On the Prince, or, Executive Power in Free Countries.

It is only the hope to make the experience of past ages useful to coming generations, which gives a great interest to the study of history. If we could learn nothing of the art of making nations happy, or if we could never make use of what we have learned, it would be wiser to turn away our eyes from the ealamities without number which have afflicted our race. That oppression, those vices, those massacres, those tortures, those foolish passions, the pictures of which we so often find in every age and in every country, would then be portrayed only to rend our hearts by the recollections of the past, and to make them tremble for the future. The Asiatics, who believe in fatalism, who regard all improvement as absurd, who renounce all influence on the social body to which they belong, are consistent when they shut themselves up in the present. To their eyes history is a royal and not a national science. The Gengis, the Timours, may contemplate with interest the monuments of ravages on the earth; they may demand a chronicler to relate their battles, in the same spirit which made them raise pyramids of heads in those places where they had destroyed a nation; but the Arabian turns away his eyes from the chronicles of Abulfarage, as he turns away his plough from these heaps of bones.

It is not thus that the European judges for himself of the past and of the future. He thinks he sees that even the blood with which the earth has been so often soaked produced sometimes good fruit. He compares ages, he follows the human race extending and multiplying on the globe; and though he has often the grief to see it make retrograde steps, it seems to him, however, that he can also perceive a general progress. The European congratulates himself that he has been called into life in the nineteenth century, and not in any of those which preceded it. He acknowledges the numerous conquests that have been made over barbarism, the numerous and crying abuses that have been destroyed, the odious causes of crime and suffering which it does not seem likely will be repeated; and though even the progress of social science and of civilization have been sometimes endangered by the vigorous resistance of what may be called the spirit of darkness; although posts which seemed gained have been sometimes retaken by the enemy, yet the European dares to believe that a better future is approaching, and he supports with more fortitude the ills he suffers in the hope that his descendants will be delivered from them.

It is true that to the European this confidence in the future is, perhaps, only a flattering dream, but to the American it is become in our time almost a certainty. The nations of the European races, established on this rich continuen with all the inheritance of our civilization, of our science, of our philosophy, of our dearly acquired experience, are there destined to recommence social life, without any of those burdens with which we are so heavily laden. They know all the improvements of our agriculture, and they will have for a long time to come abundance of virgin lands, which at present belongs to no one. They know our trades, our machines, all the powerful assistance which science has given to human industry, -and they are not loaded with an immense class of day-labourers, who ask for work, and who seem on the point of perishing if a machine is made to supersede the labour of their hands; they know our systems of taxation, our modes of finance, our credit, and they have scarcely any debts. They know all the developments which our skilful civilians have given to the laws which regulate property, and they have much fewer subjects of litigation; they have adopted all “those guarantees which the friends of humanity have secured to those persons brought before criminal justice, and they have no men forced to rob by universal poverty; they have profited by our discoveries in the construction of arms, of vessels, and of fortresses; they know our tactics, they have strength to defend themselves, and they have no neighbours, no natural object of ambition. May they equally profit by all which our long experience has put us into a situation to learn of the difficult science of government, without being led into error by the necessary falsehoods to which European politicians see themselves reduced, without being prevented from looking at those fundamental questions from which we so often turn away our eyes.

It is at this moment, when Columbia, Mexico, Chili, Buenos Ayres, Brazil, are employed in raising the social edifice from its foundation, that it appears to us important to classify, to analyze the political experience of Europe, of which we may offer, as it were, an inheritance to our younger brothers . We cannot be accused of presumption in endeavouring to be useful to them; the theories of which we wish to speak to them are not the creatures of our imagination; it is not by reason of any superiority that we are the depositaries of them; if we possess them, it is because we have paid for them with our blood, and with that of our fathers and of our forefathers. We have suffered enough to have a right to say to them, Behold the precipice, avoid our steps, and profit by our example. What nobler object of ambition, however, can be offered to those who have studied the fate of the human race, than that of assisting nations, destined to cover a third part of the habitable globe, to avoid some fatal errors? What a moment is that in which the fathers of nations are weighing resolutions on which will depend for many ages the fate of millions of men! What an imperative duty to speak the truth, when we know that it has been so often perverted, and that weak compromises, sometimes for the sake of power, sometimes for popularity, have gained credit for a crowd of errors which no one any longer thinks of contradicting.

The editors of the Annals of Legislation published at Geneva were in favourable circumstances for taking into consideration the highest questions of constitutional policy. Citizens of a republic, and writing under the protection of its laws, they were authorized even by the nature of the the nature of the government of their country, to inquire what is the essence of power, and what are its foundations in public utility. To them it was permitted to lay aside all prejudice, all pretence to sympathetic affections, in order to rest only on realities. Whenever they entered on constitutional questions, they addressed themselves by preference to nations who were then labouring to give to themselves fundamental institutions; they fixed their eyes more particularly on the citizens of those new states which the revo]utions of America had left as a clear field, and where the legislator is fettered neither by the rights of families, nor by those of orders, neither by powerful prejudices, nor by hereditary affections. At this moment circumstances allow French writers almost as much liberty of opinion. Whenever a part of the ancient edifice subslsts in all its strength, it is not the time to think of the best means of superseding it. The nations of Europe are completing their institutions; the Americans are raising theirs from the foundation. In regard to the first, time may have established rights; for the second, it has left only experience. The citizen of an old state must study the ground on which to combine its peculiar affections and recollections with the rights that it has acknowledged. For the founders of the new states which we see unfolding themselves, it is sufficient to have present to their thoughts the result of what experience has taught Europe in regard to the first of all sciences.

We propose, at this time, to employ ourselves in considering Executive Power, because it is that part of constitutive policy respecting which Europe has acquired most experience, whilst, at the same time, the writings which this experience has produced may have given authority to the greatest number of errors. In fact, in our old states which have succeeded other old states, there have not always been sufficient guarantees, as respects legislative and judicial power; there has always been a government, but the public good has not been always kept in view: it has always been an object to make the government solid, prompt, and energetic; it has not always been one to make the laws the expression of tbe general will, to make judgments the application of the principles of eternal justice; but the great object has been to secure command and obedience. Men have always wished to oppose the perpetuity of the state to the ephemeral life of man, and to the fluctuations of his will. The construction of what J. J. Rousseau called the Prince, or what is now called the Executive Power, makes the distinctive character of monarchies and republics, and Europe can compare them in her history; she has seen all kinds of hereditary monarchies, with the infinite modifications of hereditray, right primogeniture, and a division among all the children; the exclusion and non-exclusion of females; a testamentary right to the crown, or the improseriptible right of the princes of the blood: she has also seen numerous elective monarcldes; with the right of election contided to the whole nation, as in the ancient Teutons; to armed warriors or the equestrian order, as in Hungary. in Transylvania, and in Poland; to those whom the nation considered the wisest, as in Venice; to a small conclave of princes, as in the Germanio empire; to the heads of religion, as in the Pontifical states, and the sovereign bishoprics of Germany; to men who had made a vow to renounce the world, as in the sovereign abbeys of Fulda, of Kempten, of Musbach, &c.; to women rigorously shut up in cloisters, as the abbesses of Quedlinbourg. Lindau, Herforden, &c.

Again, with respect to republics, Europe can in her history compare executive power confided to one man, which may be regarded as an elective and temporary monarchy, with that which was exercised by two or more colleagues, and with that which was delegated to councils. Among these there are some of which the members were elected for life; others where they were all renewed at once; others by rotation. If the executive power has never been constituted in a completely national manner, it is not certainly because a variety of combinations have been wanting; and if our history presents us no model worthy of imitation in every respect, it is rich at least in lessons of what ought to be avoided.

Nevertheless, no subject has been treated in a more superficial manner by political writers, nor more frequently disguised by false reasonings, which through the power of repititan are eonfounded with public opinion. No part of political saienee has been more carefully excluded from controversy. Thus for example, at a time when Europe contained far more elective than hereditary monarchies, there can scarcely be found one writer who has dared to appreciate their comparative advantages: the question between them has been supposed to be decided by allegations, the examination of which has never been allowed. In the same way, in half Europe the monarchical crown may descend to females; in the other half, females and their descendants are excluded in perpetuity. Numerous writings, where the succession was disputed, had for their object to found the right on the fact; no one has dared to enter on the principle. History is full of the consequences of these fundamental laws; wars of succession, countries united by marriages, the loss of independence which had been defended by seas of blood, and afterwards abandoned to hereditary chances, are related in every page; yet no publicist, as far as I know, has endeavoured to compare the advantages resulting to nations from the order of succession established in France, with those of that established in England.

This voluntary blindness does not prevail among slaves only; in free countries, where all political subjects have in their turn been the subjects of long debates, these alone have been constantly avoided. In fact, discussion may precede the establishment of legislative and judicial power: it cannot begin till after the establishment of executive power, and as soon as that exists, it will not permit it. From the first day, from the first hour of the existence of a nation, it must have chiefs to direct its efforts, to regulate what it must sacrifice, to secure its defence. These chiefs, who have in general existed before national deputies, and before all political writers, became, to these last, facts which they were obliged to admit, and by which alone they could regulate other political institutions.

We are not in this situation; we endeavour to discover sincerely, but with perfect freedom, what is the constitution which it is best to give to power, that it may be truly national, and that its interests may be identified with those of the nation whom it represents. With this object, after some preliminary reflections on the institution of social power, we shall pass in review, with all the impartiality of which we are capable, the different forms of this power which Europe has experienced.