No 23. MONDAY, APRIL 16, 1787. If there be any land, as fame reports, Where common laws restrain the prince and subjects; Flows thro' each member of the embodied state; JOHNSON's Irene. FROM a subject that has been so often handled as the various modes and forms of government, little novelty can be expected; and the ablest pen could effect no more, than to place in new lights, or clothe in different words, those arguments which have been urged for ages by the advocates of different parties. As I am not qualified by my years or experience to decide amidst such contending factions, or to give any additional weight to either side by a declaration of my opinion, my only endeavour in this essay shall be to collect and place in one point of view, the most important points of the controversy; to rest my assertions not on the frail foundations of speculation, but 'experience; and by exhibiting the several expedients of human wisdom for the regulation of society, make my fellow-citizens sensible of the blessings of that constitution, under which we live; and to the protection of whose privileges they will most probably hereafter be summoned. To trace the progress of legal government, from the simple subordination of the patriarchal power, to the complex system of modern politics; to make the gradual increase and extension of acknowledged authority from the head of a single family to the sovereignty of a mighty empire, may prove an ample reward to the toil of useful curiosity; but it is a task beyond the limits of my paper, or the extent of my abilities. I shall therefore pass over the subject, and content myself with this remark; that it is absolutely necessary to the existence of civil society, that for the public good, the individual should resign a part of his natural independence, and bind himself by some common tie or obligation, to the observance of a known and fixed law. As this is the corner stone of all civil institutions, and one of those self-evident propositions which do not admit of a doubt, I shall not farther insist upon it; but proceed in my examination of those different branches, which shot forth from the parent stock of patriarchal government. At this simple period, the ideas of men were confined within a narrow circle, and to the objects more immediately before them; their present subsistence was almost their only care, and the possessions of a fertile pasturage, or a spring to water their flocks, employed the petty politics of this guiltless age. It is not from these men we are to expect the refinements of government; for the nice balance between opposite interests, the discrimination between the right of the sovereign, the nobility, and the people, or that equal composition of different parts, which form the perfect whole, and like the symmetry of a well-turned arch, mutually prop and support each other. As the patriarchal government was only calculated for the regulation of a small number, when mankind increased, they found the necessity of an alteration: but as their ideas were too confined to suggest any new mode; as tyranny was not dreaded where it had never been felt; and the violation of rights, which had never * * In the Scriptures we find an instance of a solemn covenant between Abraham and Abimelech, concerning a well of water. yet existed, could not be guarded against; they contented themselves with that form, to which custom had reconciled them: his authority being extended on a large scale, the head of a family became the sovereign of the state; and despotism fixed her throne in Asia and the eastern world. In those parts we are to search for any knowledge of this kind, as the western quarter was then immersed in the ignorance of primitive barbarity. Even Egypt, the source from whence all arts and sciences are derived, the most refined and polished of kingdoms, was subject to a regal government; whose antiquity, by a series of fabulous dynasties, was carried to a ridiculous height. The republican form was first adopted in Greece; and the aristocracy or democracy, the different modifications of the same original, prevailed according to the disposition of the people by whom they were to be received. The Spartans, sedate, grave, and accustomed from their earliest youth to pay the most implicit deferences to their laws, submitting themselves to an aristocracy of a peculiar kind, which has with more propriety been denominated an oligarchy; for such in effect was the council of the Ephori, which controlled the regal power in such a manner as to render it the mere puppet of their pleasure. The Athenians, lively, impetuous, fond of novelty, and jealous to the extreme of their liberties, rushed into all the turbulence of a licentious democracy. The Roman commonwealth widely differed from Sparta and Athens in the form it assumed after the expulsion of Tarquin. As the exact boundaries between the rights of the patricians and plebeians were not defined with sufficient precision, they proved a source of endless contention; and the cruel treatment which debtors met with from their creditors, more than once reduced the state to the brink of destruction. Upon reflection it seems an unaccountable circumstance, that a state, which boasted of the liberty of its subjects, and which considered the appellation of a Roman citizen,' as the most glorious distinction it could bestow, should permit such an ignominious badge of slavery to be interwoven in the principles of its constitution; thus to expose those very citizens who formed the flower of her legions, to the tyranny of a brutal creditor. The reader will pardon me, if I stop a moment to contemplate this wonderful nation; who, by dint of all the virtues which can adorn a rising state, joined to the most unremitting perseverance, became, from the petty asylum of a few wandering robbers, the mistress of the world; who unnoticed and unobserved, was silently ascending the height she afterward attained; and amidst discords and divisions, which threatened her very existence, arose only more formidable from her fall; or to use the nervous expression of Horace, Per damna, per cædes, ab ipso Through wounds, through losses, no decay can feel, Collecting strength and spirit from the steel.-FRANCIS. This nation from its infancy seemed destined to the sceptre of the world; and by the imperious dignity of its behaviour, to enforce reverence and awe. The judicious Virgil perceived wherein the real glory of his countrymen consisted; and wisely rejecting what could not be claimed as theirs, boldly stamped the characteristic of his nation. Excudent alii spirantia mollius æra, (Creda equidem) vivos ducent de marmore vultus; Let others better mould the running mass Plead better at the bar; describe the skies, } In these lines the invidious assertion included in 'Orabunt causas melius,' to the prejudice of the truly eloquent Cicero, has been often noticed; and it may be worth remarking, that although Virgil has so freely resigned the superiority in other points, he is silent with respect to poetry. Vanity there arrested his pen, and forbade the confession.-But to return from this digression. it may From this short review of the ancient government be collected, that neither Greeks nor Romans had any idea of that mixed form, which comprehends the seemingly irreconcilable principles of monarchical despotism, and republican freedom! unless the Kings and Ephori of Sparta may be included in that denomination. The feudal system, which succeeded the downfal of the Roman empire, gave the first rude outlines of the fabric; as appears from the compact between the king and his barons, and the tenures on which they held their fiefs. We here see an acknowledged sovereign, and order of nobility, who stipulate to perform certain services, on consideration of the grant of particular lands and privileges. The king on his side promises to observe these privileges inviolate; and in case of the non-performance of the contract*, the one side has the liberty of seeking redress by force of arms; the other forfeits his fief, as he has not complied with the tenure by which he held it. The nobles, *There is a remarkable instance of this in the case of the ancient Spanish grandees: vide Dr. Robertson's preface to his History of Charles the Fifth, from whom most of the observations on the feudal system are taken. |