To rid himself of friendly importunities, and to evince that his mind was not deranged, whatever might be his feelings, he confided to his circle that he had long been occupied in the study of civil government, to invent an art which should prevent the disorders of a state. It was his opinion that “a government is not of so accidental or arbitrary institution as people imagine; for in society there are natural causes producing their necessary effects as well as in the earth or the air.” The passionless sage was so discriminately just, that he declared that “our late troubles were not wholly to be ascribed to the misgovernment of the prince, nor to the stubbornness of the people; but to the nature of certain changes which had happened to the nation.” He then, for their curious admiration, disclosed the perfect model of a commonwealth in his “Oceana.”
Oceana, or England, was the model of “a free state;” a political “equality” was its basis; equality to be guarded by a number of devices. Harrington laid the foundation of politics, on the principle that empire follows the balance of property, whether lodged in one, in a few, or in many. Toland asserts that this was as noble a discovery as that of the circulation of the blood, of printing, gunpowder, or the compass, or optic glasses; the Newtonian gravity had not then been established, or, doubtless, it had been enumerated.
To preserve the political equality, there were to be “balances” in dominion and in property. An agrarian law, by its distributions suitable to the rank of the individual, and which were never to be enlarged nor diminished, would prevent any man, or any party, overpowering the people by their possessions. All those states in Europe which were the remains of Gothic dominion, were thrown into internal conflicts by their “overbalances.” The overbalance of one man was tyranny; of a few, was oligarchy; of the many, was rebellion, or anarchy.[2] The perpetual shifting of their “balances” had produced all their disturbances. He traced this history in extinct governments, as well as in our own. So refined were his political optics, that he discerned when our kings had broken Magna Charta some thirty times; and during the reign of Charles the First, he asserts that these “balances” had been altered nine times.
The “balance of property” being the foundation of the commonwealth, the superstructure was raised of magistracy. Magistracy was to proceed by “rotation,” and to be settled by the “ballot.” The senate was to be elected by the purity of suffrage, which was to be found in the balloting-box. And in this rotatory government, the third part of the senate would be wheeled out at their fixed terms. The senate by these self-purgations would renovate its youth; and the sovereign authority, by this unceasing movement, would act in its perpetual integrity.
In this equal commonwealth no party can be at variance with, or gain ground upon another; and as there can be no factions, so neither will there be any seditions; because the people are without the power or the interest to raise commotions; they would be as likely to throw themselves into the sea as to disturb the state. It is one of his political axioms, that where the public interest governs, it is a government of laws; but where a private interest, it is a government of men, and not of laws.
Harrington was no admirer of a mixed monarchy; his political logic includes some important truths. “In a mixed monarchy, the nobility sometimes imposing chains on the king or domineering over the people, the king is either oppressing the people without control, or contending with the nobility, as their protectors; and the people are frequently in arms against both king and nobles, till at last one of the three estates becomes master of the other two, or till they so mutually weaken one another, that either they fall a prey to some more potent government, or naturally grow into a commonwealth—therefore mixed monarchy is not a perfect government; but if no such parties can possibly exist in Oceana, then it is the most equal, perfect, and immortal commonwealth. Quod erat demonstrandum.”
The “equality” of Harrington, however, was not fashioned to any vulgar notions of a levelling democracy. He maintained the distinctions of orders in society. The great founder of a commonwealth was first a gentleman, from Moses downwards; though, he says, “there be great divines, poets, lawyers, great men in all professions, the genius of a great politician is peculiar to the genius of a gentleman.” And further, “An army may as well consist of soldiers without officers, or of officers without soldiers, as a commonwealth (especially such an one as is capable of greatness) consist of a people without gentry, or of a gentry without a people.”
A work of such original invention, replete with the most curious developments of all former political institutions, of which the author proposed to resume the advantages and to supply the deficiencies, from the ancient commonwealth of Moses to the recent republic of the Hollanders, and moreover throwing out some novel general views of our own national history, formed a volume opportune to engage public attention. It was enlivened by the pleasing form of a romance, where, in the council of the legislators, the debaters plead for their favourite form of government with infinite spirit.
The publication of “Oceana” was, however, long retarded; first, by the honesty of our sage, and, secondly, by the influence of two very opposite parties equally alarmed. Harrington was anxious that his proselytes should debate his opinions, and even partially promulgate them in their pamphlets, before he ventured to publish them. What he ably elucidated they faithfully repeated: the consequence of this indiscretion was, that the novelty had lost its gloss; and, when finally his great discovery of empire following the balance of property appeared, the author was reproached for its obviousness. Every great principle appears obvious when once ascertained. The vague rumours that had spread that a new model of government was about to appear, made the Cromwellites and the cavaliers alike alert in their opposition; the bashaws of the great sultan, the new lords and major-generals of the Protector, sate uneasy in their usurped seats; the cavaliers, who knew Harrington’s predisposition for republican institutions, loudly remonstrated. The author was compelled to send his papers to the printers by stealth and by snatches, dispersing them among different presses. The first edition of “Oceana” exhibits a strange appearance, in a confusion of all sorts of types and characters—black letter, Italian and Roman, accompanied by an unparalleled “List of Errors of the Press,” being several folio pages with double columns! The author has even marked the lacerations of his panting and hunted volume from “a spaniel questing who hath sprung my book out of one press into two other.” The myrmidons of Oliver hunted down their game from press to press, and at length pounced on their prey, and, with a Pyrrhic triumph, bore it to Whitehall.
All solicitations of the author to retrieve his endeared volume proved fruitless; in despair he ventured on a singular expedient. Lady Claypole, the daughter of the Protector, studied to be exceedingly gracious, and to play the princess. Unacquainted with her ladyship, Harrington requested an audience; waiting in the antechamber, her little daughter soon attracted his attention; carrying her in his arms, he entered the presence-chamber, and declared that he had a design to steal the young lady—not from love, but for revenge.