The Laws of an Aristocracy, Monarchy, Despotism

Chapter 3: The laws of an Aristocracy

In an aristocracy, the supreme power is in a few persons who have both legislative and executive authority.

• The rest of the people are the same as the subjects of a monarchy relative to them.

They do not vote here by lot as it would be inconvenient.

• In a government where the most mortifying distinctions are already established, though they were to be chosen by lot, still they would not cease to be odious:
• it is the nobleman they envy, and not the magistrate.

When the nobility are numerous, there must be a senate to regulate them.

In this case:

• the aristocracy is in the senate
• the democracy is in the body of the nobles
• the people are a cypher

It would be a very happy thing, in an aristocracy, if the people could be raised from their state of annihilation.

Thus, at Genoa, the bank of St. George was administered by the people.

• This gave the people influence in the government

The senators should not have a right of naming their own members as it is the only way to perpetuate abuses.

Rome was an aristocracy in its early years.

• The new members then were nominated by the censors.
• The senate did not fill up the vacant places in their own body.

In a republic, the sudden rise of a citizen to power produces monarchy.

In an aristocracy, the laws are in a constitution.

• The principle of government checks the monarch

In a republic, a citizen can get exorbitant power.

• The abuse of this power is much greater because the laws foresaw it not.
• Consequently, it made no provision against it.

There is an exception to this rule, when the constitution is such as to have immediate need of a magistrate invested with an exorbitant power.

Such was:

• Rome with her dictators
• Venice with her state-inquisitors

These are formidable magistrates who restore the state to its liberty.

But why are these magistracies so very different in the Roman republic and Venice?

It is because Rome supported the remains of her aristocracy against the people.

Whereas Venice employs her state-inquisitors to maintain her aristocracy against the nobles.

The consequence was, that at Rome the dictatorship could be only of a short duration, as the people act through passion, and not with design.

It was necessary that a magistracy of this kind should be exercised with lustre and pomp; the business being to intimidate, and not to punish, the multitude.

It was also proper that the dictator should be created only for some particular affair, and for this only should have an unlimited authority, as he was always created upon some sudden emergency.

On the contrary, at Venice they have occasion for a permanent magistracy; for here it is that schemes may be set on foot, continued, suspended, and resumed; that the ambition of a single person becomes that of a family, and the ambition of one family that of many.

They have occasion for a secret magistracy, the crimes they punish being hatched in secrecy and silence. This magistracy must have a general inquisition; for their business is not to remedy known disorders, but to prevent the unknown.

In a word, the latter is designed to punish suspected crimes; whereas the former used rather menaces than punishment, even for crimes that were openly avowed.

In all magistracies the greatness of the power must be compensated by the brevity of the duration. This most legislators have fixed to a year: a longer space would be dangerous, and a shorter would be contrary to the nature of government; for who is it that, in the management even of his domestic affairs, would be thus confined? At Ragusa* the chief magistrate of the republic is changed every month, the other officers every week, and the governor of the castle every day. But this can take place only in a small republic environed† by formidable powers, who might easily corrupt such petty and insignificant magistrates.

The best aristocracy is that in which those who have no share in the legislature are so few and inconsiderable, that the governing party have no interest in oppressing them. Thus, when‡ Antipater made a law at Athens, that whosoever was not worth Edition: current; Page: [19] two thousand drachms should have no power to vote, he formed, by this method, the best aristocracy possible; because this was so small a sum, as excluded very few, and not one of any rank or consideration in the city.

Aristocratical families ought, therefore, as much as possible, to level themselves, in appearance, with the people. The more an aristocracy borders on democracy, the nearer it approaches to perfection; and, in proportion as it draws towards monarchy, the more it is imperfect.

But the most imperfect of all is that in which the part of the people that obeys is in a state of civil servitude to those who command; as the aristocracy of Poland, where the peasants are slaves to the nobility.