I am not greatly prepossessed in favour of the privileges of the clergy, but I should like to see their jurisdiction clearly fixed once for all. It is not a question of discussing if it be right to establish it, but of seeing if it is established, and if it forms part of the laws of the country, and of deciding if a loyal subject is not within his rights in upholding both the powers of his king and the limits which have from time immemorial been set to that power. The power of the clergy is dangerous in a republic, but convenient in a monarchy, and especially in a monarchy tending to despotism. Where would Spain and Portugal be, since they have lost their laws, without this power which alone arrests the arbitrary force of their kings?
In order to advance liberty, the English have destroyed all the intermediary powers that form their monarchy. They have good reason to guard and cherish this liberty. If ever they lose it, they will be one of the most enslaved races on earth.
It is not sufficient that there should be intermediary ranks in the monarchy; there must also be a depository of laws. This depository cannot be found anywhere save in political corporations, which announce laws when they are made, and recall them when they are forgotten. The ignorance natural to nobility, its inattention, its contempt for civil government, require that there should be a corporation which unceasingly recovers laws from the dust in which they are buried.
As democracies are ruined by the populace stripping the senate, the magistrates, and the judges of their functions, so monarchies decay when the prerogatives of the higher classes and the privileges of towns are little by little destroyed. In the first case, things end in a despotism of the multitude; in the other, in the despotism of a single man.
The people of the ancient world had no knowledge of a monarchy founded on a nobility, and still less knowledge of a monarchy founded on a legislative corporation formed, as in England, by the representatives of the people. On reading the admirable work of Tacitus on the ancient Germans, one sees that it is from them that the English have derived the idea of their political system. This fine form of government was discovered in the forests. It is based on a separation of the three powers found in every state—the legislative power, the executive power, and the judicial power. The first is in the hands of the parliament, the second is in the hands of the monarch, and the third in the hands of the magistracy. The English people would lose their liberty if the same man, or the same corporation, or the lords, or the people themselves, were possessed of these three powers.
By their representative system the English have avoided the great defect of the ancient republics, in which the populace were allowed to take an active part in the government.
There is in every state a number of persons distinguished by birth, wealth, or honour. If they were confounded among the people, and had there only one vote like the rest, the common liberty would be to them a slavery, and they would have no interest in defending it, because most of the laws would be directed against them. The part they play in legislation should, therefore, be proportionate to the other advantages which they have in the state. In England they rightly form a legislative body, which has the power of arresting the enterprises of the people, in the same way as the people have the power of arresting theirs. A house of lords must be hereditary. It is so naturally, and, besides, this gives it a very great interest in the preservation of its prerogatives, which, in a free country, must always be in danger. But as an hereditary power might be tempted to follow its private interests to the neglect of the public welfare, it is necessary that in matters in which corruption can easily arise, such as matters relating to money bills, the House of Lords should have neither any initiating nor any correcting faculty; it should have only a power of veto and a power of approving, like the tribunes of ancient Rome.
The cabinet should not wield the executive power as well as the legislative power. Unless the monarch himself retains the executive power, there is no liberty, for liberty depends upon each of the three powers being kept entirely separate. It is in this way that the balance of the constitution is preserved. As all human things have an end, England will one day lose its liberty, and perish. Rome, Sparta, and Carthage have not been able to last. England will perish when the legislative power grows more corrupt than the executive power.
IV.—On Despotism
From the nature of despotism it follows that a despot gives the government into the hands of another man. A creature whose five senses are always telling him that he is everything and that other men are nothing is naturally idle, ignorant, and pleasure-seeking. He therefore abandons the control of affairs. But if he entrusted them to several persons there would be disputes among them, and the despot would be put to the trouble of interfering in their intrigues. The easier way, therefore, is for him to surrender all administration to a vizier, and give him full power. The establishment of a vizier is a fundamental law of despotism. The more people a despot has to govern, the less he thinks of governing them; the greater the business of the state becomes, the less trouble he takes to deliberate upon it.