Elements of Morals Part 16

CHAPTER VII.

DUTIES TOWARD THE STATE.

SUMMARY.

=Three groups of societies among men:= _Humanity_, _the family_, _the country_, _or the State_.

=a.n.a.lysis of patriotism.=

_Foundation of the State._--Law and rights. Public authority: distinction between society and the State. The three powers.

Sovereignty. The right of punishment.

=Duties toward the State:= 1. _Obedience to the laws._--The _Crito_ of Plato. Pretended exceptions to this principle. Criticising the laws is not disobedience.

2. _Respect to magistrates._--The magistrates being the representatives of the laws, to respect them is to respect the law itself; to insult them is to insult the law.

3. _The ballot._--Obligation to vote. The character of the ballot: 1, _disinterested_; 2, _free_; 3, _enlightened_.

4. _Taxes._--Immorality of frauds against the State.

5. _Military service._--Legal and moral obligation. Attempts to escape it: 1, by mutilations; 2, by simulated infirmities; 3, by desertion; want of discipline.

6. _Educational obligation._

=Civil courage.=--Noted example: Boissy d'Anglas.

=75. Three groups of societies.=--Cicero and Fenelon remark that there are three sorts of societies among men: the first comprises the whole of _humanity_; the last, which is the most circ.u.mscribed, is what is called the _family_. But between the family and the human race in general, there is an intermediate society, larger than the one and more circ.u.mscribed than the other, and this is what is called the _country_.

=76. Patriotism.=--The sentiment which binds us to the country, and which, articulated, becomes a _duty_, is what is called _patriotism_. We have already given elsewhere,[59] an a.n.a.lysis of patriotism. Let us repeat what we have said:

Patriotism is one of our most complex sentiments: it is in fact composed of many distinct elements: it is, in the first place, the _love of the soil_ where we were born; and this soil is at first the narrow territory where our youth pa.s.sed, and which we embraced entire with the eyes and recollections: it is the native village, the native city. But if this is the first sense of country, it falls far short of embracing the whole country. The love for the native church steeple is not patriotism: it is even its opposite often. The soil must extend, widen, and from the natal house, must gradually embrace, by successive additions, the village, the town, the county, the province, the whole country. But what is to determine the extent of this territory? Who is to decide that it shall go so far and no farther? There enter into it many elements: first, the inhabitants, the fellow-citizens, fellow-countrymen; a soil deserted would not be a country; to the love of the territory there must be added the love of those who inhabit it with us, or of our _fellow-countrymen_; to the nomadic people the country is only their tribe. Conversely, the citizens without the soil are not the country either, for exile in common is not the less exile.

Finally, the union of soil and fellow-citizens may still not be the country, at least not all the country; a conquered nation may preserve its soil and its inhabitants, and have lost the country: as Poland, for instance. What, then, are the ties to determine the existence of a country? There are a large number of them, such as _the unity of language_, _the unity of laws_, _the unity of the flag_, _historic tradition_, and, finally, above all, the _unity of government_ and of an accepted government. A country exists only where there is an independent political state. This political unity does not suffice when the other ties are wanting; when it is a constraint, when peoples united under the same government have different manners, customs, traditions; conversely, unity of language and community of habits, will neither be sufficient when the political unity or a certain form of political unity is wanting. But what, before everything else, const.i.tutes the country, is a common spirit, a common soul, in short, a common name, which fuses into one all these separate facts of which no single one is absolutely necessary, but of which each forms an additional element to the strength of the country. Finally, as a last condition, the a.s.sociation which is to become a country must not, as was the case with the Roman empire, extend over too much territory; for beyond certain limits, patriotism relaxes.

Nature has endowed us with this sentiment of patriotism. There is no one that does not love his country better than other countries, that is not flattered by national glory, that does not suffer from the humiliations and miseries of his native country. But this sentiment is more or less strong, according to temperaments. Often it is nothing more than a sentiment, and does not express itself in actions. It is the reflective faculties which make of patriotism a duty, which duty demands that sentiment pa.s.s into action; demands of all the citizens the same acts, whatever be the personal inclinations of each.

The duties imposed on each man in regard to the particular society of which he is a member, are called _civil_ duties. He, himself, in regard to this society, is what is called a _citizen_; finally, the society itself, considered as one and the same person, of which the citizens are the members, is what is called the _State_ or the _city_.

On the whole, there is no difference between _country_ and _State_.

Country is at the same time _Society_ and _soil_. It is called by that name (State) when looked upon in the light of a family of which the citizens are the children, and also when considered in its relations with other nations and other societies. The State is that same society considered interiorly and in itself, not as to its soil and territory, but as to the members that compose it, and in as far as these members form one and the same body and are governed by laws. The country is a more concrete and more vivid expression, which appeals more to the feelings; the State is a more abstract expression, which addresses itself to reason. Besides, we shall understand better what is meant by the State, when we shall have explained the nature of public authority and the laws.

=77. Foundation of the State--Rights.=--To understand the nature of the State and what is called _authority_, _sovereignty_, _magistracy_, _law_, one must begin with the notion of rights and of the different kinds of rights.

Duty is the law which imposes on us obligations either toward ourselves or toward others; it is a _moral necessity_ (p. 11). _Rights_ is the _power_ we have to exercise and develop our faculties conformably to our destiny, provided we allow other men the same power: it is a _moral power_ (Leibnitz). Each man, by reason of his enjoying liberty and intelligence, is a _person_, and should not be treated as a _thing_. "Man is a thing sacred to man," said the ancients. He is inviolable in his personality and in all that const.i.tutes the development of his personality.

Thence follows an immediate consequence: it is, that every man being man by the same t.i.tle, no one can claim for himself a right which he is not willing to recognize at the same time in another; hence the _equality of rights_. Besides, the liberty of one cannot, without contradiction, suppress the liberty of another, whence this other definition: Right is the _accord of liberties_.

=78. The rights of man.=--What are the princ.i.p.al rights of man? They are: the right of _self-preservation_; the right of going and coming, or _individual liberty_; the _liberty of work_; the _right of property_; the _liberty of thought_; the _liberty of conscience_; the _right of family_, etc.

We have also seen that man (p. 52) has a final right which is the guaranty and the sanction of all others; it is the right of preventing by force every attempt at his rights; to _constrain_ others to respect his rights, and lastly, to _punish_ every violation of his rights. This is what is called the _right of self-defense_.

=79. Public authority.=--Man having, as we have just seen, the right of self-defense by opposing force to any attack, possesses, when alone, and far from all human help, this right in all its plenitude. But it is easy to see the dangers and inexpediency of such a right in a society. Each man, in fact, when he meets with opposition to his will and desires, always thinks himself injured in his rights. If every one were free to defend himself in all circ.u.mstances, the right of self-defense would keep men constantly under arms; and society, without a regulating power to check their doings, would soon, as the philosopher Hobbes expressed it, be "_the war of all against all_." Hence the necessity of the State--that is to say, of a _disinterested power_--taking in hand the defense of all, and insuring the proper exercise of the right of self-defense by suppressing its abuses. This is what is called _public authority_.

=80. Society and the State.=--We must distinguish between _society_ and the _State_, or _natural_ society and _civil_ society.

Society is the union which exists between men, without distinction of frontiers--without exterior restraint--and for the sole reason that they are men. An Englishman and an Indian, as Locke says, meeting in the waste forests of America (Robinson and Friday), are, from the fact alone of their common nature, in a state of society.

The _civil society_ or _State_ is an a.s.semblage of men subject to a common _authority_, to common _laws_--that is to say, a society whose members may be constrained by public force to respect their reciprocal rights.

=81. The three powers.=--There results from that, that two necessary elements enter into the idea of the State: _laws_ and _force_. The laws are the general rules which establish beforehand and fix after deliberation, and abstractly, the rights of each; force is the physical restraint the public power is armed with to have the laws executed. Hence two _powers_ in the State, the _legislative_ power and the _executive_ power--one that makes the law; the other that executes it, and to which may generally be added a third, namely, _judiciary_ power, which, on its part, is empowered to apply and interpret the law.[60]

=82. Sovereignty.=--These three powers emanate from a common source which is called _sovereign_. In all States, the sovereign is the authority which is in possession of the three preceding powers and delegates them. In an absolute monarchy, the sovereign is the monarch, who of himself exercises the legislative and executive power, sometimes even the judicial power. In a democracy, the sovereign is the universality of the citizens, or the _people_, which delegates the three powers, and even in some cases exercises them.

As to the basis of sovereignty, two systems face each other: the _divine right_ and the _sovereignty of the people_. In the first, the authority emanates from G.o.d, who transmits it to chosen families; in the second, societies, like individuals, are free arbiters, and belong to themselves; they are answerable for their destinies; and this can only be true of the entire society; for why should certain cla.s.ses rather than others have the privilege to decide about the fate of each? The sovereignty of the people is then nothing else than the right of each to partic.i.p.ate in public power, either of himself or through his representatives. This principle tends more and more to predominate in civilized States.

=83. Political liberty.=--Political liberty means all the guaranties which insure to every citizen the legitimate exercise of his natural rights; political liberty is, then, the sanction of civil liberty.

The princ.i.p.al of these guaranties are: 1, the _right of suffrage_, which insures to every one his share of sovereignty; 2, the _separation of powers_, which puts into different hands the _executive_, _legislative_, and _judicial_ powers; 3, the _liberty of the press_, which insures the right of minorities, and allows them to employ argument to change or modify the ideas and opinions of the majority.

=84. The right of punishment.=--The right of punishment in a State is nothing else than the right of restraint, which, as we have already seen, is inherent in the very idea of the State; for the State only exists to insure to each the exercise of his rights, and it can only do so by restraint and the use of force. How far can this right of force go? Can it, for example, go so far as the taking of life even? This is a mooted question between publicists, and upon which we have, moreover, already expressed ourselves (p. 55 _et seq._).

After having in these summary views resolved the principle upon which the State rests,[61] and the essential elements which enter into the idea, we are better prepared to approach what const.i.tutes the object proper of civil morality, namely, the duties of citizens toward the country or the State.

=85. Civil duties.=--These duties are the following: _Obedience to the laws_; _respect of magistrates_; _the ballot_; _military service_; _educational obligations_.

=86. Obedience to the laws.=--The first of the civil duties, is _obedience to the laws_. The reason is evident. The State rests on the law. It is the law which subst.i.tutes, for the will of individuals, always more or less carried away by pa.s.sion or governed by self-interest, a general, impartial, and disinterested rule. The law is the guaranty of all: it opposes itself to force, or rather puts force in the service of justice, instead of making of justice the slave of force. Pascal says: "Not being able to make that which is just, strong, men have wished that what is strong should be just." This is the jest of a misanthrope. Certainly the laws are not always as just as they might be, despite the efforts made to render them so: the reason of it is, the extreme complexity of interests between which it is difficult to find a true balance and just equilibrium; but such as they are, they are infinitely more just than the right of the strongest, which would alone reign if there were no laws.

The empire of the laws is then that which secures _order_ in a society, and consequently procures for each of its members security and peace, and through these, the means of devoting himself to his work, whether intellectual or material, and of reaping the fruits thereof.

At the same time that the law guarantees order within, it also insures the independence of the nation from without. For a nation without laws, or which no longer obeys its laws, falls into anarchy and becomes the prey of the first conqueror who presents himself, as is shown by the history of Poland.

It is especially in democratic or republican states, that obedience to the laws is necessary, as it is there the most difficult.

Montesquieu has shown with great sagacity the difficulty and thereby the necessity of obedience to the laws in a democracy; in fact, what in other governments is obtained by constraint, in a democracy depends only upon the will of the citizens.

"It is clear," says Montesquieu, "that in a monarchy, where he who causes the laws to be executed is above the laws, there is less virtue requisite than in a popular government, where he who causes the laws to be executed, feels that he is himself subject to them, and will have to bear the consequence of their violation.

"It is further clear that a monarch who, through bad advice or negligence, ceases to have the laws executed, may easily repair the evil; he has but to change counselors or correct himself of his negligence. But when in a popular government, the laws have ceased to be executed, as this can only happen through the corruption of the republic, the State is already lost."

Montesquieu then describes, in the strongest and liveliest colors, a republican state where the laws have ceased to be enforced.

"They were free with the laws; they wish to be free without them. Each citizen is as a slave escaped from the house of his master. What before was called _maxim_, is now called _severity_; what was _rule_ is now annoying _restraint_; what was _attention_, is now _fear_. The republic has become booty, and its strength is no longer anything more than the power of a few and the license of all."

In the republics of Athens and Rome, as long as they were prosperous and great, the empire of the laws was admirable. Socrates, in his prison, gave of this a sublime example. He was unjustly condemned by his fellow-citizens to drink the hemlock, namely, to die by poison. Meanwhile, his friends pressed him to resort to flight; and everything leads to the belief that this would have been quite easy, as the judges themselves almost wished to be relieved of the responsibility of his death. Yet Socrates resisted, and refused to employ this means of safety. The princ.i.p.al reason given by him was, that, having been condemned by the laws of his country, he could save himself only by violating these laws.

This is what Plato has expressed in the dialogue ent.i.tled _Crito_. The laws of the country are represented as addressing a speech to Socrates; it is called the _Prosopopoeia[62] of Crito_:

"Socrates," they will say to me, "was that our agreement, or was it not rather that thou shouldst submit to the judgments rendered by the republic?... What cause of complaint hast thou against us that thou shouldst try to destroy us? Dost thou not, in the first place, owe us thy life? Was it not under our auspices that thy father took to himself the companion that gave thee birth? If thou owest us thy birth and education, canst thou deny that thou art our child and servant?

And if this be so, thinkest thou thy rights equal to ours; and that thou art permitted to make us suffer for what we make thee suffer?