Balance of power

“ We cannot proclaim the virtues of the Balance of Power and then propose to limit it to the land or to any particular continent. Now, did our believers in the Balance of Power ever wish to see power balanced anywhere else than on the continent of Europe? That, if we studied history in any other language than our own, we should know was the gibe which other peoples flung at our addiction to the Balance of Power. ”

“ The political sleight-of-hand men, who considered the safety of the world to depend on the balance of power, where a weight must be cast into one scale, exactly sufficient, and not more than sufficient, to keep the other in equilibrio, were never so much puzzled since the science of balancing began. ”

“ If we examine precisely what is meant by a Balance of Power, we shall see that it presupposes certain conditions of animosity and attempts to neutralise them by the exhibition of superior or, at all events, equivalent forces. ”

“ But here again we arrive at the same conclusion from the balance of power to which we were before driven by the combination of matter—regulated power proclaims a regulator, a governor. Power belongeth unto God. ”

“ Each of these had frequently the executive power in Greece, and sometimes in Rome: but the power in the last resort, was always meant by legislators, to be held in balance among all three. And it will be an eternal rule in politicks among every free people, that there is a balance of power to be carefully held by every state within itself, as well as among several states with each other.
The true meaning of a balance of power, either without or within a state, is best conceived by considering, what the nature of a balance is. ”

“ The balance of power was to be thrown in as an inducement, and a sort of make-weight to supply the manifest deficiency, which must stare him and the world in the face, between those objects which he was to require the enemy to surrender and those which he had to offer as a fair equivalent. ”

“ Since I am upon this head, of the alterations which time has produced, or may produce in politics, I must observe, that all kinds of government, free and absolute, seem to have undergone in modern times, a great change for the better, with regard both to foreign and domestic management. The balance of power is a secret in politics, fully known only to the present age ”

“ Statesmanship can be reduced to three principles or maxims: the first is to maintain your power and, according to circumstances, to increase and extend it, just as I doubled my army on reaching the throne for the sole purposes of conquest. Make sure of your army; have plenty of money and bide a favourable time; you can then be certain, not only of preserving your States, but of adding to them. The term 'balance of power' is one which has subjugated the whole world ”

“ I. The balance of power among the people being very much deranged, by one having too much and another nothing, we hereby resolve ourselves into a congress or court of equity, to restore as far as in us lies the said natural balance of power, by taking from all who have too much as much of the said too much as we can lay our hands on ”

“ In short, the maxim of preserving the balance of power is {p75} founded so much on common sense and obvious reasoning that it is impossible it could altogether have escaped antiquity, where we find, in other particulars, so many marks of deep penetration and discernment. ”

“ The law of balance, if not of retribution, finds an illustration in the manner in which the fear of the States lest they give the Union too much power over the lands led eventually to a greater loss of power. ”

“ We should, therefore, recognise what is here suggested, and should counter-balance an undue regard for political movements and political power by the remembrance that the hardest tasks of all are accomplished by quite another power, and by a power which the politician often overlooks. ”

“ Good government should maintain the balance where every individual may have a place if he will take it, where every individual may find safety if he wishes it, where every individual may attain such power as his ability permits, consistent with his assuming the accompanying responsibility. ”

“ Is an act of its own will sufficient for it in order to employ to its own liking under all circumstances, as it shall understand them, the power that has been confided to it? Government must have been thus exercised in early society, and in the infancy of the art of governing. But the power, exercised by men, may go astray in different ways, either through weakness or through excess of force. ”

“ Suppose, therefore, any four or five powers who, all together, shall be equal, or even a little superior, in riches and strength to that one power against which they are united; the advantage will still be greatly on the side of that single power, because it is but one. ”

“ Thus the will of the people, the will of the prince, the public force of the State, and the particular force of the government, all answer to a single motive power; all the springs of the machine are in the same hands, the whole moves towards the same end; there are no conflicting movements to cancel one another, and no kind of constitution can be imagined in which a less amount of effort produces a more considerable amount of action. ”

“ Any supporter of such an authority, resting purely on popularity, must therefore endeavor to improve and to safeguard this authority by creating power. In power, therefore, that means in force, we see the second foundation of all authority. ”

“ Though the habit, general in past times, of regarding the powers of governments as inherent, has been, by the growth of popular institutions, a good deal qualified; yet, even now, there is no clear apprehension of the fact that governments are not themselves powerful, but are the instrumentalities of a power. ”

“ Thus the power is like the ball which is flung from hand to hand: it passes from kings to tyrants, from tyrants to the aristocracy, from them to democracy, and from these back again to tyrants and to factions; and thus the same kind of government is seldom long maintained. ”

“ But by what power can this be accomplished? There is only one. Physical force will not do it. The system of our government has been compared to that of the heavenly bodies, which move on, orb within orb cycle within cycle, in apparent confusion, but in real, uninterrupted, unalterable harmony. And the harmony of our system can only be maintained by a power, which, like that regulating their movements, is unseen, unfelt, yet irresistible,—Public Opinion. ”

“ The task of establishing this system and affirming the power of this great political body must rest upon that lofty authority which may direct the policies of our governments and keep their principles of conduct uniform, an authority whose name alone will calm our storms. ”

“ When parties are evenly balanced states tremble. In good government there should be somewhere sufficient power to carry on, not unexamined, but at least with vigour, the different operations of government itself. ”

“ Relying, then, on the patronage of your good-will, I advance with obedience to the work, ready to retire from it whenever you become sensible how much better choice it is in your power to make. And may that Infinite Power which rules the destinies of the universe lead our councils to what is best, and give them a favorable issue for your peace and prosperity. ”

“ A large proportion of the power which is too heavy for you, you should delegate to the people, to its representatives, reserving for yourself only the supreme control, that is, the general direction of the affairs of State. ”

“ New and Old Conceptions of Government.—To draw such a distinction between Government and people as if two separate spheres of power, a stronger and higher, and a weaker and lower, negotiated and came to terms with each other, is a remnant of transmitted political sentiment, which still accurately represents the historic establishment of the conditions of power in most States. ”

“ Their purpose, however, is equally answered, by pushing forward this unhappy figure, and forcing it to bear the odium of measures, which they in reality direct. Without immediately appearing to govern, they possess the power, and distribute the emoluments of government as they think proper. ”

“ The power, which is at once spring and regulator in all efforts of reform, is the conviction that there is an infinite worthiness in man which will appear at the call of worth, and that all particular reforms are the removing of some impediment. Is it not the highest duty that man should be honored in us? ”

“ The first principles of power are in the people; and all the projects of men in power ought to refer to the people, to aim solely at their good, and end in it: And whoever will pretend to govern them without regarding them, will soon repent it. ”

“ But I am unable to perceive in this fact, which all sensible men acknowledge, any cause for the exercise of ungranted power. The greater its lawful power, the greater the reason for not usurping more. ”

“ And if Power comes down upon us, and with no questions asked or answers given, sets us rules or orders, and compels us to obey, and forces and punishes us till we do; what follows? Is this good for the one who is under rule? ”

“ And this is the true "understanding" which, by placing all the other powers in their correct order, creates one grand unity of power directed to clearly defined and worthy aims, in place of the dispersion of our powers, by which they only neutralise each other and effect nothing. ”

“ It is the part of wisdom and patriotism, then, not to destroy the divisions of power in order to prevent collisions, but devise means, by which they may be prevented from leading to an appeal to force. This, as has been shown, the constitution, in a manner most safe and expedient, has provided through the amending power — a power, so constituted as to preserve in all time, and under all circumstances, an equilibrium between the various divisions of power of which the system is composed. ”

“ Let them be ever so modest and amenable to reason while there is a power over them stronger than they, we ought to expect a total change in this respect when they themselves become the strongest power. ”

“ At the same time it would be foolish to minimize the enormous and ever-increasing power it wields—a power that increases pari passu with the growing power of the masses and corresponding decrease in responsibility and intelligence of their chosen rulers. ”

“ When it is said that the strongest power in society will make itself strongest in the government, what is meant by power? Not thews and sinews; otherwise pure democracy would be the only form of polity that could exist. To mere muscular strength, add two other elements, property and intelligence, and we are nearer the truth, but far from having yet reached it. ”

“ You will thus enable them to perceive the serious import of the responsibilities which, like a mantle of power, descends upon them, as the representative working units of this great republic. You can so inspire them that they will be eager and proud to take up with honor the burden of these responsibilities. You can so change and elevate the lives of these people and a multitude of others, that first they shall become masters of themselves; later, masters of the republic; through the controlling force, the imperial dominancy of scientifically developed, symmetrical minds ”

“ It amounts to asking whether a certain power is also a power over itself: or, more precisely, whether a man possessing a certain power—that which we call freedom—has also the same power over that power. ”

“ In a word, instead of turning our forces against ourselves, let us collect them into a sovereign power, which may govern us by wise laws, may protect and defend all the members of the association, repel common enemies, and maintain a perpetual concord and harmony among us. ”

“ Of course, where unlimited power is possessed by the political head—where, as victorious invader, his subjects lie at his mercy, or where, as divinely descended, his will may not be questioned without impiety, or where he unites the characters of conqueror and god—he naturally absorbs every kind of authority ”

“ That power which is its essential quality, authority owes simply to its own existence, not to reason; it is a result of the involuntary or voluntary subjection of men's minds to existing conditions. Authority had originally only two instruments at its disposal, compulsion and fear, instruments which it will always retain and use; but at an early age it began to call forth such feelings as reverence and gratitude. ”

“ It is this power that will have to carry the republic through the complex problems and conflicts of interests which grow from our changed condition, under circumstances perhaps much more difficult than the present, and it will depend upon what wisdom, justice, moderation and self-restraint this power possesses, how it will succeed in solving and composing those problems and conflicts. ”

“ All through history there had been men into whose hands supreme power had been committed, who had carried this authority with an astounding degree of wisdom and integrity. For every one who had comported himself with such wisdom in the presence of supreme authority, there were a score, or more likely a hundred, who had used this power stupidly, foolishly, inefficiently, brutally or viciously. ”

“ But from this grant I infer, as before hath been touched, that the sovereign, original, and foundation of civil power, lies in the people—whom they must needs mean by the civil power distinct from the government set up: and if so, that a people may erect and establish what form of government seems to them most meet for their civil condition. ”

“ Civil power, properly organized and exerted, is capable of diffusing its force to a very great extent; and can, in a manner, reproduce itself in every part of a great empire, by a judicious arrangement of subordinate institutions. ”

“ Is there not a most formidable combination of power thus created in a few? and can the most critic eye, if a candid one, discover responsibility in this potent corps? or will any sensible man say that great power, without responsibility, can be given to rulers with safety to liberty? ”