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a modern phrase) both their persons and fortunes.1 It is, however, extremely worthy of remark, that this very circumstance, which rendered their constitutions so inadequate to all the ends. of good government, put it in their power, on various emergencies, to employ in times of war all the force of the state against their foreign enemies. The maxim, therefore, that the executive power in constitutions of a Republican form is necessarily weakened by being divided, although a most important maxim when properly understood, is so far from being just in the unqualified terms in which it is commonly stated, that it may with truth be affirmed, that in some instances this very division, by rendering its operations irregular and often invisible, removes the possibility of any check or control, and produces a military despotism, at once formidable abroad and oppressive at home. Additional illustrations of these remarks might be easily collected from the history of our own times.2

That there is nothing in these occasional exceptions inconsistent with the general principles formerly stated, (under the article of Monarchy, [supra, p. 386,]) concerning the vigour, secrecy, and despatch which the executive power derives from its unity, it is scarcely necessary for me to mention. The history of the Grecian Commonwealths itself, while it shews that the weakness likely to result from a plurality of executive magistrates may sometimes be counteracted by a concurrence of extraordinary circumstances, bears ample testimony to the inexpediency of such an arrangement as an established rule of policy in a military state.

But what I wish chiefly to remark, at present, is the fatal consequence of a division in the executive power, with respect to the rights and liberties of the people subjected to its authority. Proofs of this may be collected from almost every page of the Grecian history.

In England, on the contrary, the threatening aspect of the executive power has constantly kept alive the jealousy of the people;

1 Many striking instances of this are mentioned by Dr. Gillies in the Introduction to his Translation of the Orations of Lysias.

2 See also Gillies's Aristotle.

and while its unity exposed to their view the real causes of the grievances they felt, it reduced to one uniform system the precautions they took to bring it under proper restraint and regulation. "The executive power in England," says De Lolme, "is formidable, but then it is for ever the same; its resources are vast, but their nature is known; it is the indivisible and inalienable attribute of one person alone; but then all other persons, of whatever rank or degree, become really interested to restrain it within its proper bounds."*

ii. Another advantage of the royal prerogative in our Constitution is, that the men to whom the people delegate their share in the legislation are bound, in common with themselves, by the laws which are made. Nay, all orders in the state are interested in the common cause of liberty, as they have nothing but the laws to protect them from the power of the executive magistrate.

iii.-By the same wise arrangement the Constitution has precluded (as far, perhaps, as any possible contingency in human affairs can be said to be precluded) those civil conflicts, by which the happiness and liberty of other states have been subverted. The minister, however aspiring; the popular leader, however turbulent; the general, however intoxicated by that idolatry which splendid military successes command, sces every channel obstructed by which he might hope to raise himself to dominion over his fellow-citizens. In Rome and other ancient republics, the want of a common superior encouraged popular and military leaders successively to aim at the sovereign authority, till the people at length sought a refuge from the miseries brought on them by the dissensions of the contending parties, in submission to absolute despotism. In this view, the monarchical part of our Constitution (restrained and limited as it is by the checks to be mentioned afterwards) is one of the strongest bulwarks of British liberty.

From these observations it sufficiently appears how important are the effects which depend on the Unity of the Executive Power. The salutary consequences resulting from

* [On the Constitution of England, Book II. chap. ii. p. 218, edit. 1816.]

the Division of the Legislative Power are not less deserving of attention.

II.-i. Of these advantages, one of the most obvious is the steadiness which is secured to our laws by the different views and interests of the several bodies of which our Legislature is composed. In this manner, indeed, obstacles may sometimes. arise to laws which are highly salutary; but the mischiefs to be apprehended from this are trifling when compared with the evils connected with a fluctuation of laws, or with sudden and rash changes in established institutions. The inconveniences experienced in the ancient republics from a want of steadiness in the legislative code are well known, and were, indeed, of so alarming a nature, that they suggested some very extraordinary and seemingly absurd expedients for diminishing the dangers they threatened. Of this kind were the attempts which the Legislature made to tie up its own hands, from a mistrust of its future wisdom. "It appears," says Mr. Hume, "to have been a usual practice at Athens, on the establishment of any law esteemed very useful or popular, to prohibit for ever its abrogation or repeal. Thus the demagogue who diverted all the public revenues to the support of shows and spectacles, made it criminal so much as to move for a repeal of this law. Thus, Leptines moved for a law, not only to recall all the immunities formerly granted, but to deprive the people, for the future, of the power of granting any more. Thus, all bills of attainder were forbid, or laws that affected one Athenian, without extending to the whole commonwealth. These absurd clauses, by which the Legislature vainly attempted to bind itself for ever, proceeded from a universal sense in the people of their own levity and inconstancy."*

Were it not for the division of our Legislature, similar inconveniences would be experienced in England. I before took notice [supra, p. 362, seq.] of those sudden fits of enthusiasm and of frenzy to which all large bodies of men are subject. Nations such as ours, among whom a constant and almost instantaneous * [Essays, Vol. I.-Essay, Of some Remarkable Customs.]

communication of intelligence and of opinions is kept up by the unrestrained liberty of the press, are liable to fits of enthusiasm and of frenzy scarcely less violent. "Opinions," says a late very ingenious writer, Mr. Paley, "are sometimes circulated amongst a multitude without proof or examination, acquiring confidence and reputation merely by being repeated from one to another; and passions founded on these opinions, diffusing themselves with a rapidity which can neither be accounted for nor resisted, may agitate a country with the most violent commotions. For obviating this danger, the most obvious of all expedients (if not the only expedient) is to erect different orders in the community, with separate prejudices and interests. And this may occasionally become the use of an hereditary nobility, invested with a share in the legislation.

Were the voice of the people always dictated by reflection; did every man, or even one man in a hundred, think for himself, or actually consider the measure he was about to approve or censure; or even were the body of the people tolerably stedfast in the judgment which they formed, I should hold the interference of a superior order to be not only superfluous, but wrong; for when everything is allowed to rank and education which the actual state of these advantages deserves, that after all is most likely to be right and expedient which appears to be so to the separate judgment and decision of a great majority of the nation; at least that in general is right for them, which is agreeable to their fixed opinions and desires. But when we observe what is urged as the public opinion, to be in truth the opinion only, or perhaps the feigned profession of a few crafty leaders,—that the numbers who join in the cry serve only to swell and multiply the sound, without any accession of judgment or exercise of understanding,-and that oftentimes the wisest councils have been thus overborne by tumult and uproar, we may conceive occasions to arise in which the commonwealth may be saved by the reluctance of the nobility to yield to the vehemence of temporary clamours. In expecting this advantage from an order of nobility, we do not suppose the nobility to be more unprejudiced than others. We only suppose that their prejudices

will be different from, and may occasionally counteract the variable prejudices of the multitude."*

These observations suggest an argument (which appears to me to have great force) against all constitutions that vest the legislative power entirely in assemblies of a popular description. I have repeatedly remarked, that the happiness of mankind depends immediately not on the form of government, but on the particular system of law and policy which that form introduces; and that the advantages which one form of government possesses over another, arise chiefly from the facility it. affords for the accomplishment of such legislative improvements as the general interests of the community recommend. Under every form of government, (whatever it may be,) provided its general spirit be favourable to liberty, and allows an unrestrained freedom of discussion, these enlightened views of Political Economy will gradually and slowly prevail, in proportion to the progress of reason and the diffusion of knowledge. And they will command the general assent of mankind soonest in those countries where the constitution of the legislative branch renders its proceeding slow, deliberate, and systematical; and where a strong but regulated police allows men to prosecute those studies that relate to human affairs with the same calm. and dispassionate temper with which truth is investigated in the abstract sciences.

ii.—A second advantage which we derive from this division of the Legislature is, that it establishes a sort of balance in the Constitution, so that if either of the three branches should attempt to extend its power too far, the other two might be expected to unite in opposing it. If the King should attempt to render himself independent of the House of Commons, the Lords (however little interested they might feel themselves in the cause of general liberty) would see the danger with which their own order was threatened. It is from the weight which the people have in the Constitution that the Peers derive their legislative authority; and if the House of Commons were anni

* [Moral and Political Philosophy, Book VI. chap. vii.; Works, Vol. I. p. 429, seq.]

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