which is most widely diffused, and 
 of which there is the largest experience, is likely 
 to exhibit the most numerous examples of failure, 
 and of aberrations from the standard of right. Now 
 it cannot be disputed that monarchy is at the pre- 
 sent time, and always has been, the prevalent 
 form of government ; probably there are at least 
 a hundred examples of monarchy for one of oli- 
 garchy or democracy. Hence the many examples 
 of bad monarchical government which the advocate 
 of republican government is able to cite. This is 
 owing to the frequency of the monarchical form, 
 not to its badness. Its general goodness has led 
 to its frequency; its frequency has led to the 
 occurrence of numerous instances of abuse. The 
 tool or implement which is most used will offer 
 the most numerous examples of failure, not be- 
 cause its mechanism is defective, but because it 
 is subjected to the severest and most various 
 experiments. If aristocracies and democracies 
 had been as numerous as monarchies, the friend 
 of monarchical government would have been able 
 
BEST FORM OF GOVERNMENT. 101 
 
 to cite more instances of abuse in those forms of 
 government than the friends of aristocracy and 
 democracy could cite from monarchical states. 
 
 Democraticus. 
 Your arguments may be ingenious, but I can- 
 not admit them to be sound. You turn against 
 me the comparative rarity of democracy ; but this 
 rarity is owing to its excellence. The selfish 
 governing classes, already possessed of power, have 
 taken care to prevent the establishment of demo- 
 cracy, because it is the most effectual security 
 against their misgovernment. Democracy is rare 
 exactly because it is the best form of government. 
 Monarchs and aristocrats hate and dread it, because 
 it prevents the abuses of their power. 
 
 MONARCHICUS. 
 
 Even supposing you prevent by democracy the 
 class of evils which you describe, you may intro- 
 duce another set of evils still more detrimental to 
 the State. But, let me ask you, if you reject 
 federalism, how do you propose to govern large 
 States? Kemember that the conquering demo- 
 cracies of antiquity did not incorporate their con- 
 quests with the Imperial State, but ruled them as 
 dependencies. 
 
 Democraticus. 
 I would place every state under a simple demo- 
 cratic government, unless the territory were too 
 
102 A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 large, or too divided in its interests, for a simple 
 government. In that case, I would place it under 
 a democratic federal government ; which, though 
 open to serious objections, is superior to any vari- 
 ation of monarchical or aristocratic rule. But I 
 confess that my ideal of human happiness is the 
 division of mankind into a large number of small 
 democratic States. The most obvious objection to 
 this state of things is that it would multiply wars, 
 and that it would impede trade. Perhaps it would 
 produce one, or both, of these effects, at the pre- 
 sent stage of human intelligence. But consider- 
 ing the great advances which European opinion 
 has made in the last half century, it is not too 
 sanguine to hope that civilized nations may reach 
 a point at which the inexpediency of war and of 
 commercial prohibitions will become manifest to 
 them. If these very obvious truths should once 
 become popular, the world might reap all the 
 advantages flowing from cheap and simple demo- 
 cratic government, without suffering from any of 
 the drawbacks to which a system of small States 
 is now liable. 
 
 Aristocraticus. 
 I commend you for your prudence in admitting 
 that democracy is unsuited to large States, though 
 I cannot admire your taste in giving the prefer- 
 ence to this form of government. My ideal of 
 the state of things best fitted to promote human 
 happiness is, I confess, quite different from yours. 
 
BEST FORM OF GOVERNMENT. 103 
 
 I have no wish to wait for the arrival of that un- 
 certain period when nations shall be sufficiently 
 enlightened to understand the inexpediency of 
 commercial protection and of war, and to act con- 
 sistently upon their conviction. I should wish 
 to see all despotic monarchies and all democracies 
 (wherever they exist) converted into aristocracies, 
 and all countries, whether large or small, placed 
 under an aristocratic regimen. A well-organized 
 aristocracy is regulated by the interest of the pro- 
 prietary classes, more or less well understood, 
 according to the degree of their enlightenment. 
 In all governments the interest of the proprietary 
 classes has indeed considerable weight ; but demo- 
 cracy is, to a great extent, a government of senti- 
 ment, of passion, or of some senseless cry, under 
 the influence of demagogue adventurers, who 
 really guide the people. The danger of war 
 would, in my opinion, be at its minimum, if all 
 States were under an aristocratic government. 
 Ah. aristocratic state is most temperate, steady, 
 and even in its policy. If indeed, like Kome, it 
 acquires a military character, it wages war with 
 the utmost effectiveness and tenacity. But its 
 general tendencies are pacific. 
 
 Democraticus. 
 Democracy is the natural goal of all civilized 
 society. As men become more intelligent and 
 orderly, the dislike of artificial and legal distinc- 
 tions increases, and the desire of equality is strength- 
 
104 A DIALOGUE ON THB 
 
 ened. You may shut your eyes to this truth, but 
 it will force itself gradually upon the conviction 
 of the most reluctant. All the recent movements 
 of society in civilized nations have been from the 
 aristocratic to the democratic type. We may see 
 this change in manners, in literature, in art, under 
 a thousand different forms. An aristocratic com- 
 munity is therefore an uneasy community : it only 
 subsides into rest when it has reached the defini- 
 tive democratic stage. But a restless community 
 is likely to suffer from disturbance or civil dissen- 
 sion at home, and to pursue a meddlesome, irritat- 
 ing policy abroad. Either of these two causes is 
 likely to lead to war ; and I contend that the pre- 
 valence of democracy would tend more to the 
 maintenance of general peace among nations than 
 the prevalence of aristocracy. 
 
 Crito. 
 The two great evils of modern civilized nations 
 are Kevolution and Foreign War. Eevolution 
 almost always produces intestine conflict, of 
 greater or less duration, and has, in its conse- 
 quences, an affinity with foreign war. Both revo- 
 lution and war are an appeal to force, as the 
 ultimate arbiter ; and imply a supersession of re- 
 gular sovereignty. But if a government is tole- 
 rably well constituted, and is administered in a 
 temperate and enlightened spirit, revolution may 
 in general be avoided : ordinary skill and pru- 
 dence in the heads of the state will avert this 
 
BEST FORM OF GOVERNMENT. 105 
 
 extremity. In the present state of mankind, revo- 
 lution may be regarded as a sign either of gross 
 mismanagement of public affairs, or of some radical 
 defect in the constitution. 
 
 Without being over-sanguine, one may look 
 forward to a time when revolutions will be com- 
 paratively rare, and will not, whenever they occur, 
 entail bloodshed, confiscation, or violent measures 
 on a large scale. Foreign war, however, as it 
 depends upon the relations of independent States, 
 is more difficult to avert, and I confess that the 
 obstacles to the establishment of Perpetual Peace 
 seem to me nearly insuperable. The judgment 
 which the public forms of the motives and acts of 
 its own government is often erroneous. But the 
 public is impelled both by curiosity and by in- 
 terest to inform itself about its own government, 
 and the materials provided for it, by the periodical 
 press, are ample, and to a great extent trust- 
 worthy. Hence we find that the judgment formed 
 of a king or a minister by his countrymen during 
 his lifetime is generally correct, and it rarely 
 happens that the historian of a later age can suc- 
 cessfully reverse the verdict of contemporaries on 
 the character of a public man. With respect to 
 a foreign government the state of things is alto- 
 gether different. A stranger is imperfectly in- 
 formed as to its proceedings. He has no interest 
 to watch its conduct ; he has little curiosity about 
 its measures. He does not read its newspapers 
 regularly ; in many cases he is even ignorant of 
 
106 
 
 A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 its language. His knowledge of its contemporary 
 history is derived from the intelligence afforded 
 by the newspapers of his own country. He is in 
 general disqualified by fundamental ignorance 
 from forming a sound opinion upon its behaviour 
 and motives ; besides which, his judgment is apt 
 to be perverted by national prejudice, by national 
 jealousy, and by that malignant credulity, which 
 is particularly active in all that concerns our 
 opinions upon foreigners. In the large volume of 
 human folly, there is no chapter longer or more 
 discreditable than that which contains the judg- 
 ments of nations upon one another. When to 
 this unsound substratum we superadd the conse- 
 quences of a distinct sovereignty, — the absence of 
 common tribunals, and of a common coercive rule 
 of right ; the hope of conquest or plunder ; the 
 point of national honour ; the memory of national 
 wrongs, and the desire of national vengeance ; — we 
 may see the number and force of the causes tend- 
 ing to produce war between independent States. 
 The institution of ministerial departments spe- 
 cially charged with the conduct of foreign affairs, 
 and the maintenance of standing embassies, though 
 often pacific in their effects, have sometimes a 
 warlike tendency, because they create a class of 
 public officers who have a professional interest in 
 watching for offences against the national honour, 
 and in collecting proofs of the evil designs and 
 meditated encroachments of foreign countries. 
 The large standing armies of Europe, which have 
 
BEST FORM OF GOVERNMENT. 107 
 
 resulted from the wars of Napoleon, however much 
 they may drain the national wealth, do not ap- 
 pear to be warlike in their tendency ; for Europe 
 has never enjoyed so much peace during an equal 
 period as in the 48 years since 1815, the epoch 
 from which tliis system dates. 
 
 The world must always be divided into nume- 
 rous independent states. Want of skill in the 
 art of governing prevents barbarians from sub- 
 jecting large territories to one sceptre. Among 
 civilized nations the same effect is produced by 
 the spirit of Nationality. Napoleon was a great 
 general ; he was also a skilful military ruler : he 
 understood how to organize a larg^ country so as 
 to compel it to recruit a vast army by conscription, 
 and to pay heavy war-taxes. But he was ignorant 
 of the principles of civil government, and of the 
 motives on which it rests. His notions as to the 
 mode of governing his conquests as French de- 
 pendencies were little better than infantine. To 
 suppose that such a system could, in the existing 
 state of the European populations, be fitted for 
 stability, was the dream of a madman. Even, 
 however, if Napoleon had set about consolidating 
 liis conquests with the skill and calmness of a 
 wise statesman, he would have failed. The problem 
 was an insoluble one. 
 
 Two methods have been devised by which, not 
 the European nations, but newly-settled countries, 
 or outlying semi-barbarous districts, may, to a great 
 extent, be placed under one sovereignty — one is 
 
108 A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 the Federal method, the other is the modem Eng- 
 lish method of semi - independent dependencies. 
 The Americans have tried to subject the larger por- 
 tion of North America to a single Federal govern- 
 ment, holding out at the same time a prospect that 
 their "manifest destiny" will lead them to advance 
 indefinitely southwards. This attempt has already 
 failed. The civil war now in progress has shown 
 that separate states so distant from each other, 
 with populations so dissimilar, and with interests 
 so conflicting, cannot be permanently bound 
 together in one Federation. For communities 
 close to one another, and with interests nearly 
 identical, a Federal government is too loose a 
 tie ; for communities separated from one another 
 by long spaces, and dissimilar in character and 
 interests, a Federal government is a heavy and 
 galling cliain. The present civil war shows that 
 the American system is ineffectual as a security 
 against war. If the Northern and Southern States 
 had been independent of each other, they would 
 have been less likely to make war upon so slight a 
 provocation; and the war, if commenced, would 
 probably have been less destructive and more 
 easily terminated. 
 
 The English system of dependencies is more 
 flexible than the federal system of the Americans. 
 Although the dependency is not on a level with 
 the Imperial state, yet there is a less intimate 
 connexion between their respective governments 
 than between the government of the state and the 
 
BEST FOEM OF GOVERNMENT. 109 
 
 Federal government. The action of one govern- 
 ment interferes less with the action of the other. 
 The government of Canada or of Victoria inter- 
 feres less with the government of England, and 
 the government of England interferes less with 
 the government of Canada or of Victoria, than the 
 government of South Carolina interfered with the 
 Federal government, and than the Federal go- 
 vernment interfered with the government of South 
 CaroKna. 
 
 There is another material difference between 
 the two systems. When England acquires a new 
 dependency, either by colonization or conquest, 
 the acquisition does not affect the composition of 
 the Imperial government. The new institutions are 
 confined to the dependency. Nothing is altered 
 in England. But when a new state is aggregated 
 to the American Union, a new set of members are 
 brought into Congress. The balance of political 
 parties and interests is thus deranged. It was for 
 this reason that the Southern States attached so 
 much importance to the doctrine that the Terri- 
 tories should not be free soil. If aU the newly 
 added states were to belong to the party of the 
 North, the election of President and the votes in 
 Congress would be materially affected. In fact, 
 the apprehended influence of the new states upon 
 the Federal government may be said to have 
 been the principal cause of the present civil war. 
 
 With respect to wars, the colonial policy of 
 England has of late years been successful in pre- 
 
no A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 venting them in the dependencies of English 
 origin. The war with the American colonies 
 belongs to a period when the extent of the Im- 
 perial control was as yet undefined, and when the 
 colonial problem had not been worked out. The 
 Canadian war of 1837 principally grew out of the 
 mixture of races in that province, and the feelings 
 of the French population of Lower Canada. Our 
 other recent colonial wars have been against 
 neighbouring aborigines. The Indian mutiny 
 caused a war of some duration and extent in our 
 largest dependency ; but it was not owing to Im- 
 perial misgovernment : it was caused by the super- 
 stition of the native troops, and the confidence 
 which, from experience, was placed in their fidelity. 
 The modern English system of dependencies, 
 therefore, admits of the successful government of 
 a larger surface of the earth, as one empire, than 
 any system which has hitherto been devised. An 
 almost indefinite number of new dependencies 
 might be aggregated to the British Empire, with- 
 out deranging the constitution, or disturbing the 
 action, of the Imperial government. The prac- 
 tical limit seems to be the expense of military 
 and naval defence, which principally falls upon 
 the Imperial Exchequer, and to wliich the de- 
 pendencies (with the important exception of India) 
 make Little or no contribution. 
 
 Akistocraticus. 
 The comparative advantages of the Federal 
 
BEST FORM OF GOVERNMENT. Ill 
 
 and Colonial systems of goyemment are an 
 episode in the inquiry which you, Crito, pro- 
 pounded to us; and the subject is one which is 
 too extensive for this morning's discussion. I will, 
 therefore, only say that the comparison T\hich 
 you have made seems to me to be between things 
 disparate, and therefore not properly opposed. 
 The essence of the colonial system both of 
 England and of other countries is to place weak 
 communities, unfitted either by their small terri- 
 tory, or their recent foundation, for independence, 
 under a mild protectorate. The conditions of 
 this dependence are so little onerous to the colony 
 that it observes them willingly; but there is no 
 pretence of equality with the Imperial country. 
 A federal Union, on the other hand, admits new 
 states on a footing of perfect equality ; and there- 
 fore a new state, of advanced civilization and large 
 population, may be received within its circuit. 
 Besides, the English system of "Eesponsible 
 government " in colonies has not yet been tried 
 a sufficient number of years, and in a sufficient 
 variety of circumstances, to justify us in pro- 
 nouncing a confident opinion upon its success. 
 
 Democraticus. 
 The elaboration of a state of opinion which will 
 restrain civilized states from making war on one 
 another, is a work difficult of accomplishment, 
 but (as I have already said) I do not regard it as 
 hopeless. When nations are determined on war, 
 
112 A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 the doctrines of international law are but a feeble 
 clieck upon them. Still the cultivation of this 
 science, and an increased knowledge of the reci- 
 procal rights and obligations of nations, assist in 
 creating that state of mind which is favourable to 
 the maintenance of peace. English writers have 
 done much for all branches of political specu- 
 lation and political economy. English lawyers, 
 moreover, though not eminent as systematic 
 writers, have created the only modem system of 
 jurisprudence which is of original and indigenous 
 growth, and is not founded upon the Koman law. 
 International law has, however, received little 
 cultivation from English writers. Some credit- 
 able treatises, written by Englishmen, have 
 appeared of late years ; but the leading text-book 
 of the law of nations, in the English language, is 
 by an American author. It is to be hoped that 
 the creation of a chair of International Law in 
 the University of Oxford will lead to a more 
 systematic treatment of this important branch of 
 political and legal science by English writers. 
 As to the government of vast territories from a 
 single centre, or under the control of a single 
 imperial sovereign, I am (as I have before said) 
 favourable to a multiplication of small states. 
 I should wish the democratic dependencies of 
 England to become independent, and to form 
 separate states, as soon as they are capable of 
 standing alone. However, our discussion on the 
 question started by Crito has now occupied the 
 
BEST FORM OF GOVERNMENT. 113 
 
 chief part of our morning, and I will not enter, at 
 this time of day, upon a new subject of debate. 
 
 Crito. 
 Each of you has now clearly explained his 
 reasons for preferring his respective form of 
 government, and I am afraid that a prolongation 
 of this discussion would not convert any one of 
 you from opinions which are so deeply rooted. 
 You have at least come to an understanding with 
 one another, and have ascertained the grounds on 
 which each rests his conviction. Keflection upon 
 an adversary's arguments sometimes induces us to 
 modify an opinion, which we do not altogether 
 abandon. Our debate, therefore, may not be 
 entirely fruitless. I likewise am so unfortunate 
 as to be unable to agree altogether with any one 
 of you. I must hold to my original faith as to 
 the impossibility of establishing any best form 
 of government, applicable to all communities. 
 But difficult as I must maintain it to be, to 
 mould any constitution of government upon an 
 ideal standard, without reference to existing cir- 
 cumstances and historical associations, — unless, 
 indeed, the conditions necessary for permanence 
 are disregarded, — yet I am conscious that legis- 
 lative science has made great progress, and that 
 the labours of jurists and political economists 
 have furnished the statesman with a large number 
 of true general principles, which, if properly 
 converted into maxims or rules of conduct, and 
 
 I 
 
114 A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 applied to facts, will lead to sound practical 
 conclusions. 
 
 If we take any particular department of 
 legislative science — such as criminal law, educa- 
 tion, relief of the poor, finance, trade, public 
 works, military and naval organization — we shall 
 find that theoretical writers have established 
 many sound general principles, which will guide 
 the path of the statesman, and which he will be 
 able with advantage to apply in practice. But 
 when we ascend above these departments, and 
 arrive at the abstract question, what is the best 
 form of government for all communities? it seems 
 to me that we are attempting the solution of an 
 insoluble problem. 
 
 Each one of you, in to-day's discussion, has 
 been able to show specious, perhaps strong, 
 grounds in favour of his opinion. Monarchicus 
 can say with truth that the testimony of experi- 
 ence is in his favour ; that the vast majority of 
 nations, now and at all former periods of time, 
 have been governed by monarchs ; and that a 
 plural or republican government is an intricate 
 machine, difficult to work, and constantly tending 
 to relapse into monarchy. Aristocraticus can 
 argue that aristocracy is the government of intel- 
 ligence and virtue ; and that it is a just medium 
 between the two extremes of monarchy and de- 
 mocracy ; while Democraticus can dwell upon the 
 splendid vision of a community bound together 
 by the ties of fraternity, liberty, and equality, 
 
BEST FORM OF GOVERNMENT. 115 
 
 exempt from hereditary privilege, giving all 
 things to merit, and presided over by a govern- 
 ment in which all the national interests are 
 faithfully represented. But even if I were to 
 decide in favour of one of these forms, and against 
 the two others, I should not find myself nearer 
 the solution of the practical problem. A nation 
 does not change the form of its government with 
 the same facility that a man changes his coat. 
 A nation in general only changes the form of its 
 government by means of a violent revolution. 
 This is not a moment when reason is in the 
 ascendant, and when the claims of force can be 
 safely disregarded. The party which is upper- 
 most in the revolution dictates the form of 
 government, and pays little attention to abstract 
 theories, unless it be those which coincide with 
 its own views. The past history of a nation, its 
 present interests, its present passions and anti- 
 pathies, the advice of favourite leaders, the 
 intervention of foreign governments, all exercise 
 a powerful influence at such a crisis in deter- 
 mining the national decision. Such is the rude 
 process by which one form of government is 
 actually converted into another ; very unlike 
 the gentle and rational method which is assumed 
 by the constructors of Utopias. Besides, the 
 political preferences of a people are in general 
 determined by habit and mental association ; and 
 though the newly introduced constitution may be 
 intrinsically better than its predecessor, yet the 
 
 I 2 
 
116 A DIALOGUE ON THE 
 
 people may dislike it, and refuse it the benefit of 
 a fair trial. It may therefore fail, not from its 
 own defectiveness, but through the ill-mil and 
 reluctance of those by whom it is worked. 
 
 There are some rare cases in which a nation 
 has profited by a revolution. Such was the 
 English revolution of 1688, in which the form of 
 the government underwent no alteration, and the 
 l^erson of the king was alone changed. It was 
 the very minimum of a revolution ; it was remark- 
 able for the absence of those accompaniments 
 which make a revolution perilous, and which 
 subsequently draw upon it a vindictive reactionary 
 movement. The late Italian revolution has like- 
 wise been successful ; by it the Italian people 
 have gained a better government, and have 
 improved their political condition. It was brought 
 about by foreign intervention; but its success 
 has been mainly owing to the moderation of the 
 leaders in whom the people had the wisdom to 
 confide, and who have steadily refrained from aU 
 revolutionary excesses. 
 
 The history of forcible attempts to improve 
 governments is not, however, cheering. Looking 
 back upon the course of revolutionary move- 
 ments, and upon the character of their conse- 
 quences, the practical conclusion which I draw is, 
 that it is the part of wisdom and prudence to 
 acquiesce in any form of government, which is 
 tolerably well administered, and affords tolerable 
 security to person and property. I would not. 
 
BEST FORM OF GOVERNMENT. 117 
 
 indeed, yield to apathetic despair, or acquiesce in 
 the persuasion that a merely tolerable government 
 is incapable of improvement. I would form an 
 individual model, suited to the character, dispo- 
 sition, wants, and circumstances of the country, 
 and I would make all exertions, whether by action 
 or by writing, within the limits of the existing 
 law, for ameliorating its existing condition, and 
 bringing it nearer to the model selected for 
 imitation; but I should consider the problem of 
 the best form of government as purely ideal, and 
 as unconnected with practice ; and should abstain 
 from taking a ticket in the lottery of revolution, 
 unless there was a well-founded expectation that 
 it would come out a prize. 
 
 Is'OTES. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 Page 44, line 2. 
 
 See Lemontey, Monarchie de Louis XIV., (Euvres, torn. v. 
 p. 37 (ed. 1829). Sismondi, Histoire des Francais, vol. xxv. 
 p. 302 (c. 32). 
 
 P. 44, line 21. 
 
 " La maison Othomane a toujours eu cette fine politique, 
 de ne permettre pas qu'une famille s'agrandisse et se rende 
 puissante de pere en fils ; elle I'abat des qu'elle s'est e'levee, 
 et lui ote de bonne heure les moyens de former des parties 
 pour troubler I'etat. De la vient que, hors la maison royale 
 des Othomans, on ne sait en Turquie ce que o'est que de 
 noblesse et d'anciennete de race; on ne se pique point de 
 gloire de ce cote-lk; et les charges sont donnees au seul 
 merite de la personne, sans aucune consideration du sang." — 
 Tavernier, Relations, torn. i. p. 435 (ed. 1692). 
 
 P. 44, line 2 from bottom. 
 
 Ap. Stoh..Anfh., tit. 86, n. 24; tit. 88, n. 13. He gives a 
 full definition of nobility in Rhet. 1, 5, 5. 
 
 P. 45, line 6. 
 
 See Schwegler's Bdmische Oeschichte, vol. ii. p. 630. 
 
 P. 48, line 2. 
 
 See a detailed description of this sanguinary affair in Me- 
 moires de Ferrieres, tom. i. p. 157-162 (ed. 1821) ; Memoires 
 de Bailly, tom. ii. p. 99-125 (ed. 1822) ; and the curious 
 contemporary pamphlet, reprinted ib. p. 419-21. 
 
 P. 51, line 2 from bottom. 
 
 See Dictionnaire Philosophique, arts. ' Ceremonies,' * Cou- 
 tumes,' ' Democratic,' ' Politique.' Compare Smyth's Lectures 
 on the French Revolution, vol. i. p. 86 (ed. 1842). 
 
 <^.^. 
 
 MYVI4 
 
THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW 
 
 wii-i- BE Assesses ^^^^ ^ye^ p°^^V; 
 
 PAY AND TO * _^==-=-==="==^^ 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CAUFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 •,->i ^\>-'f