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ernment is unlimited; it is a despotism in theory, however liberal and benevolent it may be in practice. If, on the other hand, the state confers upon the government less than its whole power, less than sovereignty, either by enumerating the powers of government, or by defining and safeguarding individual liberty against them, the government is limited, or, as we now usually say, it is constitutional as to form.

Representative government may be monarchic, aristocratic or democratic, according as one or a few or the mass of the population of the state are made eligible by the state to hold office or mandate.

Naturally, a monarchic state will have a monarchic government, an aristocratic state an aristocratic government, and a democratic state a democratic government. This is not a scientific necessity, however, and, as a fact, it does not always or even generally occur. It frequently happens that a democratic state has a monarchic government. This is the real character of Cæsarism, of Bonapartism. A monarchic state may conceivably have a democratic government; but I know no real instance of such a combination in practice. On the other hand, the monarchic state frequently has an aristocratic government. In fact, a truly successful monarchy must always have a real aristocracy for its governmental representatives. It must gather about it the natural leaders of the people and govern through their collective wisdom and support. The democratic state can hold poor talent in governmental authority through the artificial medium of the ballot; but the monarchic state has nothing, in last instance, to rely upon but the influences of superior genius and capacity. The power of numbers and brute force stands naturally against it.' Again, an aristocratic state may have a monarchic government. In fact, the transition of the state. from the monarchic to the aristocratic form generally leaves the different parts of the political system in this relation. We might say that this is almost a necessity to the existence

and perpetuity of the aristocratic state. An aristocratic state with an aristocratic government is always in danger of dissolution. The reasons for this are, in the first place, that the natural power of numbers and brute force is against the aristocracy, and, in the second place, that the aristocracy has not the religious influence of the monarchy over the masses. It has the intellectual power; but intellectual power alone tends rather towards schism, and schism in the governing body destroys the faith and then the loyalty of the masses.

Lastly, a democratic state may have an aristocratic government; and I do not see why, in any condition of society except the perfect, or nearly perfect, this is not the best political system for all states which have attained the democratic form. It is, theoretically at least, government of the people, for the people, and by the best of the people. The transition of the state from the aristocratic to the democratic form generally and naturally produces, momentarily at least, this relation between state and government, but it is very difficult to maintain this relation with any degree of permanence. The mature democracy always tends to the establishment of democratic government, and the immature to the creation of the Cæsar, the Bonaparte, or the "boss.”

II. My second canon of distinction is the concentration or distribution of governmental power.

The first alternative which arises in the application of this canon is between the centralized and dual systems of govern

ment.

1. Centralized government is that form in which the state vests all governmental authority in a single organization. In this form there is no constitutional autonomy in the localities, no independent local government. The local government is only an agency of the central government, established, modified and displaced by the central government at its own will. This form is best suited for states of small or moderate territorial extent and having a perfectly homogeneous popu

lation; i.e. completely national states. In such states the period of variety in political and juristic conceptions will have been overcome, a national consciousness will have been developed and recognized as the basis of truth, a national opinion is readily formed. History demonstrates that all states tend more or less towards the production of this form in the course of their development into national states. When this form shall have been once really and naturally attained, it is a mark of retrogression to exchange it for the dual system. There are other conditions, however, than those of a narrow territory and a perfected nationality which require this form of government. A state whose population consists of different and hostile nationalities is necessitated to adopt this form in greater or less degree. A reasonable and predominant consensus cannot be developed in the localities where such an ethnical condition prevails. A governmental umpire outside of and supreme over the localities must hold the balance and control the war of nationalities. Again, a state having a population which is politically unripe, incapable of local self-government, is forced to adopt this form. A dual system under such conditions would mean dissolution and. chaos. Both of these conditions, however, are to be regarded as temporary. The transition from the centralized to the dual form in such cases would be an evidence of advance in the political development of the population. The dual form is, in such cases, the natural connecting link between the temporary centralized form and the permanent centralized form.

2. Dual government is the form in which the state distributes the powers of government between two classes of organizations, which are so far independent of each other, that the one cannot destroy the other or limit the powers of the other or encroach upon the sphere of the other as determined by the state in the constitution. Both are completely subject to the state. Either may be changed or abolished at

will by the state. Neither is in essence an agency of the other, although it is conceivable, and often true, that the one may and does employ the other as agent.

The dual form is subject to a subdivision. It may be confederate government or federal government. Confederate government is the form in which, as to territory and population, the state is coextensive in its own organization with the organization of the local government. Federal government is the form in which, as to territory and population, the state is coextensive in its own organization with the organization of the general government. In the confederate system there are several states, an equal number of local governments, and one central government. In the federal system we have one state, one central government and several local governments.

The confederate system is clearly a transient form. It does its proper work in the period of transition from the condition of several sovereignties to that of a single sovereignty over the combined territory and population.

The federal system is not so clearly transient, although it can hardly be regarded as the ultimate form. Its natural place is in states having great territorial extent, inhabited by a population of tolerably high political development, either in class or in mass, but not of entirely homogeneous nationality in different sections. When these ethnical differences shall have been entirely overcome, something like the federal system may, indeed, conceivably remain, but the local governments will become more and more administrative bodies, and less and less law-making bodies. In fact, it looks now as if the whole political world, that part of it in which the centralized form of government obtains as well as that part still subject to the federal form, were tending towards this system of centralized government in legislation and federal government in administration. I do not feel sure that this is not the form of the future, the ultimate, the ideal form, at least for all great states.

The difficulty of the federal form in practice is the fact that it generally confuses the common consciousness as to the position of the sovereignty, the state. In the confederate system we know where the state is. In the centralized system we have no uncertainty upon this point. In the federal system, on the contrary, the divergence of views in regard to this subject creates the most burning question of practical politics, one which is seldom solved except by bloodshed. I think that most of the difficulty lies in the manner in which the state ordinarily distributes the powers of government between the central and local governments. That manner may briefly be described as follows: the state, the sovereign, first limits the powers of the two governments in respect to the individual, i.e. it creates the domain of individual immunity; then it enumerates the powers of the general government, and leaves all remaining powers without specification to the local organizations. This appears to many minds like a residuary sovereignty in the local organizations. It requires patient reflection and successful discrimination to attain a point of view from which it is clearly seen that there can be no such thing as residuary sovereignty; that sovereignty is entire or not at all; and that what is left by the state to the local organizations, in this manner of distribution, is only the residuary powers of government. The fact, furthermore, that the localities, the commonwealths, may organize themselves as quasi-constituent bodies, and create other organizations representative of themselves, and confer upon these organizations the immediate exercise of the governmental powers left to themselves by the state, and may forbid to their agents the exercise of some of these powers altogether, all this adds greatly to the confusion of thought upon the subject. It appears as if these quasi-constituent bodies had something more than residuary governmental powers, since they do not exercise those powers immediately themselves. This something more is usually conceived as a part of the sovereignty,

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