"The Carthaginian cavalry was superior to that of the Romans, for two reasons. One was, that the Numidian and Spanish horses were better than those of Italy; the other, that the Roman cavalry was ill armed; for Polybius tells us, that it was not till they had carried on war in Greece, that they changed their manner of equipping that limb of military strength. In the first Punic war, Regulus was beat as soon as the Carthaginians made choice of plains for combat, where their cavalry could act to advantage; in the second, Hannibal owed to the Numidian horse his principal victories. It was not till whole corps of them began to go over to the Romans in Italy, that the latter began to breathe. Scipio having conquered Spain, and contracted an alliance with Masinissa, deprived the Carthaginians of that advantage. He did more, he gained it for himself. It was the Numidian cavalry which gained the battle of Zama, and terminated the war in favour of the Romans."—C. 4.
It is impossible to read the admirable account of Hannibal's campaign in the last volume of Arnold's History of Rome, without perceiving that this observation, as to the decisive effect of the Numidian cavalry upon the fortunes of the war, in first giving victory to the Carthaginians when they were entirely on their side, and gradually, and at length decisively restoring it to that of the Romans, when they were won over to their eagles, is entirely well-founded. Napoleon was of the same opinion, and has repeatedly expressed it in various parts of his works. "Give me," said that great man, "the French infantry and the Mameluke horse, and I will conquer the world." It was his constant affirmation that cavalry, equally brave and skillfully led, should always, other things being equal, overthrow infantry; and that the contrary opinion which generally prevails, was owing to horse, considered as the sole strength of war during the feudal ages, having been unduly decried since the invention of fire-arms. All the world knows the immense use he made of his heavy cavalry in all his campaigns; how often, in circumstances the most critical, it chained victory to his standards; how nearly it re-established his affairs, and replaced the imperial crown upon his head on the field of Waterloo. How striking a proof of human sagacity that the philosophic sage, in the early part of the seventeenth century, should have divined a truth which the researches of the historian and the exploits of the conqueror were to confirm in the middle of the eighteenth!
"Those who are governed by a king," says Montesquieu, "are less tormented by envy and jealousy, than those who live under an hereditary aristocracy. The prince is so far distant from his subjects, that he is rarely seen by them; he is so far above them that nothing in his situation can mortify his self-love. But the nobles who govern in an aristocracy are under the eyes of all, and they are not so elevated, but that odious comparisons are made without ceasing. Thus in all ages we have seen the people detest their senators, though they frequently love their king. Republics, where birth confers no title to power, are in that respect in a better situation than aristocracies; for the people feel less jealousy of an authority which they give to whom they please, and take from whom they incline."—C. 8.
How many confirmations of this remark have the history of France during the Revolution, and of England during the Reform mania afforded! And this affords an illustration of a truth, which, the more history is studied, will be rendered more apparent, viz., that the principles which lie at the bottom of the greatest changes in the political world, and produce the most devastating evils to society, are in reality the same which we see acting every day around us in common life. In the jealousies of the tea-table, the animosities of the market-place, the envy of trade, we may see the passions working, which, infused into a whole people, tear society in pieces. It is only supposing the same malevolent or selfish desires working in every breast, directed against one object, and rendered irresistible from that very multiplication, and we have the envy of the coterie transformed into the fury of revolution. Whoever will closely observe the working of that mainspring of human actions—selfishness—on the society, whether in a village, a city, a country, or a metropolis in which he resides, will have no difficulty in discerning the real but secret, and therefore unobserved spring of the greatest changes that ever occur in the political and social world. Voltaire said the factions at Geneva were storms in a teacup; if any man will study the motion of water in a teacup, he will be at no loss to understand the hurricanes of the Atlantic.
On the division of the Roman people into centuries and tribes, which was the cardinal point of their constitution, Montesquieu makes the following important observation:—
"Servius Tullius was the author of the famous division of the people into centuries, which Livy and Dionysius Halicarnassus have so well described. He distributed an hundred and ninety-three centuries into six classes, and put the whole lower people into the last century, which singly formed the sixth class. It is easy to see that that arrangement virtually excluded the lower classes from the suffrage, not de jure, but de facto. Subsequently it was agreed, that except in some particular cases they should, in voting, follow the division into tribes. There were thirty-five of these tribes who gave each their vote: four were from the city, thirty-one from the country. The principal citizens, being all rural proprietors, were naturally classed in the country tribes: the lower people were all massed together in the four urban ones. This circumstance was regarded, and with reason, as the salvation of the republic. Appius Claudius had distributed the lower people among the whole tribes, but Fabius classed then again in the four urban ones, and thence acquired the surname of 'Maximus.' The Censors very five years took a survey of the citizens, and distributed the people in the tribes to which they legally belonged; so that the ambitious could not render themselves masters of their suffrages, nor the people abuse their own power."—C. 8.
The Romans had good reason for styling Fabius "Maximus," who discovered this way of preventing the lower classes, by their number, from acquiring an overwhelming superiority in the government of the state. He achieved as great a good for his country by so doing, as by baffling Hannibal after the battle of Cannæ. But for that circumstance the Roman constitution would have become, after the change of Appius Claudius, a mere prototype of the American democracy; a government constantly swayed by a numerical majority of the lowest class of citizens. There can be no doubt that the matter at issue, in this question, is the most material which can engage the attention of political philosophers and statesmen in a free country, and that, on its determination, its ultimate fate is entirely dependant. So great is the number of the working-classes in every old and opulent community, compared to those who possess the advantages of property and superior education, that nothing is more certain than that, if the elective franchise be widely diffused, and no mode of classifying the votes, as at Rome, has been discovered, the sway of a numerical majority of incompetent electors will, erelong, become irresistible. Certain ruin then awaits the state. It was that which ruined Athens in ancient, which has destroyed Poland in modern times, and is fast undermining the foundations of the social union in America. The Roman method of giving every citizen a vote, but classifying them in such a way that the paramount influence of a mere numerical majority was prevented, and the practical direction of affairs was thrown into the hands of the better class of citizens, though not free from objection, is the most perfect method of combining universal suffrage in the citizens, with the real direction of affairs by those fitted to conduct them, which the wit of man has ever divined.
In truth, it deserves consideration by those who think on human affairs, and the probable form of government which may be expected to prevail in future among men, whether universal suffrage is the real evil to be dreaded; and whether equality of suffrage is not the real poison which destroys society. Abstractly considered, there is much justice in the plea so constantly advanced by the working-classes, that being members of the community, and contributing to its support or opulence by their labour, they are entitled to a certain voice in the direction of its affairs. If no one has a voice at all but the sovereign, as in a despotism, or no one except a few magnates, as in an aristocracy, the humbler classes cannot complain at least of inconsistency, whatever they may of injustice, if they are excluded. But if a vast body of electors, as in Great Britain, are admitted, and still the great bulk of the working-classes are excluded, it is not easy to see on what principle the exclusion of some can be rendered consistent with the admission of others. It deserves consideration whether the true principle would not be to give every able-bodied working man, major and not receiving parochial relief, a vote, but a vote of much less weight than his superiors in intelligence, property, or station. This might be done either as the Romans did, by making the votes be taken by centuries, and classing all the votes of the poorer electors in a limited number of centuries, or giving each man a personal vote, and giving the holders of property, in addition, more votes for their property; as one for every pound of direct taxes paid. Louis XVI. proposed a plan of this sort to Turgot before the Revolution; but that minister, deeply embued with the principles of democracy, rejected it; and Neckar, following out his views, practically established universal suffrage. Possibly the plan, if adopted and honestly carried into execution, might have prevented the whole calamities of the Revolution.
Of the dangers of such a multiplication of votes, without any restriction, Roman history affords a memorable example.
"Rome," says Montesquieu, "had conquered the world with the aid of the Italian cities, and, in return, she had communicated to them a great variety of privileges. At first they cared little for these advantages; but when the rights of Roman citizenship was that of universal empire, when no one was any thing in the world if he was not a Roman citizen, and with that little he was every thing, the Italian people resolved to perish or acquire that envied distinction. Being unable to attain this object by prayers and remonstrances, they had recourse to arms: the whole allies on the Eastern coast of the Peninsula revolted, those on the Western side were about to follow their example. Rome, obliged to combat as it were the hands by which it had conquered the world, was lost; it was about to be reduced to its walls, when it extricated itself from the difficulty by extending the privilege to the allies who had remained faithful, and shortly after to the whole.