Character Of The English Electoral System.
The facts adduced in my previous lecture, prove that the electoral system of England in the fourteenth century was determined by no philosophical combination, by no general intention. This system arose naturally and spontaneously, out of facts. Its study is therefore more curious and interesting: modern times are full of science and artifice; institutions do not now become developed with simplicity and freedom; under the pretext of giving them regularity, things are distorted, to suit some particular interest, or to accommodate a theory. Nothing of this nature occurred in the formation of the British Parliament; science did not then exist, and cunning was unnecessary. The House of Commons was not of sufficient importance for the executive to be much disturbed about its origin; the office of member for a county or borough was not enough sought after to induce different interests and parties to direct all their instruments of warfare and stratagems of policy to this end. Representatives of the country were required, who were to be chosen by the method of election—but this election had no occasion to adapt itself to a theory, or to be false in any way. In such a state of society, the electoral system might be vicious and incomplete in a thousand ways; its forms might be irregular and destitute of all needful guarantees, but its general principles would be natural and sound. These principles are what I propose to seek after, and to bring to light, in the present Lectures. They were neither known or thought of in the fourteenth century, but they exist in facts; for there is a reason for every fact, and all are subject to certain laws. Before entering upon the ancient English electoral system, singly and in itself, we should first consider it in its relations to society in general, to the powers by which it was ruled, and to the liberties which it enjoyed.
Modern Political Science.
In the present day, political science has rarely considered questions in this point of view, though it is the first and most important of all; it has operated on society and its government by a process of dissection; it has taken all powers and rights one by one, and has endeavoured to define each separately, and with regard to itself alone; seeking first completely to disjoin them from one another, and then to make them to proceed together, confining each strictly to its own sphere. In this manner have we seen enumerated the legislative power, the executive power, the electoral power, the judicial power, and the administrative power, and every effort of science has been exerted to make these different powers co-exist, while maintaining among them a rigorous distinction, and enjoining upon them never to fall into confusion, nor even to assimilate their offices and action. The same system has been applied to the rights and liberties of citizens. It is easy here to discern the triumph of the fondness for analysis which characterized the last century. But analysis is a method of study, not of creation. The spirit of analysis is scientific, but never political. In politics, whether dealing with rights or powers, the object is to create real vital forces, capable either of enforcing obedience or resisting oppression. This can never be attained by analysis; for, in reality, actual life is a very complicated matter, requiring the union and amalgamation of a multitude of different elements, each modified and sustained by the others. Analysis elucidates and separates into parts, but never constructs. This truth is demonstrated by the political history of our own time. All these powers and rights, so carefully enumerated and distinguished by science, so narrowly enclosed within specified limits, were found in the time of action to be destitute of consistency, energy, and reality. It was decreed that the legislative power should be absolutely separated from the executive power, the judicial power from the administrative, the municipal from the electoral power: liberties and rights have been isolated and dissected just in the same way as powers; and ere long all these rights and powers, incapable of existence and action in their isolated condition, have become centralized or lost in the hand of an individual or collective despotism, which alone was powerful and real, because it alone was other than a theoretic design or a scientific conception.
It may be fearlessly affirmed that rights, like public powers, will never regain reality and energy until they escape from this pretended science, which, under the pretext of classifying, enervates and nullifies them; until, united by positive ties, they mutually rest on one another, and coalesce to bring about the same results. Doubtless, the great analytical labour performed in our own time will not prove fruitless; many well grounded distinctions and necessary limitations will be maintained; all powers will not again fall into general confusion, nor will all rights become concentrated. There is some truth and usefulness in the results of the social dissection which has been performed; but if it were to be perpetuated, if rights and powers were to remain in the state of isolation and dissolution in which science has placed them at the present day, we should never possess either government or freedom.
Object Of The British Parliament.
It is very evident that nothing of this kind occurred at the period of the formation of the British Parliament. Politics did not wear so scientific a character, nor lay claim to such consideration, as at present. It was necessary to summon together the principal men in the kingdom—merchants, landowners, and others—that they might assist in particular public business. But this was never imagined to be the creation of a new right, or of a new power. Established rights and existing powers were called upon to exercise this new function, and to appear under this new form. The freeholders, that is to say, every free and veritable landowner, used to assemble in the county-courts, to administer justice and to treat together of common interests; and these county-courts were charged with the nomination of representatives. In towns of any importance, the citizens, under forms more or less liberal, regulated their own affairs, chose their own magistrates, and exercised in common certain rights and powers; and these municipal corporations were required to send members to Parliament.