The Commonwealth of Oceana

by James Harrington

This order needs no proof, in regard of the nature of servitude, which is inconsistent with freedom, or participation of government in a commonwealth.

The second order “distributes citizens into youth and elders (such as
are from eighteen years of age to thirty, being accounted youth; and
such as are of thirty and upward, elders), and establishes that
the youth shall be the marching armies, and the elders the standing
garrisons of this nation.”
A commonwealth, whose arms are in the hands of her
servants, had need be situated, as is elegantly said of Venice by
Contarini, out of the reach of their clutches; witness the danger run
by that of Carthage in the rebellion of Spendius and Matho. But though
a city, if one swallow makes a summer, may thus chance to be safe, yet
shall it never be great; for if Carthage or Venice acquired any fame
in their arms, it is known to have happened through the mere virtue of
their captains, and not of their orders; wherefore Israel, Lacedaemon,
and Rome entailed their arms upon the prime of their citizens, divided,
at least in Lacedaemon and Rome, into youth and elders: the youth for
the field, and the elders for defence of the territory.

The third order “distributes the citizens into horse and foot, by the sense or valuation of their estates; they who have above £100 a year in lands, goods, or moneys, being obliged to be of the horse, and they who have under that sum to be of the foot. But if a man has prodigally wasted and spent his patrimony, he is neither capable of magistracy, office, or suffrage in the commonwealth.”

Citizens are not only to defend the commonwealth, but according to their abilities, as the Romans under Servius Tullius (regard had to their estates), were some enrolled in the horse centuries, and others of the foot, with arms enjoined accordingly, nor could it be otherwise in the rest of the commonwealths, though out of historical remains, that are so much darker, it be not so clearly probable. And the necessary prerogative to be given by a commonwealth to estates, is in some measure in the nature of industry, and the use of it to the public. “The Roman people,” says Julius Exuperantius, “were divided into classes, and taxed according to the value of their estates. All that were worth the sums appointed were employed in the wars; for they most eagerly contend for the victory; who fight for liberty in defence of their country and possessions. But the poorer sort were polled only for their heads (which was all they had) and kept in garrison at home in time of war; for these might betray the armies for bread, by reason of their poverty, which is the reason that Marius, to whom the care of the government ought not to have been committed, was the first that led them into the field;” and his success was accordingly. There is a mean in things; as exorbitant riches overthrow the balance of a commonwealth, so extreme poverty cannot hold it, nor is by any means to be trusted with it. The clause in the order concerning the prodigal is Athenian, and a very laudable one; for he that could not live upon his patrimony, if he comes to touch the public money, makes a commonwealth bankrupt.

The fourth order “distributes the people according to the places of their habitation, into parishes, hundreds, and tribes.”

For except the people be methodically distributed, they cannot be methodically collected; but the being of a commonwealth consists in the methodical collection of the people: wherefore you have the Israelitish divisions into rulers of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens; and of the whole commonwealth into tribes: the Laconic into oboe, moras, and tribes; the Roman into tribes, centuries, and classes; and something there must of necessity be in every government of the like nature, as that in the late monarchy—by counties. But this being the only institution in Oceana, except that of the agrarian, which required any charge or included any difficulty, engages me to a more particular description of the manner how it was performed, as follows:

A thousand surveyors, commissioned and instructed by the Lord Archon and the Council, being divided into two equal numbers, each under the inspection of two surveyors-general, were distributed into the northern and southern parts of the territory, divided by the river Hemisua, the whole whereof contains about 10,000 parishes, some ten of those being assigned to each surveyor; for as to this matter there needed no great exactness, it tending only by showing whither everyone was to, begin, to the more orderly carrying repair and whereabout to on of the work; the nature of their instructions otherwise regarding rather the number of the inhabitants than of the parishes. The surveyors, therefore, being every one furnished with a convenient proportion of urns, balls, and balloting-boxes—in the use whereof they had been formerly exercised—and now arriving each at his respective parish, being with the people by teaching them their first lesson, which was the ballot; and though they found them in the beginning somewhat froward, as at toys, with which, while they were in expectation of greater matters from a Council of legislators, they conceived themselves to be abused, they came within a little while to think them pretty sport, and at length such as might very soberly be used in good earnest; whereupon the surveyors began the institution included in—

The first order, requiring “That upon the first Monday next ensuing the last of December the bigger bell in every parish throughout the nation be rung at eight of the clock in the morning, and continue ringing for the space of one hour; and that all the elders of the parish respectively repair to the church before the bell has done ringing, where, dividing themselves into two equal numbers, or as near equal as may be, they shall take their places according to their dignities, if they be of divers qualities, and according to their seniority, if they be of the same, the one half on the one side, and the other half on the other, in the body of the church, which done, they shall make oath to the overseers of the parish for the time being (instead of these the surveyors were to officiate at the institution, or first assembly) by holding up their hands, to make a fair election according to the laws of the ballot, as they are hereafter explained, of such persons, amounting to a fifth part of their whole number, to be their deputies, and to exercise their power in manner hereafter explained, as they shall think in their consciences to be fittest for that trust, and will acquit themselves of it to the best advantage of the commonwealth. And oath being thus made, they shall proceed to election, if the elders of the parish amount to 1,000 by the ballot of the tribe, as it is in due place explained, and if the elders of the parish amount to fifty or upward, but within the number of 1,000, by the ballot of the hundred, as it is in due place explained. But, if the elders amount not to fifty, then they shall proceed to the ballot of the parish, as it is in this place and after this manner explained.

“The two overseers for the time being shall seat themselves at the upper end of the middle alley, with a table before them, their faces being toward the congregation, and the constable for the time being shall set an urn before the table, into which he shall put so many balls as there be elders present, whereof there shall be one that is gilded, the rest being white; and when the constable has shaken the urn, sufficiently to mix the balls, the overseers shall call the elders to the urn, who from each side of the church shall come up the middle alley in two files, every man passing by the urn, and drawing out one ball; which, if it be silver, he shall cast into a bowl standing at the foot of the urn, and return by the outward alley on his side to his place. But he who draws the golden ball is the proposer, and shall be seated between the overseers, where he shall begin in what order he pleases, and name such as, upon his oath already taken, he conceives fittest to be chosen, one by one, to the elders; and the party named shall withdraw while the congregation is balloting his name by the double box or boxes appointed and marked on the outward part, to show which side is affirmative and which negative, being carried by a boy or boys appointed by the overseers, to every one of the elders, who shall hold up a pellet made of linen rags between his finger and his thumb, and put it after such a manner into the box, as though no man can see into which side he puts it, yet any man may see that he puts in but one pellet or suffrage. And the suffrage of the congregation being thus, given, shall be returned with the box or boxes to the overseers, who opening the same, shall pour the affirmative balls into a white bowl standing upon the table on the right hand, to be numbered by the first overseer; and the negative into a green bowl standing on the left hand, to be numbered by the second overseer; and the suffrages being numbered, he who has the major part in the affirmative is one of the deputies of the parish, and when so many deputies are chosen as amount to a full fifth part of the whole number of the elders, the ballot for that time shall cease. The deputies being chosen are to be listed by the overseers in order as they were chosen, except only that such as are horse must be listed in the first place with the rest, proportionable to the number of the congregation, after this manner.”

Anno Domini