The Spirit Of Laws Part 44

The preservation of the ancient customs is a very considerable point in respect to manners. Since a corrupt people seldom perform any memorable actions, seldom establish societies, build cities, or enact laws; on the contrary, since most inst.i.tutions are derived from people whose manners are plain and simple, to keep up the ancient customs is the way to preserve the original purity of morals.

Besides, if by some revolution the state has happened to a.s.sume a new form, this seldom can be effected without infinite pains and labor, and hardly ever by idle and debauched persons. Even those who had been the instruments of the revolution were desirous it should be relished, which is difficult to compa.s.s without good laws. Hence it is that ancient inst.i.tutions generally tend to reform the people's manners, and those of modern date to corrupt them. In the course of a long administration, the descent to vice is insensible; but there is no reascending to virtue without making the most generous efforts.

It has been questioned whether the member of the senate we are speaking of ought to be for life or only chosen for a time. Doubtless they ought to be for life, as was the custom at Rome,17 at Sparta,18 and even at Athens. For we must not confound the senate at Athens, which was a body that changed every three months, with the Areopagus, whose members, as standing patterns, were established for life.

Let this be, therefore, a general maxim; that in a senate designed to be a rule, and the depository, as it were, of manners, the members ought to be chosen for life: in a senate intended for the administration of affairs, the members may be changed.

The spirit, said Aristotle, waxes old as well as the body. This reflection holds good only in regard to a single magistrate, but cannot be applied to a senatorial a.s.sembly.

At Athens, besides the Areopagus, there were guardians of the public morals, as well as of the laws.19 At Sparta, all the old men were censors. At Rome, the censors.h.i.+p was committed to two particular magistrates. As the senate watched over the people, the censors were to have an eye over the people and the senate. Their office was, to reform the corruptions of the republic, to stigmatize indolence, to censure neglects, and to correct mistakes; as to flagrant crimes, these were left to the punishment of the laws.

That Roman law which required the accusations in cases of adultery to be public was admirably well calculated for preserving the purity of morals; it intimidated married women, as well as those who were to watch over their conduct.

Nothing contributes more to the preservation of morals than an extreme subordination of the young to the old. Thus they are both restrained, the former by their respect for those of advanced age, and the latter by their regard for themselves.

Nothing gives a greater force to the laws than a perfect subordination between the citizens and the magistrate. "The great difference which Lycurgus established between Sparta and the other cities," says Xenophon,20 "consists chiefly in the obedience the citizens show to their laws; they run when the magistrate calls them. But at Athens a rich man would be highly displeased to be thought dependent on the magistrate."

Paternal authority is likewise of great use towards the preservation of morals. We have already observed, that in a republic there is not so coercive a force as in other governments. The laws must, therefore, endeavor to supply this defect by some means or other; and this is done by paternal authority.

Fathers at Rome had the power of life and death over their children.21 At Sparta, every father had a right to correct another man's child.

Paternal authority ended at Rome together with the republic. In monarchies, where such a purity of morals is not required, they are controlled by no other authority than that of the magistrates.

The Roman laws, which accustomed young people to dependence, established a long minority. Perhaps we are mistaken in conforming to this custom; there is no necessity for so much constraint in monarchies.

This very subordination in a republic might make it necessary for the father to continue in the possession of his children's fortune during life, as was the custom at Rome. But this is not agreeable to the spirit of monarchy.

8.-In what Manner the Laws should relate to the Principle of Government in an Aristocracy If the people are virtuous in an aristocracy, they enjoy very nearly the same happiness as in a popular government, and the state grows powerful. But as a great share of virtue is very rare where men's fortunes are so unequal, the laws must tend as much as possible to infuse a spirit of moderation, and endeavor to re-establish that equality which was necessarily removed by the const.i.tution.

The spirit of moderation is what we call virtue in an aristocracy; it supplies the place of the spirit of equality in a popular state.

As the pomp and splendor with which kings are surrounded form a part of their power, so modesty and simplicity of manners const.i.tute the strength of an aristocratic n.o.bility.22 When they affect no distinction, when they mix with the people, dress like them, and with them share all their pleasures, the people are apt to forget their subjection and weakness.

Every government has its nature and principle. An aristocracy must not therefore a.s.sume the nature and principle of monarchy; which would be the case were the n.o.bles to be invested with personal privileges distinct from those of their body; privileges ought to be for the senate, and simple respect for the senators.

In aristocratic governments there are two princ.i.p.al sources of disorder: excessive inequality between the governors and the governed; and the same inequality between the different members of the body that governs. From these two inequalities, hatreds and jealousies arise, which the laws ought ever to prevent or repress.

The first inequality is chiefly when the privileges of the n.o.bility are honorable only as they are ignominious to the people. Such was the law at Rome by which the patricians were forbidden to marry plebeians;23 a law that had no other effect than to render the patricians on the one side more haughty, and on the other more odious. The reader may see what advantages the tribunes derived thence in their harangues.

This inequality occurs likewise when the condition of the citizens differs with regard to taxes, which may happen in four different ways: when the n.o.bles a.s.sume the privilege of paying none; when they commit frauds to exempt themselves;24 when they engross the public money, under pretence of rewards or appointments for their respective employments; in fine, when they render the common people tributary, and divide among their own body the profits arising from the several subsidies. This last case is very rare; an aristocracy so inst.i.tuted would be the most intolerable of all governments.

While Rome inclined towards aristocracy, she avoided all these inconveniences. The magistrates never received any emoluments from their office. The chief men of the republic were taxed like the rest, nay, more heavily; and sometimes the taxes fell upon them alone. In fine, far from sharing among themselves the revenues of the state, all they could draw from the public treasure, and all the wealth that fortune flung into their laps, they bestowed freely on the people, to be excused from accepting public honors.25 It is a fundamental maxim that largesses are pernicious to the people in a democracy, but salutary in an aristocratic government. The former make them forget they are citizens, the latter bring them to a sense of it.

If the revenues of the state are not distributed among the people, they must be convinced at least of their being well administered: to feast their eyes with the public treasure is with them the same thing almost as enjoying it. The golden chain displayed at Venice, the riches exhibited at Rome in public triumphs, the treasures preserved in the temple of Saturn, were in reality the wealth of the people.

It is a very essential point in an aristocracy that the n.o.bles themselves should not levy the taxes. The first order of the state in Rome never concerned themselves with it; the levying of the taxes was committed to the second, and even this in process of time was attended with great inconveniences. In an aristocracy of this kind, where the n.o.bles levied the taxes, the private people would be all at the discretion of persons in public employment; and there would be no such thing as a superior tribunal to check their power. The members appointed to remove the abuses would rather enjoy them. The n.o.bles would be like the princes of despotic governments, who confiscate whatever estates they please.

Soon would the profits hence arising be considered as a patrimony, which avarice would enlarge at pleasure. The farms would be lowered, and the public revenues reduced to nothing. This is the reason that some governments, without having ever received any remarkable shock, have dwindled away to such a degree as not only their neighbors, but even their own subjects, have been surprised at it.

The laws should likewise forbid the n.o.bles all kinds of commerce: merchants of such unbounded credit would monopolize all to themselves. Commerce is a profession of people who are upon an equality; hence among despotic states the most miserable are those in which the prince applies himself to trade.

The laws of Venice debar26 the n.o.bles from commerce, by which they might even innocently acquire exorbitant wealth.

The laws ought to employ the most effectual means for making the n.o.bles do justice to the people. If they have not established a tribune, they ought to be a tribune themselves.

Every sort of asylum in opposition to the execution of the laws destroys aristocracy, and is soon succeeded by tyranny.

They ought always to mortify the l.u.s.t of dominion. There should be either a temporary or perpetual magistrate to keep the n.o.bles in awe, as the Ephori at Sparta and the State Inquisitors at Venice-magistrates subject to no formalities. This sort of government stands in need of the strongest springs: thus a mouth of stone27 is open to every informer at Venice-a mouth to which one would be apt to give the appellation of tyranny.

These arbitrary magistrates in an aristocracy bear some a.n.a.logy to the censors.h.i.+p in democracies,28 which of its own nature is equally independent. And, indeed, the censors ought to be subject to no inquiry in relation to their conduct during their office; they should meet with a thorough confidence, and never be discouraged. In this respect the practice of the Romans deserved admiration; magistrates of all denominations were accountable for their administration,29 except the censors.30 There are two very pernicious things in an artistocracy-excess either of poverty, or of wealth in the n.o.bility. To prevent their poverty, it is necessary, above all things, to oblige them to pay their debts in time. To moderate the excess of wealth, prudent and gradual regulations should be made; but no confiscations, no agrarian laws, no expunging of debts; these are productive of infinite mischief.

The laws ought to abolish the right of primogeniture among the n.o.bles,31 to the end that by a continual division of the inheritances their fortunes may be always upon a level.

There should be no subst.i.tutions, no powers of redemption, no rights of Majorasgo, or adoption. The contrivances for perpetuating the grandeur of families in monarchical governments ought never to be employed in aristocracies.32 When the laws have compa.s.sed the equality of families, the next thing is to preserve a proper harmony and union amongst them. The quarrels of the n.o.bility ought to be quickly decided; otherwise the contests of individuals become those of families. Arbiters may terminate, or even prevent, the rise of disputes.

In fine, the laws must not favor the distinctions raised by vanity among families, under pretence that they are more n.o.ble or ancient than others. Pretences of this nature ought to be ranked among the weaknesses of private persons.

We have only to cast an eye upon Sparta; there we may see how the Ephori contrived to check the foibles of the kings,33 as well as those of the n.o.bility and common people.

9.-In what Manner the Laws are in relation to their Principle in Monarchies As honor is the principle of a monarchical government, the laws ought to be in relation to this principle.

They should endeavor to support the n.o.bility, in respect to whom honor may be, in some measure, deemed both child and parent.

They should render the n.o.bility hereditary, not as a boundary between the power of the prince and the weakness of the people, but as the link which connects them both.

In this government, subst.i.tutions which preserve the estates of families undivided are extremely useful, though in others not so proper.

Here the power of redemption is of service, as it restores to n.o.ble families the lands that had been alienated by the prodigality of a parent.

The land of the n.o.bility ought to have privileges as well as their persons. The monarch's dignity is inseparable from that of his kingdom; and the dignity of the n.o.bleman from that of his fief.

All these privileges must be peculiar to the n.o.bility, and incommunicable to the people, unless we intend to act contrary to the principle of government, and to diminish the power of the n.o.bles together with that of the people.

Subst.i.tutions are a restraint to commerce, the power of redemption produces an infinite number of processes; every estate in land that is sold throughout the kingdom is in some measure without an owner for the s.p.a.ce of a year. Privileges annexed to fiefs give a power very burdensome to those governments which tolerate them. These are the inconveniences of n.o.bility-inconveniences, however, that vanish when confronted with its general utility: but when these privileges are communicated to the people, every principle of government is wantonly violated.

In monarchies a person may leave the bulk of his estate to one of his children-a permission improper in any other government.

The laws ought to favor all kinds of commerce34 consistent with the const.i.tution, to the end that the subjects may, without ruining themselves, be able to satisfy the continual cravings of the prince and his court.

They should establish some regulation that the manner of collecting the taxes may not be more burdensome than the taxes themselves.

The weight of duties produces labor, labor weariness, and weariness the spirit of indolence.

10.-Of the Expedition peculiar to the Executive Power in Monarchies Great is the advantage which a monarchical government has over a republic: as the state is conducted by a single person, the executive power is thereby enabled to act with greater expedition. But as this expedition may degenerate into rapidity, the laws should use some contrivance to slacken it. They ought not only to favor the nature of each const.i.tution, but likewise to remedy the abuses that might result from this very nature.

Cardinal Richelieu35 advises monarchs to permit no such things as societies or communities that raise difficulties upon every trifle. If this man's heart had not been bewitched with the love of despotic power, still these arbitrary notions would have filled his head.

The bodies intrusted with the deposition of the laws are never more obedient than when they proceed slowly, and use that reflection in the prince's affairs which can scarcely be expected from the ignorance of a court, or from the precipitation of its councils.36 What would have become of the finest monarchy in the world if the magistrates, by their delays, their complaints and entreaties, had not checked the rapidity even of their princes' virtues, when these monarchs, consulting only the generous impulse of their minds, would fain have given a boundless reward to services performed with an unlimited courage and fidelity?

11.-Of the Excellence of a Monarchical Government Monarchy has a great advantage over a despotic government. As it naturally requires there should be several orders or ranks of subjects, the state is more permanent, the const.i.tution more steady, and the person of him who governs more secure.

Cicero37 is of opinion that the establis.h.i.+ng of the tribunes preserved the republic. "And, indeed," says he, "the violence of a headless people is more terrible. A chief or head is sensible that the affair depends upon himself, and, therefore, he thinks; but the people in their impetuosity are ignorant of the danger into which they hurry themselves." This reflection may be applied to a despotic government, which is a people without tribunes; and to a monarchy, where the people have some sort of tribunes.

Accordingly it is observable that in the commotions of a despotic government, the people, hurried away by their pa.s.sions, are apt to push things as far as they can go. The disorders they commit are all extreme; whereas in monarchies matters are seldom carried to excess. The chiefs are apprehensive on their own account; they are afraid of being abandoned, and the intermediate dependent powers38 do not choose that the populace should have too much the upper hand. It rarely happens that the states of the kingdom are entirely corrupted: the prince adheres to these; and the seditious, who have neither will nor hopes to subvert the government, have neither power nor will to dethrone the prince.

In these circ.u.mstances men of prudence and authority interfere; moderate measures are first proposed, then complied with, and things at length are redressed; the laws resume their vigor, and command submission.

Thus all our histories are full of civil wars without revolutions, while the histories of despotic governments abound with revolutions without civil wars.

The writers of the history of the civil wars of some countries, even those who fomented them, sufficiently demonstrate the little foundation princes have to suspect the authority with which they invest particular bodies of men; since, even under the unhappy circ.u.mstance of their errors, they sighed only after the laws and their duty; and restrained, more than they were capable of inflaming, the impetuosity of the revolted.39 Cardinal Richelieu, reflecting perhaps that he had too much reduced the states of the kingdom, has recourse to the virtues of the prince and of his ministers for the support40 of government: but he requires so many things, that indeed there is none but an angel capable of such attention, such resolution and knowledge; and scarcely can we flatter ourselves that we shall ever see such a prince and ministers while monarchy subsists.

As people who live under a good government are happier than those who without rule or leaders wander about the forests, so monarchs who live under the fundamental laws of their country are far happier than despotic princes who have nothing to regulate, neither their own pa.s.sions nor those of their subjects.

12.-The same Subject continued Let us not look for magnanimity in despotic governments;41 the prince cannot impart a greatness which he has not himself; with him there is no such thing as glory.

It is in monarchies that we behold the subjects encircling the throne, and cheered by the irradiancy of the sovereign; there it is that each person filling, as it were, a larger s.p.a.ce, is capable of exercising those virtues which adorn the soul, not with independence, but with true dignity and greatness.

13.-An Idea of Despotic Power When the savages of Louisiana are desirous of fruit, they cut the tree to the root, and gather the fruit.42 This is an emblem of despotic government.

14.-In what Manner the Laws are in relation to the Principles of Despotic Government The principle of despotic government is fear; but a timid, ignorant, and faint-spirited people have no occasion for a great number of laws.

Everything ought to depend here on two or three ideas; hence there is no necessity that any new notions should be added. When we want to break a horse, we take care not to let him change his master, his lesson, or his pace. Thus an impression is made on his brain by two or three motions, and no more.

If a prince is shut up in a seraglio, he cannot leave his voluptuous abode without alarming those who keep him confined. They will not bear that his person and power should pa.s.s into other hands. He seldom, therefore, wages war in person, and hardly ventures to intrust the command to his generals.

A prince of this stamp, unaccustomed to resistance in his palace, is enraged to see his will opposed by armed force; hence he is generally governed by wrath or vengeance. Besides, he can have no notion of true glory. War, therefore, is carried on under such a government in its full natural fury, and less extent is given to the law of nations than in other states.

Such a prince has so many imperfections, that they are afraid to expose his natural stupidity to public view. He is concealed in his palace, and the people are ignorant of his situation. It is lucky for him that the inhabitants of those countries need only the name of a prince to govern them.

When Charles XII was at Bender,43 he met with some opposition from the senate of Sweden; upon which he wrote word home that he would send one of his boots to command them. This boot would have governed like a despotic prince.

If the prince is a prisoner, he is supposed to be dead, and another mounts the throne. The treaties made by the prisoner are void, his successor will not ratify them; and, indeed, as he is the law, the state, and the prince: when he is no longer a prince, he is nothing: were he not therefore deemed to be deceased, the state would be subverted.

One thing which chiefly determined the Turks to conclude a separate peace with Peter I was the Muscovites telling the Vizier that in Sweden another prince had been placed upon the throne.44 The preservation of the state is only the preservation of the prince, or rather of the palace where he is confined. Whatever does not directly menace this palace or the capital makes no impression on ignorant, proud, and prejudiced minds; and as for the concatenation of events, they are unable to trace, to foresee, or even to conceive it. Politics, with its several springs and laws, must here be very much limited; the political government is as simple as the civil.45 The whole is reduced to reconciling the political and civil administration to the domestic government, the officers of state to those of the seraglio.

Such a state is happiest when it can look upon itself as the only one in the world, when it is environed with deserts, and separated from those people whom they call Barbarians. Since it cannot depend on the militia, it is proper it should destroy a part of itself.

As fear is the principle of despotic government, its end is tranquillity; but this tranquillity cannot be called a peace: no, it is only the silence of those towns which the enemy is ready to invade.

Since strength does not lie in the state, but in the army that founded it, in order to defend the state the army must be preserved, how formidable soever to the prince. How, then, can we reconcile the security of the government to that of the prince's person?

Observe how industriously the Russian government endeavors to temper its arbitrary power, which it finds more burdensome than the people themselves. They have broken their numerous guards, mitigated criminal punishments, erected tribunals, entered into a knowledge of the laws, and instructed the people. But there are particular causes that will probably once more involve them in the very misery which they now endeavor to avoid.

In those states religion has more influence than anywhere else; it is fear added to fear. In Mahommedan countries, it is partly from their religion that the people derive the surprising veneration they have for their prince.

It is religion that amends in some measures the Turkish const.i.tution. The subjects, who have no attachment of honor to the glory and grandeur of the state, are connected with it by the force and principle of religion.

Of all despotic governments there is none that labors more under its own weight than that wherein the prince declares himself proprietor of all the lands, and heir to all his subjects. Hence the neglect of agriculture arises; and if the prince intermeddles likewise in trade, all manner of industry is ruined.

Under this sort of government, nothing is repaired or improved.46 Houses are built only for the necessity of habitation; there is no digging of ditches or planting of trees; everything is drawn from, but nothing restored to, the earth; the ground lies untilled, and the whole country becomes a desert.

Is it to be imagined that the laws which abolish the property of land and the succession of estates will diminish the avarice and cupidity of the great? By no means. They will rather stimulate this cupidity and avarice. The great men will be prompted to use a thousand oppressive methods, imagining they have no other property than the gold and silver which they are able to seize upon by violence, or to conceal.

To prevent, therefore, the utter ruin of the state, the avidity of the prince ought to be moderated by some established custom. Thus, in Turkey, the sovereign is satisfied with the right of three per cent. on the value of inheritances.47 But as he gives the greatest part of the lands to his soldiery, and disposes of them as he pleases; as he seizes on all the inheritances of the officers of the empire at their decease; as he has the property of the possessions of those who die without issue, and the daughters have only the usufruct: it thence follows that the greatest part of the estates of the country are held in a precarious manner.

By the laws of Bantam,48 the king seizes on the whole inheritance, even wife, children, and habitation. In order to elude the cruellest part of this law, they are obliged to marry their children at eight, nine, or ten years of age, and sometimes younger, to the end that they may not be a wretched part of the father's succession.

In countries where there are no fundamental laws, the succession to the empire cannot be fixed. The crown is then elective, and the right of electing is in the prince, who names a successor either of his own or of some other family. In vain would it be to establish here the succession of the eldest son; the prince might always choose another. The successor is declared by the prince himself, or by a civil war. Hence a despotic state is, upon another account, more liable than a monarchical government to dissolution.

As every prince of the royal family is held equally capable of being chosen, hence it follows that the prince who ascends the throne immediately strangles his brothers, as in Turkey; or puts out their eyes, as in Persia;49 or bereaves them of their understanding, as in the Mogul's country; or if these precautions are not used, as in Morocco, the vacancy of the throne is always attended with the horrors of a civil war.

By the const.i.tution of Russia50 the Czar may choose whom he has a mind for his successor, whether of his own or of a strange family. Such a settlement produces a thousand revolutions, and renders the throne as tottering as the succession is arbitrary. The right of succession being one of those things which are of most importance to the people to know, the best is that which most sensibly strikes them. Such as a certain order of birth. A settlement of this kind puts a stop to intrigues, and stifles ambition; the mind of a weak prince is no longer enslaved, nor is he made to speak his will as he is just expiring.

When the succession is established by a fundamental law, only one prince is the successor, and his brothers have neither a real nor apparent right to dispute the crown with him. They can neither pretend to nor take any advantage of the will of a father. There is then no more occasion to confine or kill the king's brother than any other subject.

But in despotic governments, where the prince's brothers are equally his slaves and his rivals, prudence requires that their persons be secured; especially in Mahommedan countries, where religion considers victory or success as a divine decision in their favor; so that they have no such thing as a monarch de jure, but only de facto.

There is a far greater incentive to ambition in countries where the princes of the blood are sensible that if they do not ascend the throne they must be either imprisoned or put to death, than amongst us, where they are placed in such a station as may satisfy, if not their ambition, at least their moderate desires.

The princes of despotic governments have ever perverted the use of marriage. They generally take a great many wives, especially in that part of the world where absolute power is in some measure naturalized, namely, Asia. Hence they come to have such a mult.i.tude of children that they can hardly have any great affection for them, nor the children for one another.

The reigning family resembles the state; it is too weak itself, and its head too powerful; it seems very numerous and extensive, and yet is suddenly extinct. Artaxerxes51 put all his children to death for conspiring against him. It is not at all probable that fifty children would conspire against their father, and much less that this conspiracy would be owing to his having refused to resign his concubine to his eldest son. It is more natural to believe that the whole was an intrigue of those oriental seraglios, where fraud, treachery, and deceit reign in silence and darkness; and where an old prince, grown every day more infirm, is the first prisoner of the palace.

After what has been said, one would imagine that human nature should perpetually rise up against despotism. But, notwithstanding the love of liberty, so natural to mankind, notwithstanding their innate detestation of force and violence, most nations are subject to this very government. This is easily accounted for. To form a moderate government, it is necessary to combine the several powers; to regulate, temper, and set them in motion; to give, as it were, ballast to one, in order to enable it to counterpoise the other. This is a masterpiece of legislation, rarely produced by hazard, and seldom attained by prudence. On the contrary, a despotic government offers itself, as it were, at first sight; it is uniform throughout; and as pa.s.sions only are requisite to establish it, this is what every capacity may reach.

15.-The same Subject continued In warm climates, where despotic power generally prevails, the pa.s.sions disclose themselves earlier, and are sooner extinguished;52 the understanding is sooner ripened; they are less in danger of squandering their fortunes; there is less facility of distinguis.h.i.+ng themselves in the world; less communication between young people, who are confined at home; they marry much earlier, and consequently may be sooner of age than in our European climates. In Turkey they are of age at fifteen.53 They have no such thing as a cession of goods; in a government where there is no fixed property, people depend rather on the person than on his estate.

The cession of goods is naturally admitted in moderate governments,54 but especially in republics, because of the greater confidence usually placed in the probity of the citizens, and the lenity and moderation arising from a form of government which every subject seems to have preferred to all others.

Had the legislators of the Roman republic established the cession of goods,55 they never would have been exposed to so many seditions and civil discords; neither would they have experienced the danger of the evils, nor the inconvenience of the remedies.

Poverty and the precariousness of property in a despotic state render usury natural, each person raising the value of his money in proportion to the danger he sees in lending it. Misery, therefore, pours from all parts into those unhappy countries; they are bereft of everything, even of the resource of borrowing.

Hence it is that a merchant under this government is unable to carry on an extensive commerce; he lives from hand to mouth; and were he to enc.u.mber himself with a large quant.i.ty of merchandise, he would lose more by the exorbitant interest he must give for money than he could possibly get by the goods. Hence they have no laws here relating to commerce; they are all reduced to what is called the bare police.

A government cannot be unjust without having hands to exercise its injustice. Now, it is impossible but that these hands will be grasping for themselves. The embezzling of the public money is therefore natural in despotic states.

As this is a common crime under such a government, confiscations are very useful. By these the people are eased; the money drawn by this method being a considerable tribute which could hardly be raised on the exhausted subject: neither is there in those countries any one family which the prince would be glad to preserve.

In moderate governments it is quite a different thing. Confiscations would render property uncertain, would strip innocent children, would destroy a whole family, instead of punis.h.i.+ng a single criminal. In republics they would be attended with the mischief of subverting equality, which is the very soul of this government, by depriving a citizen of his necessary subsistence.

There is a Roman law56 against confiscations, except in the case of crimen majestatis, or high treason of the most heinous nature. It would be a prudent thing to follow the spirit of this law, and to limit confiscations to particular crimes.57 In countries where a local custom has rendered real estates alienable, Bodin very justly observes that confiscations should extend only to such as are purchased or acquired.58 16.-Of the Communication of Power In a despotic government the power is communicated entire to the person intrusted with it. The vizier himself is the despotic prince; and each particular officer is the vizier. In monarchies the power is less immediately applied, being tempered by the monarch as he gives it.59 He makes such a distribution of his authority as never to communicate a part of it without reserving a greater share to himself.

Hence in monarchies the governors of towns are not so dependent on the governor of the province as not to be still more so on the prince; and the private officers or military bodies are not so far subject to their general as not to owe still a greater subjection to their sovereign.

In most monarchies it has been wisely regulated that those who have an extensive command should not belong to any military corps; so that as they have no authority but through the prince's pleasure, and as they may be employed or not, they are in some measure in the service, and in some measure out of it.

This is incompatible with a despotic government. For if those who are not actually employed were still invested with privileges and t.i.tles, the consequence must be that there would be men in the state who might be said to be great of themselves; a thing directly opposite to the nature of this government.