Elective monarchy

“ We have the monarchical principle in our president, and governors, and the mayors of cities. We have the aristocratic in the legislators, judges, and magistrates. The existence of the democratic element need not be proved. The difference between our monarchy and aristocracy and those which are hereditary is only that ours is elective, and the difference between them and certain others which are elective is that our election is only for a certain term and by a popular vote. The Pope is an elective monarch. ”

“ Monarchical powers constitute monarchy, and though monarchy is elective, it is still monarchy. If monarchy and aristocracy are moral principles productive of evil effects, election cannot change their nature, and force them to produce good effects. As we have a multitude of elective publick officers, without aristocratical powers, we may also have an elective chief officer, without monarchical powers. But if by law, avarice and guile, the aristocracy of paper and patronage is created; and if the mass of monarchical powers, held by the president, remains undivided ”

“ They are not elective in a form of government which recognizes born representatives, persons who are representatives either immediately through their birth, as hereditary princes in every hereditary monarchy, or who, at least, are, through their birth, the only eligible representatives, as the nobility in all monarchies, and the patricians in hereditary-aristocratic republics. ”

“ So far as England is concerned, the institution of an executive regularly elected by the legislature at large in place of a cabinet formed of the leaders of a party majority would be substantially a return to the old form of government—the Privy Council. Parliament is now the sovereign power, and election by it would be equivalent to the ancient nomination by the crown. The mode of electing and confirming a Speaker shows how the forms of monarchy may be reconciled with the action of an elective institution. ”

“ I lay aside, then, whatever is of a secondary interest in the declaration of the Elective Chamber; and, fixing on the single enunciated fact of the vacancy of the throne, whether true or pretended, I advance directly to my object.
"But a previous question ought first to be attended to: if the throne be vacant, we are free to choose the future form of our government.
"Before offering the crown to any individual whatever, it is well to ascertain under what political system the social body is to be constituted. Are we to establish a republic or a new monarchy? ”

“ And, indeed, it is as important to regulate, in a republic, in what manner, by whom, to whom, and concerning what, suffrages are to be given, as it is, in a monarchy, to know who is the prince, and after what manner he ought to govern. ”

“ It could not be held, without breaking up all the foundations of our polity, that the monarchy emanated from the parliament, or even from the people. But by the revolution and by the act of settlement, the rights of the actual monarch, of the reigning family, were made to emanate from the parliament and the people. In technical language, in the grave and respectful theory of our constitution, the Crown is still the fountain from which law and justice spring forth. ”

“ And therefore as it is absurd, to think that a sovereign assembly, inviting the people of their dominion, to send up their deputies, with power to make known their advice, or desires, should therefore hold such deputies, rather than themselves, for the absolute representatives of the people: so it is absurd also, to think the same in a monarchy. ”

“ Changes in the relative powers of the ruler and the consultative body are determined by obvious causes. If the king retains or acquires the repute of supernatural origin or authority, and the law of hereditary succession is so settled as to exclude election, those who might else have formed a consultative body having coördinate power become simply appointed advisers. But, if the king has not the prestige of supposed sacred origin or commission, and continues to be elective, then the consultative body retains power, and is liable to become an oligarchy. ”

“ If that is true of Parliament, what shall we say of the Throne itself after all these changes? I will venture to ask, whatever of convenience there may be in hereditary monarchy, whatever of historic grandeur in the kingly office, whatever of nobleness in the possessor of the Crown, in all these things is it not true that everything is at least as fully recognised by the nation as it ever was at any previous period? I do not mention these things to reproach anybody here. We all have to learn. There are many in this House who have been in process of learning for a good while. ”

“ The citizens of the United States would reprobate, with indignation, the idea of a monarchy. But the essential qualities of a monarchy—unity of council, vigor, secrecy, and dispatch—are qualities essential in every government. ”

“ A republic, where the people at large, either collectively or by representation, form the legislature.
The separate advantages of monarchy are unity of council, decision, secrecy, and dispatch; the military strength and energy resulting from these qualities of government; the exclusion of popular and aristocratical contentions; the preventing, by a known rule of succession, all competition for the supreme power, thereby repressing the dangerous hopes and intrigues of aspiring citizens. ”

“ Under the headings 'King,' 'Parliament,' 'Prerogative,' 'Recoveries,' and 'Subsidies,' he advanced the opinion that the English monarchy was an absolute monarchy, and that the King only consulted parliament by his 'goodness in waiving his absolute power to make laws without their consent' (s. v. 'Subsidy') . ”

“ The nobility therefore are the pillars, which are reared from among the people, more immediately to support the throne; and if that falls, they must also be buried under it's ruins. Accordingly, when in the last century the commons had determined to extirpate monarchy, they also voted the house of lords to be useless and dangerous. And-154- since titles of nobility are thus expedient in the state, it is also expedient that their owners should form an independent and separate branch of the legislature. ”

“ These words appear in Chapter XXVI., in the Second Part:
"It passes as unquestionable, in a certain party, that a revolution of the nature of our own can end only by a change of dynasty; others, more moderate, say by a change in the order of right of succession to the Crown."
As I was finishing my work, appeared the ordinance of [Pg 7] the 5th of September 1816 [11] : this measure dispersed the few Royalists assembled to reconstruct the Legitimate Monarchy. ”

“ The nation, as sovereign, is free to constitute government according to its own judgment, under any form it pleases—monarchical, aristocratic, democratic, or mixed—vest all power in an hereditary monarch, in a class or hereditary nobles, in a king and two houses of parliament, one hereditary, the other elective, or both elective; or it may establish a single, dual, or triple executive, make all officers of government hereditary or all elective, and if elective, elective for a longer or a shorter time, by universal suffrage or a select body of electors. ”

“ In time, even the form would cease, and the successor be appointed by the incumbent — and thus the absolute form of a popular, would end in the absolute form of a monarchical government. Scarcely a possibility would exist of forming a constitutional monarchy. There would be no material out of which it could be formed; and if formed, it would be too feeble, with such material as would constitute it, to hold in subjection a country of such great extent and population as ours must be. ”

“ For no sooner is the aristocracy erected, but the democracy is annihilated, and the covenants made unto them void.
The election of the optimates, &c. 8. In all aristocracies, the admission of such, as are from time to time to have vote in the sovereign assembly, dependeth on the will and decree of the present optimates. For they being the sovereign, have the nomination, by the eleventh section of the former chapter, of all magistrates, ministers, and counsellors of state whatsoever, and may therefore choose either to make them elective, or hereditary, at their pleasure. ”

“ The image whereof, and not the image but the thing indeed, is to be seen in the parliament-house, wherein you shall find these three estates; the king or queen which representeth the monarchy, the noblemen which be the aristocracy, and the burgesses and knights the democracy. If the parliament use their privileges, the king can ordain nothing without them: if he do, it is his fault in usurping it, and their fault in permitting it. ”

“ But if any prince elector or other prince of whatever condition or standing, or any count, baron, or noble, or the successors or heirs of such, holding a fief or fiefs from the holy empire, be not willing to fulfill our imperial constitutions and laws above and below laid down, or shall presume to act counter to them: if such a one, indeed, be an elector prince, his co-electors shall, from that time on, exclude him from association with themselves, and he shall lose both his vote in the election and the position, dignity and privileges possessed by the other electors ”

“ Even the one constitutional effort which was made, the establishment of a limited monarchy in France, was rendered nugatory by the fact, that the privileges were given as a grant and charter from the crown, and the [1371] first principle of the English Constitution—that power is from the people—ignored. ”

“ In the ordinary administration of the government, the Sovereign personally is, so to speak, behind the scenes; performing, indeed, many personal acts by the Sign-manual, or otherwise, but, in each and all of them, covered by the counter-signature or advice of Ministers, who stand between the august Personage and the people. There is, accordingly, no more power, under the form of our Constitution, to assail the Monarch in his personal capacity, or to assail through him, the line of succession to the Crown, than there is at chess to put the king in check. ”

“ Pray, assure the empress, from me, that, notwithstanding the councils which have shook the throne of her father and mother, I shall remain here, ready to save the sacred persons of the king and queen, and of her brothers and sisters; and, that I have also left ships at Leghorn, to save the lives of the Great Duke and her imperial majesty's sister: for all must be a republic, if the emperor does not act with expedition and vigour. "Down, down with the French!" ought to be placed in the council-room of every country in the world: and, may Almighty God give right thoughts to every sovereign! ”

“ Governours are completely manageable by the elective system, because they do not possess monarchical powers. From the same cause, state legislatures elect them without disorder or difficulty. At some future day, on an election of a president, it will be found that the hopes and fears inspired by monarchical powers, will light up the brand of civil discord, and visit us with an experimental knowledge of the effects of these powers, first as elective, and then as hereditary. ”

“ One uniform method characterized the change from monarchy to democracy. An oligarchy of nobles would overthrow the monarchy, and then some one noble would overthrow the oligarchy and establish the cause of the people. ”

“ I mean with regard144 to the succession to the Crown. The Crown was of old, as I have already said, elective. No man had a right to become King till he had been called to the kingly office by the choice of the Assembly of the nation. No man actually was King till he had been admitted to the kingly office by the consecration of the Church. The doctrines that the King never dies, that the throne never can be vacant, that there can be no interregnum, that the reign of the next heir begins the moment the reign of his predecessor is ended, are all figments of later times. ”

“ Faction within the country was the inevitable consequence, and the arrangements of the constitution made faction permanent. There was no middle class. The nation had not gone through the same processes as other Western people. Nobility was easily obtained, and Its peculiar institutions. each member of the nobility ranked as the peer of all the rest. Below the ranks of the nobility came the serfs. Political power, and also most of the executive, was vested in this wide aristocratical democracy. Usually delegates of the nobles constituted a governing house. ”

“ As it stands at present we have a temporary elective monarch with more power, even nominally, than most European constitutional monarchs and more actually than many so-called absolute monarchs such as the Czar or the Sultan. ”

“ The contention was, that all regal power sprang from the suffrages of the people. "The king is subordinate to the Parliament, not co-ordinate, for the constituent is above the constituted." "What are kings but vassals to the State, who, if they turn tyrants, fall from their right?" ”

“ It is the great lever by which the crown is touched, and made to conform its administration to the interests of the kingdom, and the will of the people. Deprive parliament of the power of freely granting or withholding supplies, and surrender to the king the purse of the nation, he instantly becomes an absolute monarch. ”

“ And he himself, and no one else, ought at all times to be called in and admitted by the other prince electors, without any contradiction whatever, to the election and to all other transactions to be carried on for the honour or welfare of the holy empire. Nor, since they are and ought to be inseparable, may any one of the said rights, etc., be divided from the other, or at any time be separated, or be separately demanded back, in court or out of it, or distrained, or, even by a decision of the courts, be separated; nor shall any one obtain a hearing who claims one without the other. ”