As to the aristocratical form, it has the same vices and defects with the monarchical, except that the chance of abilities is better from the proportion of numbers, but there is still no security for the right use and application of them.*[17]
Referring them to the original simple democracy, it affords the true data from which government on a large scale can begin.It is incapable of extension, not from its principle, but from the inconvenience of its form; and monarchy and aristocracy, from their incapacity.Retaining, then, democracy as the ground, and rejecting the corrupt systems of monarchy and aristocracy, the representative system naturally presents itself; remedying at once the defects of the simple democracy as to form, and the incapacity of the other two with respect to knowledge.
Simple democracy was society governing itself without the aid of secondary means.By ingrafting representation upon democracy, we arrive at a system of government capable of embracing and confederating all the various interests and every extent of territory and population; and that also with advantages as much superior to hereditary government, as the republic of letters is to hereditary literature.
It is on this system that the American government is founded.It is representation ingrafted upon democracy.It has fixed the form by a scale parallel in all cases to the extent of the principle.
What Athens was in miniature America will be in magnitude.
The one was the wonder of the ancient world; the other is becoming the admiration of the present.It is the easiest of all the forms of government to be understood and the most eligible in practice;and excludes at once the ignorance and insecurity of the hereditary mode, and the inconvenience of the simple democracy.
It is impossible to conceive a system of government capable of acting over such an extent of territory, and such a circle of interests, as is immediately produced by the operation of representation.
France, great and populous as it is, is but a spot in the capaciousness of the system.It is preferable to simple democracy even in small territories.Athens, by representation, would have outrivalled her own democracy.
That which is called government, or rather that which we ought to conceive government to be, is no more than some common center in which all the parts of society unite.This cannot be accomplished by any method so conducive to the various interests of the community, as by the representative system.It concentrates the knowledge necessary to the interest of the parts, and of the whole.It places government in a state of constant maturity.It is, as has already been observed, never young, never old.It is subject neither to nonage, nor dotage.It is never in the cradle, nor on crutches.It admits not of a separation between knowledge and power, and is superior, as government always ought to be, to all the accidents of individual man, and is therefore superior to what is called monarchy.
A nation is not a body, the figure of which is to be represented by the human body; but is like a body contained within a circle, having a common center, in which every radius meets; and that center is formed by representation.To connect representation with what is called monarchy, is eccentric government.Representation is of itself the delegated monarchy of a nation, and cannot debase itself by dividing it with another.
Mr.Burke has two or three times, in his parliamentary speeches, and in his publications, made use of a jingle of words that convey no ideas.Speaking of government, he says, "It is better to have monarchy for its basis, and republicanism for its corrective, than republicanism for its basis, and monarchy for its corrective."- If he means that it is better to correct folly with wisdom, than wisdom with folly, I will no otherwise contend with him, than that it would be much better to reject the folly entirely.
But what is this thing which Mr.Burke calls monarchy? Will he explain it? All men can understand what representation is; and that it must necessarily include a variety of knowledge and talents.
But what security is there for the same qualities on the part of monarchy? or, when the monarchy is a child, where then is the wisdom?
What does it know about government? Who then is the monarch, or where is the monarchy? If it is to be performed by regency, it proves to be a farce.A regency is a mock species of republic, and the whole of monarchy deserves no better description.
It is a thing as various as imagination can paint.
It has none of the stable character that government ought to possess.
Every succession is a revolution, and every regency a counter-revolution.The whole of it is a scene of perpetual court cabal and intrigue, of which Mr.Burke is himself an instance.
To render monarchy consistent with government, the next in succession should not be born a child, but a man at once, and that man a Solomon.It is ridiculous that nations are to wait and government be interrupted till boys grow to be men.
Whether I have too little sense to see, or too much to be imposed upon;whether I have too much or too little pride, or of anything else, I leave out of the question; but certain it is, that what is called monarchy, always appears to me a silly, contemptible thing.I compare it to something kept behind a curtain, about which there is a great deal of bustle and fuss, and a wonderful air of seeming solemnity; but when, by any accident, the curtain happens to be open- and the company see what it is, they burst into laughter.
In the representative system of government, nothing of this can happen.
Like the nation itself, it possesses a perpetual stamina, as well of body as of mind, and presents itself on the open theatre of the world in a fair and manly manner.Whatever are its excellences or defects, they are visible to all.It exists not by fraud and mystery; it deals not in cant and sophistry; but inspires a language that, passing from heart to heart, is felt and understood.
