第141章

A limited monarchy, in the articles we have described, might be executed with great facility and applause if a king were, what such a constitution endeavours to render him, a mere puppet regulated by pulleys and wires.

But it is among the most egregious and palpable of all political mistakes to imagine that we can reduce a human being to this neutrality and torpor.

He will not exert any useful and true activity, but he will be far from passive. The more he is excluded from that energy that characterizes wisdom and virtue, the more depraved and unreasonable will he be in his caprices.

Is any promotion vacant, and do we expect that he will never think of bestowing it on a favourite, or of proving, by an occasional election of his own, that he really exists? This promotion may happen to be of the utmost importance to the public welfare; or, if not -- every promotion unmeritedly given, is pernicious to national virtue, and an upright minister will refuse to assent to it. A king does not fail to hear his power and prerogatives extolled, and he will, no doubt, at some time, wish to essay their reality in an unprovoked war against a foreign nation, or against his own citizens.

To suppose that a king and his ministers should, through a period of years, agree in their genuine sentiments, upon every public topic, is what human nature, in no degree, authorizes. This is to attribute to the king talents equal to those of the most enlightened statesmen of his age, or at least to imagine him capable of understanding all their projects, and comprehending all their views. It is to to suppose him unspoiled by education, undebauched by rank, and with a mind disposed to receive the impartial lessons of truth.

"But if they disagree, the king can choose other ministers." We shall presently have occasion to consider this prerogative in a general view;Chapter et us for the present examine it, in its application to the differences that may occur, between the sovereign and his servants. It is an engine for ever suspended over the heads of the latter, to persuade them to depart from the singleness of their integrity. The compliance that the king demands from them is perhaps, at first, but small; and the minister, strongly pressed, thinks it better to sacrifice his opinion, in this inferior point, than to sacrifice his office. One compliance of this sort leads on to another, and he that began, perhaps only with the preference of an unworthy candidate for distinction, ends with the most atrocious political guilt. The more we consider this point, the greater will its magnitude appear. It will rarely happen but that the minister will be more dependent for his existence on the king than the king upon his minister. When it is otherwise, there will be a mutual compromise, and both in turn will part with everything that is firm, generous, independent and honourable in man.

And, in the meantime, what becomes of responsibility? The measures are mixed and confounded as to their source, beyond the power of human ingenuity to unravel. Responsibility is, in reality, impossible. "Far otherwise,"Chapter ries the advocate of monarchical government: "it is true that the measures are partly those of the king, and partly those of the minister, but the minister is responsible for all." Where is the justice of that? It were better to leave guilt wholly without censure than to condemn a man for crimes of which he is innocent. In this case the grand criminal escapes with impunity, and the severity of the law falls wholly upon his coadjutors.

The coadjutors receive that treatment which constitutes the essence of all bad policy: punishment is profusely menaced against them, and antidote is wholly forgotten. They are propelled to vice by irresistible temptations, the love of power, and the desire to retain it; and then censured with a rigour altogether disproportioned to their fault. The vital principle of the society, is tainted with injustice; and the same neglect of equity, and partial respect of persons, will extend itself over the whole.

I proceed to consider that prerogative in limited monarchy which, whatever others may be given or denied, is inseparable from its substance, the prerogative of the king to nominate to public offices. If anything be of importance, surely this must be of importance, that such a nomination be made with wisdom and integrity, that the fittest persons be appointed to the highest trusts the state has to confer, that an honest and generous ambition be cherished, and that men who shall most ardently qualify themselves for the care of the public welfare, be secure of having the largest share in its superintendence.

This nomination is a most arduous task, and requires the wariest circumspection.

It falls, more accurately than any other affair of political society, within the line of a pure, undefinable discretion. In other cases the path of rectitude seems visible and distinct. Justice in the contests of individuals, justice in questions of peace and war, justice in the establishment of maxims and judicature, will not perhaps obstinately withdraw itself from the research of an impartial and judicious enquirer. But to observe the various portions of capacity scattered through a nation, and minutely to weigh the qualifications of multiplied candidates, must, after all our accuracy, be committed to some degree of uncertainty.