History of the Origin of Representative Government in Europe

by François Guizot

Further, the great barons thus formed into a body, had the power and duty of defending in common their rights and liberties against the royal power; and their resistance, instead of consisting in a series of isolated wars, as was the case in France, immediately assumed the character of a collective and truly political resistance, founded on certain general principles of right and liberty. Now there is something contagious in these principles and their language, which very soon extends them beyond the limits within which they are at first enclosed. Right calls forth right, liberty engenders liberty. The demands and resistance of the great barons provoked similar demands and resistance in other classes of the nation. Without the concentration of the high aristocracy in the House of Peers, the House of Commons would probably have never been formed. From all these facts flows this consequence, that when great inequality actually exists in society between different classes of citizens, it is not only natural but useful to the progress of justice and liberty, that the superior class should be collected and concentrated into a great public power, in which individual superiorities become placed on a more elevated level than that of personal interest; they learn to treat with their equals, to meet with opposition, and to furnish an example of the defence of liberties and rights; while by exposing themselves in some sort to the view of the whole nation, they experience by this fact alone the necessity of adapting themselves, to a certain extent, to its opinions, sentiments, and interests.

Is A House Of Peers Advantageous?

But, it may be said, a social inequality of sufficient magnitude to occasion the formation of such a power, is neither a universal fact, nor one in itself good and desirable; and under this point of view the House of Peers, as it is constituted in England, was simply a remedy for an evil. There can be no doubt that the accumulation of land, wealth, and positive power which belonged to the great barons, and the securing of all these social advantages, were the result of violence, and as contrary to the internal tendency as to the rational principles of society in general. If then the division of the legislative power into two Chambers is derived only from such causes, it might in certain cases be inevitable and even beneficial; but where these causes are not met with, nothing would recommend it, or ought to make its necessity a matter of regret. The equitable and natural distribution of social advantages, their rapid circulation, the free competition of rights and powers—this is the object, as it is the rational law of the social condition. An institution which, in itself and by its nature, is opposed to this object and derogates from this law, contains nothing which ought to lead to its adoption when not imposed by necessity.

Is this the case with regard to the division of the legislative power into two Chambers, setting aside those particular characteristics which, in the English House of Peers, are derived solely from local and accidental facts, and cannot be referred to rational causes of universal validity?

Before considering this question in its relation to the fundamental principle of representative government, some observations are necessary.

Two Tendencies In Society.

It is by no means true, that similar inequalities to those which produced the preponderance of the great barons in England, and a permanent classification of society in conformity to these facts, are natural conditions of the social state. Providence does not always sell her benefits at so high a price to the human race, and has not rested the very existence of society on this denomination, this immovable constitution of privilege. Reason must believe, and facts prove, that society can not only subsist, but is even better off in another condition; in a condition in which the principle of free competition exercises more dominion, and where the different social classes are more nearly allied. It is certain, however, that there exist in society two tendencies, equally legitimate in their principle, and equally salutary in their effects, although in permanent opposition to each other. The one is the tendency to the production of inequality, the other, the tendency to maintain or restore equality between individuals. Both are natural and indestructible: this is a fact which requires no proof, the aspect of the world displays it everywhere; and if we look within, we shall perceive it in ourselves. Who does not desire, in some respect or another, to raise himself above his equals? and who would not also wish, in some particular, to bring down his superiors to an equality with himself? These two tendencies, considered in their principle, are equally legitimate: the one is attached to the right of the natural superiorities which exist in the moral as well as in the physical order of the universe; the other, to the right of every man to that justice which desires that no arbitrary force should deprive him of any of the social advantages which he possesses, or might acquire, unaided and without injury to his fellows. To prevent natural superiorities from displaying themselves, and exercising the power that belongs to them, is to create a violent inequality, and to mutilate the human race in its noblest parts. To enslave men in regard to those rights which are common to all, by reason of the similitude of their nature, to unequal laws imposed or maintained by force, is to insult human nature and to forget its imperishable dignity. In fine, these two tendencies are equally salutary in their effects: without the one, society would be inert and lifeless; without the other, might alone would dominate, and right would for ever be suppressed. In considering them as respects that which is legitimate and moral in each, let us ask what is this tendency to inequality but the desire to elevate ourselves, to extend our influence, and to bring to light and effect the triumph of that portion of moral power which is naturally placed by the will of God the Creator, in each particular individual? and is it not this impulse which constitutes the life and determines the progress of the human race? On the other hand, what is this tendency to equality except resistance to force, to capricious arbitrary wills, and the desire to yield obedience only to justice and true law? Doubtless, in both these tendencies, the bad as well as the the good parts of our nature display themselves: there is a taint of insolence in the desire of self-elevation, and of envy in the passion for equality. Injustice and violence may be employed either to abase superiors or to surpass equals; but in that conflict of good and evil, which is everywhere the condition of man, it is not the less true that the two tendencies of which I am speaking constitute the very principle of social life, the twofold cause which makes the human race advance in the career of improvement, which leads it back when it wanders astray, and urges it forward when perverse powers or wills seek to arrest its course.