Monarchy

“ 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. ”

“ If the power of an emperor, or of a king, be limited by law, the government is called a limited monarchy; if there be no legal restraint to the will of the sovereign, it is called an absolute monarchy. ”

“ With such elements how would it be possible to found a monarchy surrounded with an aristocracy? How can one speak of a balance of powers, where there are but two forces—foreign absolutism, and the people? How could one organize a constitutional monarchy where the aristocracy is without a past, and where royalty inspires neither affection nor respect? ”

“ In a republic, the people are every thing, and a particular individual nothing. In a monarchy, the monarch is every thing, and the people nothing. And the true character of the government is stamped, not by the forms of the appointment to office alone, but by its practical operation. ”

“ The prince is here a centre of union; an advantage, the want of which makes a democracy, which is so beautiful in theory, the very worst of all possible governments, except absolute monarchy, in practice. ”

“ Ours is 'The land where, girt with friends or foes, A man may say the thing he will.'
It has taught the nations a tempered freedom, and that a monarchy may be a true republic. May we rise to the height of our privileges and responsibilities, and teach our subject peoples, not only mechanics, science, law, free trade, but a loftier morality, and the name of Him by whom kings reign and princes decree justice! ”

“ I infinitely prefer a liberal monarchy—even with its sickening accompaniment of Court circulars—to such a government as this. The more I think of its youth and strength, the poorer and more trifling in a thousand aspects it appears in my eyes. ”

“ The struggles of its inhabitants on behalf of the monarchical cause, in the early years of the Revolution, is a lurid page of blood-red history that recalls one of the most gallant struggles in the life of the monarchy. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Such god-like princes indeed had some title to arbitrary power by that argument, that would prove absolute monarchy the best government, as that which God himself governs the universe by; because such kings partake of his wisdom and goodness. ”

“ THE ABSOULUTE MONARCHY.—An absolute monarchy may be defined as a government in which supreme power or sovereignty is lodged in one individual. This monarch holds his position for life, generally with hereditary succession. Often the absolute monarchy arose out of the ancient chieftainship, when, as the result of territorial expansion and cultural development, the chief of a group of tribes became the king of a settled and civilized people. The absolute monarchy existed in most of the countries of Europe previous to the end of the eighteenth century. ”

“ And this cannot be unless there is one prince over all, whose will shall be the mistress and regulating influence of all the others. But if all these conclusions be true, as they are, it is necessary for the highest welfare of the human race that there should be a Monarch in the world; and therefore Monarchy is necessary for the good of the world. ”

“ The strength of the Crown resides in its enormous historical prestige, and in the constitutional device, old as the monarchy in principle, but modern in its machinery, by which it is removed from the sphere of responsibility and therefore from party assault. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But as great princes, when they have subdued all about them, presently have universal monarchy in their thoughts; so your grace, having conquered all the corruptions in a diocese, and then pursued your victories over a province, would fain go farther and save a whole kingdom, and would never be quiet, if you could have your will, until you had converted the world. ”

“ To speak less solemnly, if men were nearer than they are to perfect creatures, absolute monarchy would be the most perfect form of government, for the will of the prince could never deviate from propriety ”

“ And yet notwithstanding in your book of a free monarchy, you do well give men to understand, that you know the plenitude of the power and right of a king, as well as the circle of his office and duty. Thus have I presumed to allege this excellent writing of your Majesty, as a prime or eminent example of tractates concerning special and respective duties ”

“ If you are king of the one, you are king and emperor of the other. Let me say, without meaning offence to other nations, that here is the head of your monarchy. Everywhere else you will find only its members. ”

“ Whilst labouring to convert the aristocratic monarchy of which he found himself the head into a personal sovereignty, the irony of fate doomed him to take the first step in an organic change which has converted that aristocratic monarchy into a democratic republic, ruled under monarchical forms. ”

“ If there be one intellect vastly superior to any others, the constitution of the state will soon become a monarchy; if there be more than one or two greatly above the rest, you will have an aristocracy, and the natural order, as far as I have seen in the world, will be the monarch representing the highest intellect and most powerful will; an aristocracy representing those next in mental powers ”

“ But just so does the lesser prince believe he would govern a duchy quite otherwise, and the higher one believes the same in regard to a kingdom, and so does the highest, in regard to universal monarchy. ”

“ I recognise that monarchy is necessary to the masses. But I want to bring my bairns to see monarchy stripped of its robes, its pageantry, its remoteness, its circumstance. Loyalty is a name to most of us. People sing the National Anthem in very much the same way as they say Grace before Meat. ”

“ A limited monarchy is a government in which the will of the sovereign is restrained by certain provisions of the state, that cannot lawfully be violated. In its true signification, the word monarch means any prince at the head of a state. ”

“ It is easy to conceive that a band of interested men, such as Placemen, Pensioners, Lords of the bed-chamber, Lords of the kitchen, Lords of the necessary-house, and the Lord knows what besides, can find as many reasons for monarchy as their salaries, paid at the expense of the country, amount to; but if I ask the farmer, the manufacturer, the merchant, the tradesman, and down through all the occupations of life to the common labourer, what service monarchy is to him? he can give me no answer. If I ask him what monarchy is, he believes it is something like a sinecure. ”

“ Who can in reason then, or right, assume Monarchy over such as live by right His equals, if in power and splendour less, In freedom equal? ”

“ An elective monarchy is one in which the succession is by election; the term for life; example, the old German empire, in which the emperor was chosen by certain princes called "electors." [Footnote: Our mode of electing a president may have been suggested in part by this old practice.]
An absolute monarchy is one in which the three functions of government as related to law—the legislative, executive and judicial—are all vested in one person ”

“ The monarchy is hereditary, and limited. The king’s ministry consists of a premier and other officers, similar to those of the English Government, and many of them are English or Americans, and very intelligent men. ”

“ The revolutionary monarchy has now been so loyally adopted in England that we only remember its revolutionary origin when historical students remind us of it. For the common people, especially for the religious, Her Majesty reigns by divine right. ”

“ It gives more of the appearance of equality among Citizens, and that they like. I am apprehensive therefore, perhaps too apprehensive, that the Government of these States, may in future times, end in a Monarchy. ”

“ If it could be shown, for instance, that monarchy was as apt, in a given case, to secure the public well-being as some other form of government, monarchy should be preferred, and would undoubtedly be established, on account of its imaginative and dramatic superiority. ”

“ 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; ”

“ Monarchy, in its original meaning, is applied to a form of government in which the will of one man is supreme, to make laws or break them, to appoint or dismiss officers of state and justice, to determine peace or war, without control of statute or custom. ”

“ For the proof of the second, monarchy, as has been shown, is of two kinds: the one by arms, the other by a nobility and there is no other kind in art or nature; for if there have ‘been anciently some governments called kingdoms, as one of the Goths in Spain, and another of the Vandals in Africa, where the King ruled without a nobility and by a council of the people only it is expressly said by the authors that mention them that the, kings were but the captains, and that the people not only gave them laws, but deposed them as often as they pleased. ”

“ In this point of view, and even in the patriarchal circle, the most natural forms of government, in the early periods of society, are Monarchy, or a Republic. The father is head of his own family; the assembled council of the fathers governs the Republic ”

“ The best reason why Monarchy is a strong government is, that it is an intelligible government. The mass of mankind understand it, and they hardly anywhere in the world understand any other. ”

“ The monarchy which had been engaged from the thirteenth century in curbing the nobles, was at last thrust aside by the democracy, because it was too dilatory in the work, and was unable to deny its own origin and effectually ruin the class from which it sprang. ”

“ And though monarchies stand long, wherein the right of sovereignty hath seemed so divided, because monarchy of itself is a durable kind of government, yet monarchs have been thereby divers times thrust out of their possession. ”

“ Others chose rather to be governed by a select number of such as most excelled in wisdom and virtue; and this, according to the signification of the word, was called aristocracy. When one man excelled all others, the government was put into his hands under the name of monarchy. ”

“ We see monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, rising side by side and one after another, the changes being regulated in each community by its past experience and its special interests in the immediate present. ”

“ Glancing backwards, we find that the feudal order of the Middle Ages, with its graduated authority—vested in the hands of successive orders of agricultural and military chiefs, subordinated in their turn to one supreme chief, the Sovereign of the realm—had gradually become absorbed in an absolute monarchy. ”

“ Not being wholly unread in the authors who had seen the most of those constitutions, and who best understood them, I cannot help concurring with their opinion, that an absolute democracy no more than absolute monarchy is to be reckoned among the legitimate forms of government. ”

“ The strength of the monarchy increased as the power of the independent baronage decreased, and the strength of the monarchy meant greater tranquillity, greater respect for law, and the fostering of conditions favorable to the growth of commerce. ”

“ It is in realizing the private life of kings, and in observing how seldom they have practised temperance, chastity, self-control, and how readily their contemporaries and even posterity have dispensed them from these primary obligations, that we plainly recognise the broad divergence between the facts of earthly monarchies and the description of the heavenly monarchy, and thus are prepared to recognise with gratitude and awe the sole sovereignty of Christ. ”

“ Monarchy is restrained by a well-balanced parliamentary system, and above all there is toleration in matters of faith and in matters of opinion. He frankly admires, and calls on his countrymen to copy, what seems to him the most admirable of models. ”