[CHAPTER LII.]
FREEDOM OF SPEECH UNDER THE SPANISH MONARCHY.
Extreme doctrines neither insure the liberty of the people, nor the force and stability of governments; both require truth and justice, the only foundations upon which we can build with any hope of the durability of the edifice. In general, maxims favorable to liberty are never carried to a higher pitch than on the eve of the establishment of despotism; and it is to be feared that the overthrow and ruin of governments are very near when undue adulations are lavished upon their power. When was the power of kings more extolled than about the middle of last century? Who is not aware of the exaggerations given to the prerogatives of royal power, when the Jesuits were to be expelled, and the authority of the Sovereign Pontiff impugned? In Portugal, Spain, Italy, Austria, and in France, the unanimous voice of the purest and most fervent royalism was heard; and yet what became of this great love, this lively zeal for monarchy, from the moment that the revolutionary storm had placed it in danger? Observe what, generally speaking, has been the conduct of men opposed to the ecclesiastical authority; they have united themselves to demagogues for destroying, at the same time, the authority of the Church and that of kings; they have forgotten their base adulations, and abandoned themselves to insults and violence. People and governments should never lose sight of this rule of conduct, so useful to men of sense, to mistrust flatterers, and to confide in those who warn and correct them. Let them beware whenever they are caressed with an affected tenderness, and their cause is maintained with especial warmth; it is a sure sign of an attempt to make use of them as tools for the furtherance of interests very different from their own. In France, at certain times, monarchical zeal was carried to such an extent as to call forth, in the assembly of the States-General, a motion for establishing, as a sacred principle, that kings receive their supreme authority immediately from God: this was not carried into effect, but the proposal shows how ardently the cause of the throne was then maintained. Now, what did all this ardor mean? Simply an antipathy against the Court of Rome, a dread of the extension of papal power; it was an obstacle to be opposed to the phantom of a universal monarchy. Louis XIV., so tenacious of the royal prerogative, assuredly did not foresee the misfortunes of Louis XVI.; and Charles III., in listening to the Count of Aranda and Campomanes, little thought that the constituent Cortes of Cadiz was so near.
In the midst of their splendor, monarchs forgot one principle predominating in the whole modern history of Europe, viz. that social organization is an emanation of religion, and, consequently, that the two powers to which the defence and preservation of society appertain ought to co-exist in perfect harmony.
The power of the Church cannot be diminished without injury to the civil power; he who sows schism will reap rebellion. During the last three centuries the most liberal and popular doctrines upon the origin of power have been circulated amongst us. What did it matter to the Spanish monarchy, since those very persons who advocated these doctrines were the first to condemn resistance to the lawful authorities, to inculcate the obligation of obedience to them, and to establish in all hearts, respect, love, and veneration for the sovereign? The disturbances of our epoch, and the dangers constantly besetting thrones, are not exactly attributable to the propagation of doctrines more or less democratical, but to the absence of moral and religious principles. What will be gained by asserting that power comes from God, if people believe not in God? Point out the sacred character of the duty of obedience, and what effect will it produce upon those who admit not the existence of moral order, and to whom duty is merely a chimerical idea? Suppose, on the contrary, that you have to deal with men penetrated with moral and religious principles, who bow to the will of God, and believe themselves bound to submit to it, so soon as it is manifested to them. What does it matter then whether civil power proceeds from God directly or indirectly? it is enough to convince them, in one way or another, that, whatever be its origin, God approves of it, and wills that it should be obeyed; they will immediately submit with pleasure, for they will see in this submission the accomplishment of a duty.
These considerations serve to explain the reason why certain doctrines appear more dangerous now than formerly: incredulity and immorality give them perverse interpretations, and apply them so as to create nothing but excesses and disorders. From the manner in which the despotism of Philip II. and his successors is now spoken of, we might be led to suppose that in their time no other doctrines than those in favor of the most rigid absolutism could be circulated; and yet we find that there were circulated, without the least apprehension on the part of power, works maintaining theories which, even in our days, would be esteemed too bold. Is it not, therefore, remarkable, that the famous book of Father Mariana, intituled De Rege et Regis institutione, which was burned at Paris by the hand of the public executioner, had been published in Spain eleven years before, without the least obstacle to its publication, either on the part of the ecclesiastical or civil authority? Mariana undertook his task at the instigation and request of D. Garcia de Loaisa, tutor to Philip III., and subsequently Bishop of Toledo; so that the work, strange to say, was intended for the instruction of the heir-apparent. Never was more freedom used in speaking to kings; never was tyranny condemned in a louder voice; never were more popular doctrines proclaimed; and the work was, nevertheless, published at Toledo, in 1599, in the printing-office of Pedro Rodrigo, printer to the king, with the approbation of P. Fr. Pedro de Ona, provincial of the Mercenaries of Madrid, with the permission of Stephen Hojeda, visitor of the Society of Jesus in the province of Toledo, under the generalship of Claude Aquaviva; and, what is still more forcible, with the royal sanction, and a dedication to the king himself. We should also observe, that Mariana was not satisfied with this dedication placed at the commencement of the book, but he makes the very title itself serve to show to whom it was addressed: De Rege et Regis institutione. Libri 3, ad Philippum 3, Hispaniæ Regem Catholicum; and, as if this were not sufficient, in dedicating his Spanish version of the History of Spain to Philip III., he says to him: "I last year dedicated to your majesty a work of my own composition, upon the virtues which ought to exist in a good king, my desire being that all princes should read it carefully and understand it." "El año pasado presenté á V. M. un libro que compuse de las virtudes que debe tener un buen Rey, que deseo lean y entiendan todos los principes con cuidado."
We will pass over his doctrine upon tyrannicide, which was the principal cause of its condemnation in France, where there existed, without doubt, motives of alarm, since kings were perishing there by the hand of the assassin. On examining his theory upon power, we find it as popular and liberal as those of modern democrats could be. Mariana ventures to express his opinions without evasion or disguise. For example, drawing a parallel between the king and the tyrant, he says: "The king exercises with great moderation the power which he has received from his subjects.... Hence, he does not, like the tyrant, oppress his subjects as slaves, but governs them as free men; and having received his power from the people, he takes particular care that during his life, the people shall voluntarily yield him submission." "Rex quam a subditis accepit potestatem singulari modestia exercet.... Sic fit, ut subditis non tanquam servis dominetur, quod faciunt tyranni, sed tanquam liberis præsit, et qui a populo potestatem accepit, id in primis curæ habet ut per totam vitam volentibus imperet." (Lib. 1, cap. 4, p. 57.) This was said in Spain by a simple religious, was sanctioned by his superiors, and attentively listened to by kings. To what grave reflections does this simple fact lead us! Where is that strict and indissoluble alliance which the enemies of the Church have imagined to exist between her dogmas and those of slavery? If such expressions as the above were tolerated in a country in which Catholicity predominated so extensively, how can it be maintained that such a religion tends to enslave the human race, and that its doctrines are favorable to despotism? Nothing would be easier than to fill whole volumes with remarkable passages of our writers, both lay and clerical, showing the extreme liberty granted upon this point, as well by the Church as by the civil government. What absolute monarch in Europe would approve of one of his high functionaries expressing the origin of power after the manner of our immortal Saavedra? "It is from the centre of justice," says he, "that the circumference of the crown has been drawn. The latter would not be necessary, if we could dispense with the former.
Hac una reges olim sunt fine creati,
Dicere jus populis, injustaque tollere facta.
In the first age, there was no necessity for penalties, because the law did not take cognisance of transgressions; rewards were equally unnecessary, because integrity and honor were loved for their own sakes. But vice, growing with the age of the world, intimidated virtue; simple and confiding, the latter, till then, dwelt in the country. Equality was despised, modesty and chastity lost, ambition and force introduced, and after them domination. Prudence, forced by necessity, and aroused by the light of nature, reduced men to a state of civil society, to exercise therein those virtues to which reason inclines them. By means of the articulate voice with which nature had gifted them, they could explain to each other their mutual thoughts, manifest to each other their sentiments, and explain their wants, instruct, counsel, and protect each other. Society once formed, a power was created by common consent, in the whole of this community, enlightened by the law of nature, for preserving its different parts, for maintaining them in justice and peace, by punishing vice and rewarding virtue. As this power could not remain spread through the whole body of the people, on account of the confusion which would have arisen from the resolutions and their execution, and as it was absolutely necessary that there should be some to command, and others to obey, one portion divested itself of this power, and vested it in one member, or in a small, or in a great, number of members, that is to say, in one of the three forms of every state government—monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy. Monarchy was the first; because men selected for their government, out of their families, and afterwards even from among the whole people, some one who excelled the rest in goodness: his greatness increasing, they honored his hand with the sceptre, and encircled his head with a crown as an emblem of majesty, and as a badge of the supreme power which they had conferred upon him. This power, however, consists chiefly in that justice which ought to maintain the people in peace; this justice failing, the order of the state fails, and the office of king ceases, as was the case in Castile, when the government by judges was substituted for that by kings, on account of the injustice of D. Ordona and of D. Fruela." (Character of a Christian Prince's Policy, set forth in a hundred Devices, by D. Diego de Saavedra Fajardo, Knight of the Order of St. James, Member of his Majesty's Supreme Council for the Indies, device 22.)
The words people, pact, consent, have ended in becoming the dread of men of sound ideas and upright intentions, on account of the deplorable abuses which have been made of them in those immoral schools which ought rather to be qualified with the epithet of irreligious than with that of democratical. No, it was not the desire of ameliorating the condition of the people which led them to overthrow the world, by overturning thrones and shedding torrents of blood in civil discord; the real cause was a blind rage for reducing to ashes the work of ages, by especially attacking religion, the main support of every thing wise, just, and salutary, that European civilization had acquired. And, in fact, have we not seen impious schools, whilst boasting of their liberty, bend under the hand of despotism, whenever they thought it useful to their designs? Previous to the French Revolution, were they not the basest adulators of kings, whose prerogatives they extended immeasurably, with the intention of making regal power the means of oppressing the Church? After the revolutionary epoch, did we not see them assembled round Napoleon; and even yet, do they not almost deify him? And why? Because Napoleon was revolution personified, the representative and executor of the new ideas sought to be substituted for the old ones. In the same manner Protestantism extols its Queen Elizabeth; because it was she who placed the Establishment upon a solid foundation. Revolutionary doctrines, besides the evils they inflict upon society, produce indirectly another effect, which may, at first sight, appear salutary, but which, in reality, is not so. They occasion dangerous reactions in the order of events, and check the progress of knowledge, by narrowing and debasing men's ideas, leading them to condemn as erroneous and pernicious, or to view with mistrust, principles which would previously have been looked upon as sound, or that would, at all events, have been regarded as mere harmless errors. The reason of all this is, simply, that liberty has no worse enemy than licentiousness.