On July 4th,
1776 the Declaration of Independence was signed. This heartfelt letter to King
George III explained the Colonies were finally separating from British rule,
and they would fight for their independence if need be. The colonists would no
longer be under a monarchy; instead they would establish a democratic-republic.
But are monarchies really so bad? Is there any way to have a good one?
Jean-Jacques
Rousseau attempts to answer this question in a section dedicated solely to
monarchy in his book On the Social
Contract, a work that attempts to deduce what is the best form of
government.
Rousseau begins
by saying in contrast with other forms of government such as a democracy or a
republic, where a “collective being stands for an individual,” a monarchy has
one person standing for a collective being (48). Rousseau writes that “the
moral unity which constitutes the prince is at the same time a physical unity,
all the qualities, which in the other case are only with difficulty brought
together by the law, are found naturally united” (48). This means that the
moral will and the physical will of the prince are the same, while in other
governments this might not be so. The will of the people, the will of the
prince, the public force of the State, and the particular force of the
government all answer to a single motive power. Because the will answers to a
single motive power, everything moves toward the same end; but this does not
mean the end is the public’s happiness (48).
Kings desire to
be absolute, and there are those argue that the best way to do is to have
the people love them. Rousseau says that this “precept is all very well, and
even in some respects very true,” but it will always be ridiculed at court.
Yes, the power of the people’s love is by far the greatest, but it is only
conditional, and princes will never be content with it. The best kings,
Rousseau states, desire to be in a position where they can be wicked without
losing their throne. “Their first personal interest is that the people should
be weak, wretched, and unable to resist them” (48).
Monarchies are
suitable for the large States. The more numerous the public administration, the
smaller the relation between the prince and the subjects becomes (49). But if
the ratio between the prince and the subjects grows closer to equality then the
State becomes a democracy. “Again, as the government is restricted in numbers
the ratio increases and reaches its maximum when the government is in the hands
of a single person” (49). However, it is hard for a great State to be well
governed, and it is harder for it to be so by a single man; but everyone knows
what happens when a king substitutes others for himself.
There is an
essential and inevitable defect in a monarchy that will always rank it below a
republican government according to Rousseau: in a republic the public voice
hardly ever raises incompetent men to the highest positions as they wish to
fill them with honor. In monarchies, however, those who assume power are often “petty
blunderers, petty swindlers, and petty intriguers, whose petty talents cause
them to get into the highest positions at court” (49), but as soon as they
receive power they showcase their ineptitude to the public. The public is not
as often mistaken when choosing the prince; “a man of real worth among the king’s
ministers is almost as rare as a fool at the head of a republican government”
(49). For a monarchy to be well governed, its population and extent must be
proportionate to the abilities of its governor. It is easier to conquer than to
rule (50).
The biggest
disadvantage that is most felt in monarchical government is the want of the
continuous succession which, in the other government, provides “an unbroken
bond of union” (50). When one king dies, another is needed; but elections leave
“dangerous intervals and are full of storms,” and they are often prone to
corruption. The prince to whom the state has agreed to rule over them cannot
help selling it and repaying himself the money the powerful have taken from
him. Under this type of administration, bribery sooner or later spreads through
every part of the land, and the peace enjoyed under a king is worse than the
disorder of a period when the government is suspended between successive reigns
or regimes (50). Crowns have become hereditary in certain families, and an order
of succession has been set up to avoid the disputes from a normal election
after the death of a king. Men have chosen to “risk having children,
monstrosities, or imbeciles as rulers” than to have disputes over the choice of
good kings (50).
These
difficulties of a monarchy have not escaped writers who, at the same time, are
not bothered by them (51). Their remedy is to obey a terrible government
without a murmur: “God sends bad kings in His wrath, and they must be borne as
the scourges of Heaven” (51). Rousseau says that this kind of talk is no doubt
enlightening, but it would be more in place in a pulpit than in a political
book. We know for ourselves that we must put up with a bad government when it
is there; the question is how to find a good one.
Thus concludes the
thoughts of Rousseau on monarchy. He never outright states that a monarchy is a
terrible form of government; he just points out the flaws that such an
administration would have.
