In aristocratic governments there are two principal 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 inequali- ties, hatreds and jealousies arise, which the laws ought ever to prevent or repress.
The first inequality is chiefly when the privileges of the no- bility are honorable only as they are ignominious to the people. Such was the law at Rome by which the patricians were forbid- den to marry plebeians;w 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 nobles assume the privilege of pay- ing none; when they commit frauds to exempt themselves;x^ when they engross the public money, under pretence of re- wards or appointments for their respective employments; in fine, when they render the common people tributary, and di- vide among their own body the profits arising from the several subsidies. This last case is very rare; an aristocracy so insti- 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 w It was inserted by the decemvirs in x As in some aristocracies in our time; the two last tables. See Dionys. Hali- nothing is more prejudicial to the gov- carn.y lib. X. ernment.
THE SPIRIT OF LAWS 51 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.^ It is a fundamental maxim that largesses are pernicious to the people in a democracy, but salutary in an aristocratic gov- ernment. 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 ad- ministered: 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 tri- umphs, 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 nobles 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 nobles levied the taxes, the private people would be all at the discretion of persons in pubhc employments; and there would be no such thing as a superior tribunal to check their power. The members appointed to re- move the abuses would rather enjoy them. The nobles 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 nobles all kinds of com- merce: merchants of such unbounded credit would monopo- lize 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.
y See in Strabo, lib. XIV., in what manner the Rhodians behaved in this respect.
52 MONTESQUIEU The laws of Venice debars the nobles from commerce, by which they might even innocently acquire exorbitant wealth.
The laws ought to employ the most effectual means for mak- ing the nobles do justice to the people. If they have not es- tablished 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 lust of dominion. There should be either a temporary or perpetual magistrate to keep the nobles in awe, as the Ephori at Sparta and the State Inquisi- tors at Venice — magistrates subject to no formalities. This sort of government stands in need of the strongest springs: thus a mouth of stone& 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 analogy to the censorship in democracies,^ 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 denomina- tions were accountable for their administration,^ except the censors.^ There are two very pernicious things in an artistocracy — ex- cess either of poverty, or of wealth in the nobility. 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 con- fiscations, no agrarian laws, no expunging of debts; these are productive of infinite mischief.
The laws ought to abolish the right of primogeniture among the nobles,/^ to the end that by a continual division of the in- heritances their fortunes may be always upon a level.
a Amelot de la Housaye, " Of the Gov- could not be troubled even by a censor; ernment of Venice," part III. The each made his remark without taking Claudian law forbade the senators to the opinion of his colleague; and when have any ship at sea that held above it otherwise happened, the' censorship forty bushels. — Liv., lib XXI, cap. Ixiii. was in a manner abolished.
b The informers throw their scrolls e At Athens the Logistae, who made into it. all the magistrates accountable for their c Their vote is secret; whereas at conduct, gave no account themselves. Rome it was public. — Ed. f It is so practised at Venice. — Amd See Livy, lib, XLIX. A censor elot de la Housaye, pp. 30 and 31.
THE SPIRIT OF LAWS 53 There should be no substitutions, no powers of redemption, no rights of Majorasgo, or adoption. The contrivances for perpetuating the grandeur of famihes in monarchical govern- ments ought never to be employed in aristocracies.^ When the laws have compassed the equality of families, the next thing is to preserve a proper harmony and union amongst them. The quarrels of the nobility ought to be quickly de- cided; 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 noble 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,/» as well as those of the nobility 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 nobility, in respect to whom honor may be, in some measure, deemed both child and parent.
They should render the nobility hereditary, not as a boundary between the power of the prince and the weakness of the peo- ple, but as the link which connects them both.
In this government, substitutions 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 noble families the lands that had been alienated by the prodi- gality of a parent.
The land of the nobility ought to have privileges as well as their persons. The monarch's dignity is inseparable from that gThe main design of some aristocra- /» These were not kings of Sparta, but cies seems to be less the support of the pretenders. The true sovereigns were state than of their nobility. the Ephori, since royalty itself was subservient to them.— Ed.
54 MONTESQUIEU of his kingdom; and the dignity of the nobleman from that of his fief.
All these privileges must be peculiar to the nobility, and in- communicable to the people, unless we intend to act contrary to the principle of government, and to diminish the power of the nobles together with that of the people.
Substitutions are a restraint to commerce, the power of re- demption 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 space of a year. Privileges annexed to fiefs give a power very burdensome to those gov- ernments which tolerate them. These are the inconveniences of nobility — inconveniences, however, that vanish when con- fronted 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 gov- ernment.
The laws ought to favor all kinds of commerce^ consistent with the constitution, 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 per- son, the executive power is thereby enabled to act with greater expedition. But as this expedition may degenerate into rapid- ity, the laws should use some contrivance to slacken it. They ought not only to favor the nature of each constitution, but i It is tolerated only in the common Comm. et Mercatoribus," which is full people. See the third law Cod. " de of good sense.
THE SPIRIT OF LAWS 55 likewise to remedy the abuses that might result from this very nature.
Cardinal Richelieu; 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 afifairs which can scarcely be ex- pected from the ignorance of a court, or from the precipitation of its councils.^ What would have become of the finest monarchy in the world if the magistrates, by their delays, their complaints and en- treaties, 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 re- ward to services performed with an unlimited courage and fidelity?
II. — Of the Excellence of a Monarchical Government Monarchy has a great advantage over a despotic govern- ment. As it naturally requires there should be several orders or ranks of subjects, the state is more permanent, the constitu- tion more steady, and the person of him who governs more secure.
Cicero/ is of opinion that the establishing of the tribunes preserved the republic. " And, indeed," says he, " the violence of a headless people is more terrible. A chief or head is sen- sible 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 pas- sions, are apt to push things as far as they can go. The dis- ;■ " Testam. polit." equi regium videtur. — Tacit. " Annal."
k Barbaris cunctatio servilis, statim ex- lib. V. cap. xxxii.
/ Lib. III. " de Leg." lo.
56 MONTESQUIEU orders they commit are all extreme; whereas in monarchies matters are seldom carried to excess. The chiefs are appre- hensive on their own account; they are afraid of being aban- doned, and the intermediate dependent powers^ do not choose that the populace should have too much the upper hand. It rarely happens that the states of the kingdom are entirely cor- rupted: 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 circumstances men of prudence and authority inter- fere; 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 revolu- tions, 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 circumstance 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.w 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 support^ of govern- ment: 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 sub- sists.
As people who live under a good government are happier than those who without rule or leaders wander about the for- ests, 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 passions nor those of their sub- jects.
m See the first note of book II. n Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz and chap. 4. other histories.
o " Testam. polit."
THE SPIRIT OF LAWS 57 12. — The same Subject continued Let us not look for magnanimity in despotic governments;/> 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 space, 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.9 This is an em- blem 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 con- fined. They will not bear that his person and power should pass 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. Be- sides, he can have no notion of true glory. War, therefore, is p Voltaire maintains that the con- and many others of despotic sway con- queror of Candia, the Vizier Ibrahim, tradict this statement.— Ed.
q " Edifying Letters," col. ii. p. 315.
58 MONTESQUIEU 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 situa- tion. 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,*" he met with some op- position 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.-y 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 govern- ment is as simple as the civil.'
The whole is reduced to reconciling the political and civil administration to the domestic government, the officers of state to those of the seragHo.
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.
r The king was not then at Bender, t According to Sir John Chardin, there but at Demotica.— D. is no council of state in Persia.* duction to the " History of Europe," in * See Chardin, chap. xi. the article of Sweden, chap. x.
THE SPIRIT OF LAWS 59 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 pre- served, 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 en- deavors 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 con- stitution. 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 inter- meddles likewise in trade, all manner of industry is ruined.
Under this sort of government, nothing is repaired or im- proved.w 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 u See Ricaut, " State of the Ottoman Empire," p. 196.
6o MONTESQUIEU 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 cus- tom. Thus, in Turkey, the sovereign is satisfied with the right of three per cent, on the value of inheritances.^ 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 pre- carious manner.
By the laws of Bantam,w the king seizes on the whole in- heritance, 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 some- times 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 succes- sion 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 govern- ment 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;^ or bereaves them of their understanding, as in the Mogul's country; or if these precau- tions are not used, as in Morocco, the vacancy of the throne is always attended with the horrors of a civil war.
V See concerning the inheritances of East India Company," torn. i. The law the Turks, Ancient and Modern Sparta. of Pegu is less cruel: if there happen to See also Ricaut on the Ottoman empire. be children, the king succeeds only to w " Collection of Voyages that con- two-thirds. Ibid. torn. iii. p. i.
tributed to the establishment of the x Chardin, chap. i. and iii.
THE SPIRIT OF LAWS 6i By the constitution of Russian 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 revolu- tions, 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 in- trigues, 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 sta- tion 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, es- pecially in that part of the world where absolute power is in some measure naturalized, namely, Asia. Hence they come to have such a multitude of children that they can hardly have any great afifection 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 exten- sive, and yet is suddenly extinct. Artaxerxes« put all his chil- dren to death for conspiring against him. It is not at all proby See the different constitutions, especially that of 1722. a See Justin.
62 MONTESQUIEU able 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 ori- ental seraglios, where fraud, treachery, and deceit reign in si- lence 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, not- withstanding the love of liberty, so natural to mankind, not- withstanding 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 master- piece 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 passions 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 passions disclose themselves earlier, and are sooner extin- guished -p the understanding is sooner ripened; they are less in danger of squandering their fortunes; there is less facility of distinguishing themselves in the world; less communica- tion 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.^ They have no such thing as a cession of goods; in a gov- ernment 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 gov- ernments,c? but especially in republics, because of the greater h See the book of laws as relative to c Laquilletiere, " Ancient and Modern the nature of the climate, Spirit of Laws, Sparta," p. 463.
XIV. d The same may be said of compositions in regard to fair bankrupts.
THE SPIRIT OF LAWS 63 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/ 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. Mis- ery, therefore, pours from all parts into those unhappy coun- tries; 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 encumber himself with a large quan- tity of merchandise, he would lose more by the exorbitant in- terest 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.