Régime

“ The Empire has yielded to the Monarchy, the Monarchy to the Republic, the Republic to the Empire again, and that once more to the Republic, but the Code which embodies the principle of equality before the law has remained. Fundamentally the social equilibrium has been stable. ”

“ That the central government was created chiefly for matters of a general character, which concerned all the States and their people, and not for matters of interior regulation, is shown as much by the history of its formation as by the express language of the Constitution. ”

“ Sir, in granting Congress the power to raise armies, the People have granted all the means which are ordinary & usual, & which are consistent with the liberties & security of the People themselves; & they have granted no others. To talk about the unlimited power of the Government over the means to execute its authority, is to hold a language which is true only in regard to despotism. ”

“ The suppression, for instance, of anarchy and resistance to law—the complete establishment of the authority of the central government, in a state of society like that of Europe in the Middle Ages—is one of the strongest interests of the people, and also of the rulers simply because they are the rulers ”

“ Under the Second of these Divisions may be ranged all the Art of the Legislator and Politician, all the power of Laws and Government. These do constitute the Civil Power; and a State may then be said to be in good Order, when all the other Powers are subservient to this; when they own its superior Excellence and Energy, pay it a ready Obedience, and all unite in Support of its Rule. ”

“ Here, with great prudence, discourse is held of the importantest State-affairs, and of the supreamest persons in authority; and in their own imaginations know more then both the Houses of Lords and Commons. Although they never sate in Councel with any of their Footmen. Nay they know to the weight of an ace, and can give a perfect demonstration of it, which of the three Governments is best, Monarchy, Anarchy, or Democracy. ”

“ Elsewhere than in Genoa we search in vain for a parallel for the existence of a body of citizens distinct from the government—with their own laws, magistrates, and independent authority—a state within a state, a republic within a republic. ”

“ To a philosophical observer of the Republic, at the end of the hundred years, I should say that the important facts are not its industrial energy, its wealth, or its population, but the stability of the federal power, and the integrity of the individual States. ”

“ Let the sixteenth be that which we term the royal or political motion, by which the predominant and governing parts of any body check, subdue, reduce, and regulate the others, and force them to unite, separate, stand still, move, or assume a certain position, not from any inclination of their own, but according to a certain order, and as best suits the convenience of the governing part, so that there is a sort of dominion and civil government exercised by the ruling part over its subjects. ”

“ If we resort for a criterion to the different principles on which different forms of government are established, we may define a republic to be, or at least may bestow that name on, a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people, and is administered by persons holding their offices during pleasure, for a limited period, or during good behavior. ”

“ A great and an important end truly, which is nothing less, than the establishment of a new government, right in the midst of our present pro-slavery one.
A government, is a system of authority sustained by either the rulers, or the ruled, or by both conjointly. ”

“ We have seen the Reins of Government put into the Hands of a Faction, and that Authority which was design'd for the Protection of All, exercis'd by a Few of the Worst, to the oppression of the Best and Greatest number of our Subjects. ”

“ What reality there is in our glorious system of constitutional government, with its King, Lords and Commons, whose duties and rights are so accurately defined that none can trench on those of the rest! ”

“ In contests of this nature, where a considerable body of people who have attempted to free themselves of the control of the superior government have reached such point in occupation of territory, in power, and in general organization as to constitute in fact a body politic ”

“ The power of protection, says Mill, following the old theory, may be intrusted to the whole community, to a few, or to one; that is, we may have a democracy, an aristocracy, or a monarchy. A democracy, or direct government of all by all, is for the ordinary reasons pronounced impracticable. ”

“ Who does not see that there is no empire, kingdom, dukedom, republic, state, or household, that is not established by laws, which constitute the order and so the form of its. government? In each of them the laws of justice are in the highest place, political laws in the second, and economical laws in the third. ”

“ But the forms of government which have most prevailed, are designated by the terms, monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, or republic. These words severally indicate by what persons, and in what manner, the governing power of a state is exercised. This power is usually called the sovereign, or supreme power. Where kings rule, they are called sovereign; and where the power is in the hands of the people, the people are sovereign. ”

“ In Coningsby the political conditions of the country were illustrated and discussed from the constitutional point of view, and by light of the theory that for generations before the passing of the Reform Bill the authority of the crown and the liberties of the people had been absorbed and extinguished in an oligarchic system of government, itself become fossilized and soulless. ”

“ This bureaucracy was the core of the consolidated mass called the Empire; it was the embodiment of money, the ultimate expression of force, and it recognized and advanced men who were adapted to its needs. When such men were to be found, the administration was thought good ”

“ But where reverence to the gods, succour of parents, respect to elders, obedience to laws, are traditional and habitual, in such communities, if the will of the majority prevail, we may speak of the form of government as a democracy. So then we enumerate six forms of government,—the three commonly spoken of which I have just mentioned, and three more allied forms, I mean despotism, oligarchy and mob-rule. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For as the end of government seems to be Salus populi, the safety or welfare of the People; so the strength of the government is the consent of the people which made that maxim of Vox populi, Vox Dei: That is, the governors, who are few, will ever be forced to follow the strength of the governed, who are many. ”

“ Most men distinguish the government of one, or a few, or the many: government of the poor or of the rich: government according to law, or without law:— by consent, or by force. The different names current, monarchy or despotism, aristocracy, or oligarchy, &c., correspond to these definitions. ”

“ But further.—This central government itself, like the nation which it serves, is a compound body; a unit composed of parts, each of which in its own sphere is independent, yet beyond that sphere is limited by the functions of the other parts. This government is a triple compound, and consists of the legislative, the judicial, and the executive departments.
The legislative, or Congress, declares the will of the nation. ”

“ And further than this the life of the State in its organic entirety, as a related whole of monarch, government, courts of justice, military control, and general grouping of all the various societies which compose it, no less than the obligations and duties which such arrangements presuppose, the aims and satisfaction to which they are directed, the entire scope of its civic and commercial activities already referred to, in one word the complete organism of a nation's life, is indeed in a genuine State complete in itself, and in a sense rounded off as a real totality. ”

“ Thus the general doctrine, that all kinds of government exercised over men were at first one government—that the political, the religious, and the ceremonial forms of control are divergent branches of a general and once indivisible control—begins to look tenable. ”

“ Virginia interrupted.
“I am assuming only the facts of modern life: that force still rules the world; that government is force; that there are two forms of government and only two, and that they are irreconcilable—government by the people and government of the people by imperial masters. ”

“ The Constitution of the year VIII. obviously transformed the Republic into a monarchy at least as absolute as the ``Divine right'' monarchy of Louis XIV. Being the only Constitution adapted to the needs of the moment, it represented a psychological necessity.
3. Psychological Elements which determined the Success of the Work of the Consulate.
All the external forces which act upon men—economic, historical, geographical, &c.—may be finally translated into psychological forces. These psychological forces a ruler must understand in order to govern. ”

“ The Rulers, as well as all other Individuals, with all their individual powers, are taken into account in order to direct the powers of the governed,—who no more than they constitute the State,—towards the common purpose, so far as they understand it, and to enforce this purpose on all who are opposed to it. ”

“ By some few individuals, the practicability of governing by a system formed on the republican model, an immense, populous, and military nation, whose institutions, habits, and morals, were adapted to monarchy, and which was surrounded by armed neighbours, was deemed a problem which time alone could solve. ”

“ Civil authority and even State control could, in days gone by, only be sustained by plenty of pomp and show. The populace were awed by giant insignia and much parade of power to enforce the authority held. ”

“ In constitutional monarchies the ruler holds his position by heredity, but there exists also a constitution, which defines the distribution of powers among the branches that compose the government and fixes the limits of authority vested in each. ”

“ Kings had become the first of public servants, executing, for the good of the people, what the people were unable to do for themselves; and there was a reforming movement on foot which led to many instances of prosperous and intelligent administration. ”

“ This claim, wild as it may seem, this claim, which supposes dominion without authority, and subjects without subordination, has found among the libertines of policy many clamorous and hardy vindicators. The laws of Nature, the rights of humanity, the faith of charters, the danger of liberty, the encroachments of usurpation, have been thundered in our ears, sometimes by interested faction, and sometimes by honest stupidity. ”

“ On the other hand monarchy, absolute in its origin as the paternal power of which it is the increment, has need, in proportion to the extent of its domain, to organize, and this organization, which is nothing other than an application of the policy of the principle of the division of labor, inevitably leads the monarchy to democracy. ”

“ Politicians inform us, that it is absolutely necessary that, in all States, there should be Powers of different kinds, established to maintain the general harmony of the whole, and that Legislative, Executive, Military, and Judicial Powers, for instance, should be formed, and lodged in different hands. ”

“ The contact of the central government with the mass of the men of the state was broken off by the intervening series of lords who were political rulers each of the territory or group of lands immediately subject to himself, and exercised within those limits the functions which the general government should normally exercise for the whole state. ”

“ Government within the State has widened down from autocratic authority to authority broad-based upon a people's will. The expansion of the principle of representation is responsible for that development. ”

“ But, thank God, we have no such disputes; we have no monarchs to contend with, or demand admissions from. The proposed government is to be the government of the people: all its officers are to be their officers, and to exercise no rights but such as the people commit to them. ”

“ We swear to remain ever faithful to the nation, the law, and the king: to maintain, with all our power, the constitution decreed by the national assembly, and accepted by the king: to protect, according to the law, the surety of persons and property, the circulation of corn and provisions within the realm, the levying of public contributions, under whatever form they may exist ”

“ It is essential to such a government that it be derived from the great body of the society, not from an inconsiderable proportion, OR A FAVORED CLASS OF IT: otherwise a handful of tyrannical nobles, exercising their oppressions by a delegation of their powers, might aspire to the rank of republicans, and claim for their government the honorable title of Republic. ”

“ The idea of one great national consolidated government was abhorrent to their minds Their preference of a general government, for general porposes, and of special governments for the preservation of their internal rights and liberties, had been perpetual, uniform and unbated. ”

“ The idea of authority was very strong at that period and rebellion or disobedience on the part of laborers was regarded as little less than sedition or treason. Social lines were sharply drawn and every attempt possible was made to secure and maintain the supremacy of those in authority, whether that authority were civil, ecclesiastical, or industrial. ”

“ The power of governing others, possessed by the Ruler,—of legislating for them, particularly of legislating for them through the agency of others, became an object of ambition, and in proportion as the capacities of those who were at first willing and obedient subjects were developed, they must have begun to regard with envious eyes the power of government exercised over them by other men. ”