Hereditary monarchy

“ Either these monarchical states will depose the royal family to the ranks of the nobility and change the form of the government to a republic, or else the next or at least the second generation, will produce an hereditary aristocracy which may not have any legal position or titles, but will have privileges all the more substantial on this account. An hereditary monarchy has a natural impulse to surround itself with hereditary attachments. ”

“ The founders of our English monarchy might perhaps, if they had thought proper, have made it an elective monarchy: but they rather chose, and upon good reason, to establish originally a succession by inheritance. This has been acquiesced in by general consent; and ripened by degrees into common law: the very same title that every private man has to his own estate. Lands are not naturally descendible any more than thrones: but the law has thought proper, for the benefit and peace of the public, to establish hereditary succession in one as well as the other. ”

“ The hereditary principle not unfrequently extends to other families — especially to those of the distinguished chieftains, by whose aid the monarchy was established, when it originates in conquest. When this is the case — and a powerful body of hereditary nobles surround the sovereign, they oppose a strong resistance to his authority, and he to theirs — tending to the advantage and security of the people. Even when they do not succeed in obtaining a participation in the powers of the government, they usually acquire sufficient weight to be felt and respected. ”

“ A monarchy is called hereditary in which the throne passes from father to son, or from the monarch to his successor, by inheritance. On the death of a sovereign, the eldest son is usually heir to the crown; or if there is no son, it falls to the daughter, or some other relative. A monarchy is elective, where, on the death of the ruler, his successor is appointed by an election. ”

“ For monarchy in every instance is the Popery of government.
40 To the evil of monarchy we have added that of hereditary succession; and as the first is a degradation and lessening of ourselves, so the second, claimed as a matter of right, is an insult and an imposition on posterity. For all men being originally equals, no one by birth could have a right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others for ever, and though himself might deserve some decent degree of honors of his cotemporaries, yet his descendants might be far too unworthy to inherit them. ”

“ Would we make any office hereditary that required wisdom and abilities to fill it? And where wisdom and abilities are not necessary, such an office, whatever it may be, is superfluous or insignificant.
Hereditary succession is a burlesque upon monarchy. It puts it in the most ridiculous light, by presenting it as an office which any child or ideot may fill. It requires some talents to be a common mechanic; but to be a king requires only the animal figure of man—a sort of breathing automaton. ”

“ The hereditary principle has in its keeping all that makes for stability, continuity, and tradition; nothing can adequately take its place."
"Do not forget, sir," said his son, "that if we follow our heredity back far enough, ours is an elected monarchy. And if once you admit election you must admit also the right of the to-be-elected one to offer or refuse his candidature. The nation cannot play fast and loose, as it has done, with the principle of male primogeniture, and at the same time impose upon us, its candidates for election, an unavoidable obligation to accept the burden of heredity. ”

“ And when they have got round that corner they will have to face the fact that an Hereditary Monarchy is a State in which this principle is repudiated at a cardinal point, a State in which one position, which no amount of sophistication will prevent common men and women regarding as the most honourable, powerful, and responsible one of all, which is indeed by that very fact alone a great and responsible one, is filled on purely genealogical grounds. In a State that has also an aristocratic constitution, this repudiation of special personal qualities is carried very much further. ”

“ Of the various forms of government which have prevailed in the world, an hereditary monarchy seems to present the fairest scope for ridicule. ”

“ It has been always reckoned among the most difficult problems in the practical science of government, to combine an hereditary monarchy with security of freedom, so that neither the ambition of kings shall undermine the people's rights, nor the jealousy of the people overturn the throne. ”

“ The struggle between the hereditary chief or king and the military despot, who not only usurps his place but seeks to establish hereditary monarchy in his own line, is one met with from low to high levels of national life. ”

“ We are the greatest Nation on our Erth, Surely, if we are earnest in endeavour, We can accomplish this desired end? Co-operate with me and let us strive, And we shall be successful in the end. Now to the matter of our Government, Saxscober calls its ruler a Monarch. What’s in a word? A mere form of letters. Hereditary is this Monarchy, Yet we unjustly give the male first call And make the eldest male born our Monarch. This is unjust. While Primogeniture Is the acknowledged law of Saxscober, The heir shall be the eldest born, and sex 145 Should not be made a Disinherited. ”

“ Thrown back upon themselves, the Lords devised a compromise by which they could save their consciences with regard to the oath of fealty, and yet give effect to the hereditary claim, which was urged by such awkwardly strong supporters. They agreed that the King should hold the crown for life, that it should then pass to Richard and his heirs, that Richard should meanwhile be created Prince of Wales and heir presumptive, and be the practical ruler of the Kingdom. ”

“ He thinks, as our monarchy is constituted, a hereditary right is much to be preferred before election. Because the government here, especially by some late amendments, is so regularly disposed in all its parts, that it almost executes itself. And therefore upon the death of a prince among us, the administration goes on without any rub or interruption. For the same reasons we have little to apprehend from the weakness or fury of our monarchs, who have such wise councils to guide the first, and laws to restrain the other. ”

“ All regal governments must be either hereditary or elective: and, as I believe there is no instance wherein the crown of England has ever been asserted to be elective, except by the regicides at the infamous and unparalleled trial of king Charles I, it must of consequence be hereditary. Yet while I assert an hereditary, I by no means intend a jure divino, title to the throne. ”

“ This hereditary descent has, moreover, other advantages, which render advisable its introduction; for instance, the monarch is utterly cut off from the people; is born and dies without any private relation to the people. ”

“ For a man or woman may be created noble for their own lives, and the dignity not descend to their heirs at all, or descend only to some particular heirs: as where a peerage is limited to a man, and the heirs male of his body by Elizabeth his present lady, and not to such heirs by any former or future wife.
Let us next take a view of a few of the principal incidents attending the nobility, exclusive of their capacity as members of parliament, and as hereditary counsellors of the crown ”

“ An hereditary succession to the crown is therefore now established, in this and most other countries, in order to prevent that periodical bloodshed and misery, which the history of antient imperial Rome, and the more modern experience of Poland and Germany, may shew us are the consequences of elective kingdoms. ”

“ The sovereign holds his position for life, and usually acquires his throne by inheritance. Where the crown is nominally elective, as in England, kingship is practically hereditary, the regular line of descent being departed from only upon rare occasions. ”

“ The crown being hereditary in one family, but elective in the person, and polygamy being permitted, must have multiplied these heirs very much, and produced constant disputes, so that it was found necessary to provide a remedy for the anarchy and effusion of royal blood, which was otherwise inevitably to follow. ”

“ In this regard there can be no difference between hereditary and elective monarchies; for the heir cannot inherit more than his ancestor enjoyed, or had a right to enjoy, any more than a successor can succeed to it. ”

“ Nothing else could hold society together or prevent the rival fanaticisms from tearing each other to pieces. For authority there was no other basis left than the principle of hereditary succession by primogeniture. ”

“ If the sovereign is the descendant of William the Conqueror or of Alfred the Great, so are the subjects. On the ground of hereditary succession every man may claim to be king, and every woman to be queen. ”

“ Thus Mary I inherited to Edward VI, and Elizabeth inherited to Mary; all born of the same father, king Henry VIII, but all by different mothers. The reason of which diversity, between royal and common descents, will be better understood hereafter, when we examine the nature of inheritances in general.
[a] in vit. Agricolae.
3. The doctrine of hereditary right does by no means imply an indefeasible right to the throne. No man will, I think, assert this, that has considered our laws, constitution, and history, without prejudice, and with any degree of attention. ”

“ But, Sir, you are to consider that all those who consider that a king has a right to his crown, as a man has to his estate, which is the just opinion, would be for restoring the king who certainly has the hereditary right, could he be trusted with it ”

“ The Rules of Succession.—Executive power in the kingdom is vested solely in the crown, although in practice it devolves to a large degree upon the council of ministers. Kingship is hereditary, and in regulation of the succession the constitution lays down the general principle that an elder line shall always be preferred to younger ones; in the same line, the nearer degree of kinship to the more remote; in the same degree of kinship, the male to the female; in the same sex, the older to the younger person. ”

“ But, most of all, these Continental revolutions teach a lesson of inestimable importance to the people of this country, and which recent events have so well illustrated, as to the incalculable value of a hereditary order of succession in the government, supported by hereditary respect, and resting on the disinterested loyalty of the people. ”

“ The law by which this royal family is specifically destined to the succession is the act of the 12th and 13th of King William. The terms of this act bind "us, and our heirs, and our posterity, to them, their heirs, and their posterity," being Protestants, to the end of time, in the same words as the Declaration of Right had bound us to the heirs of King William and Queen Mary. It therefore secures both an hereditary crown and an hereditary allegiance. ”

“ The truly reasonable view of the matter is that, although the hereditary principle does not ensure that the heir to a peerage shall be a statesman, yet it gives him special facilities for becoming so. ”

“ And again, upon the queen's marriage with Philip of Spain, in the statute which settles the preliminaries of that match [t] , the hereditary right to the crown is thus asserted and declared: "as touching the right of the queen's inheritance in the realm and dominions of England, the children, whether male or female, shall succeed in them, according to the known laws, statutes, and customs of the same." ”

“ That the title of Emperor, and the Imperial power, be made hereditary in his family, in the male line, according to the order of primogeniture: that in introducing into the organization of the constituted authorities, the modifications rendered necessary by the establishment of hereditary power, the equality, the liberty, and the rights of the people, shall be preserved in all their integrity. ”

“ In the first place, hereditary succession, when finally settled in some line of descent rigorously prescribed, involves that the possession of supreme power becomes independent of capacity for exercising it. The heir to a vacant throne may be, and often is, too young for discharging its duties; or he may be, and often is, too feeble in intellect, too deficient in energy, or too much occupied with the pleasures which his position offers in unlimited amounts; with the result that in the one case the regent, and in the other the chief minister, becomes the actual ruler. ”

“ It therefore secures both an hereditary crown and an hereditary allegiance. On what ground, except the constitutional policy of forming an establishment to secure that kind of succession which is to preclude a choice of the people forever, could the legislature have fastidiously rejected the fair and abundant choice which our own country presented to them, and searched in strange lands for a foreign princess, from whose womb the line of our future rulers were to derive their title to govern millions of men through a series of ages? ”

“ Hence it was but natural that affluence should take the place of the hereditary honors of the olden times, and that the people should bow to the only distinction, however spurious it might be, which elevated any portion of themselves above their fellows. With all the evils connected with a hereditary aristocracy, the distinction which attends upon a nobility is in a great measure an ideal one. ”