Thomas Paine · Complete work
Part I: Observations on the Declaration of Rights, 5
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Those two distinct and opposite forms erect themselves on the two distinct and opposite bases of Reason and Ignorance.—As the exercise of Government requires talents and abilities, and as talents and abilities cannot have hereditary descent, it is evident that hereditary succession requires a belief from man to which his reason cannot subscribe, and which can only be established upon his ignorance; and the more ignorant any country is, the better it is fitted for this species of Government.
On the contrary, Government, in a well-constituted republic, requires no belief from man beyond what his reason can give. He sees the rationale of the whole system, its origin and its operation; and as it is best supported when best understood, the human faculties act with boldness, and acquire, under this form of government, a gigantic manliness.
As, therefore, each of those forms acts on a different base, the one moving freely by the aid of reason, the other by ignorance; we have next to consider, what it is that gives motion to that species of Government which is called mixed Government, or, as it is sometimes ludicrously styled, a Government of this, that and t' other.
The moving power in this species of Government is, of necessity, Corruption. However imperfect election and representation may be in mixed Governments, they still give exercise to a greater portion of reason than is convenient to the hereditary Part; and therefore it becomes necessary to buy the reason up. A mixed Government is an imperfect everything, cementing and soldering the discordant parts together by corruption, to act as a whole. Mr. Burke appears highly disgusted that France, since she had resolved on a revolution, did not adopt what he calls "A British Constitution"; and the regretful manner in which he expresses himself on this occasion implies a suspicion that the British Constitution needed something to keep its defects in countenance.
In mixed Governments there is no responsibility: the parts cover each other till responsibility is lost; and the corruption which moves the machine, contrives at the same time its own escape. When it is laid down as a maxim, that a King can do no wrong, it places him in a state of similar security with that of idiots and persons insane, and responsibility is out of the question with respect to himself. It then descends upon the Minister, who shelters himself under a majority in Parliament, which, by places, pensions, and corruption, he can always command; and that majority justifies itself by the same authority with which it protects the Minister. In this rotatory motion, responsibility is thrown off from the parts, and from the whole.
When there is a Part in a Government which can do no wrong, it implies that it does nothing; and is only the machine of another power, by whose advice and direction it acts. What is supposed to be the King in the mixed Governments, is the Cabinet; and as the Cabinet is always a part of the Parliament, and the members justifying in one character what they advise and act in another, a mixed Government becomes a continual enigma; entailing upon a country by the quantity of corruption necessary to solder the parts, the expense of supporting all the forms of government at once, and finally resolving itself into a Government by Committee; in which the advisers, the actors, the approvers, the justifiers, the persons responsible, and the persons not responsible, are the same persons.
By this pantomimical contrivance, and change of scene and character, the parts help each other out in matters which neither of them singly would assume to act. When money is to be obtained, the mass of variety apparently dissolves, and a profusion of parliamentary praises passes between the parts. Each admires with astonishment, the wisdom, the liberality, the disinterestedness of the other: and all of them breathe a pitying sigh at the burthens of the Nation.
But in a well-constituted republic, nothing of this soldering, praising, and pitying, can take place; the representation being equal throughout the country, and complete in itself, however it may be arranged into legislative and executive, they have all one and the same natural source. The parts are not foreigners to each other, like democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy. As there are no discordant distinctions, there is nothing to corrupt by compromise, nor confound by contrivance. Public measures appeal of themselves to the understanding of the Nation, and, resting on their own merits, disown any flattering applications to vanity. The continual whine of lamenting the burden of taxes, however successfully it may be practised in mixed Governments, is inconsistent with the sense and spirit of a republic. If taxes are necessary, they are of course advantageous; but if they require an apology, the apology itself implies an impeachment. Why, then, is man thus imposed upon, or why does he impose upon himself?
When men are spoken of as kings and subjects, or when Government is mentioned under the distinct and combined heads of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, what is it that reasoning man is to understand by the terms? If there really existed in the world two or more distinct and separate elements of human power, we should then see the several origins to which those terms would descriptively apply; but as there is but one species of man, there can be but one element of human power; and that element is man himself. Monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, are but creatures of imagination; and a thousand such may be contrived as well as three.
From the Revolutions of America and France, and the symptoms that have appeared in other countries, it is evident that the opinion of the world is changing with respect to systems of Government, and that revolutions are not within the compass of political calculations. The progress of time and circumstances, which men assign to the accomplishment of great changes, is too mechanical to measure the force of the mind, and the rapidity of reflection, by which revolutions are generated: All the old governments have received a shock from those that already appear, and which were once more improbable, and are a greater subject of wonder, than a general revolution in Europe would be now.
When we survey the wretched condition of man, under the monarchical and hereditary systems of Government, dragged from his home by one power, or driven by another, and impoverished by taxes more than by enemies, it becomes evident that those systems are bad, and that a general revolution in the principle and construction of Governments is necessary.
What is government more than the management of the affairs of a Nation? It is not, and from its nature cannot be, the property of any particular man or family, but of the whole community, at whose expense it is supported; and though by force and contrivance it has been usurped into an inheritance, the usurpation cannot alter the right of things. Sovereignty, as a matter of right, appertains to the Nation only, and not to any individual; and a Nation has at all times an inherent indefeasible right to abolish any form of Government it finds inconvenient, and to establish such as accords with its interest, disposition and happiness. The romantic and barbarous distinction of men into Kings and subjects, though it may suit the condition of courtiers, cannot that of citizens; and is exploded by the principle upon which Governments are now founded. Every citizen is a member of the Sovereignty, and, as such, can acknowledge no personal subjection; and his obedience can be only to the laws.
When men think of what Government is, they must necessarily suppose it to possess a knowledge of all the objects and matters upon which its authority is to be exercised. In this view of Government, the republican system, as established by America and France, operates to embrace the whole of a Nation; and the knowledge necessary to the interest of all the parts, is to be found in the center, which the parts by representation form: But the old Governments are on a construction that excludes knowledge as well as happiness; government by Monks, who knew nothing of the world beyond the walls of a Convent, is as consistent as government by Kings.
What were formerly called Revolutions, were little more than a change of persons, or an alteration of local circumstances. They rose and fell like things of course, and had nothing in their existence or their fate that could influence beyond the spot that produced them. But what we now see in the world, from the Revolutions of America and France, are a renovation of the natural order of things, a system of principles as universal as truth and the existence of man, and combining moral with political happiness and national prosperity.
"I. Men are born, and always continue, free and equal in respect of their rights. Civil distinctions, therefore, can be founded only on public utility.
"II. The end of all political associations is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man; and these rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance of oppression.
"III. The nation is essentially the source of all sovereignty; nor can any Individual, or Any Body Of Men, be entitled to any authority which is not expressly derived from it."
In these principles, there is nothing to throw a Nation into confusion by inflaming ambition. They are calculated to call forth wisdom and abilities, and to exercise them for the public good, and not for the emolument or aggrandisement of particular descriptions of men or families. Monarchical sovereignty, the enemy of mankind, and the source of misery, is abolished; and the sovereignty itself is restored to its natural and original place, the Nation. Were this the case throughout Europe, the cause of wars would be taken away.
It is attributed to Henry the Fourth of France, a man of enlarged and benevolent heart, that he proposed, about the year 1610, a plan for abolishing war in Europe. The plan consisted in constituting an European Congress, or as the French authors style it, a Pacific Republic; by appointing delegates from the several Nations who were to act as a Court of arbitration in any disputes that might arise between nation and nation.
Had such a plan been adopted at the time it was proposed, the taxes of England and France, as two of the parties, would have been at least ten millions sterling annually to each Nation less than they were at the commencement of the French Revolution.
To conceive a cause why such a plan has not been adopted (and that instead of a Congress for the purpose of preventing war, it has been called only to terminate a war, after a fruitless expense of several years) it will be necessary to consider the interest of Governments as a distinct interest to that of Nations.
Whatever is the cause of taxes to a Nation, becomes also the means of revenue to Government. Every war terminates with an addition of taxes, and consequently with an addition of revenue; and in any event of war, in the manner they are now commenced and concluded, the power and interest of Governments are increased. War, therefore, from its productiveness, as it easily furnishes the pretence of necessity for taxes and appointments to places and offices, becomes a principal part of the system of old Governments; and to establish any mode to abolish war, however advantageous it might be to Nations, would be to take from such Government the most lucrative of its branches. The frivolous matters upon which war is made, show the disposition and avidity of Governments to uphold the system of war, and betray the motives upon which they act.
Why are not Republics plunged into war, but because the nature of their Government does not admit of an interest distinct from that of the Nation? Even Holland, though an ill-constructed Republic, and with a commerce extending over the world, existed nearly a century without war: and the instant the form of Government was changed in France, the republican principles of peace and domestic prosperity and economy arose with the new Government; and the same consequences would follow the cause in other Nations.
As war is the system of Government on the old construction, the animosity which Nations reciprocally entertain, is nothing more than what the policy of their Governments excites to keep up the spirit of the system. Each Government accuses the other of perfidy, intrigue, and ambition, as a means of heating the imagination of their respective Nations, and incensing them to hostilities. Man is not the enemy of man, but through the medium of a false system of Government. Instead, therefore, of exclaiming against the ambition of Kings, the exclamation should be directed against the principle of such Governments; and instead of seeking to reform the individual, the wisdom of a Nation should apply itself to reform the system.
Whether the forms and maxims of Governments which are still in practice, were adapted to the condition of the world at the period they were established, is not in this case the question. The older they are, the less correspondence can they have with the present state of things. Time, and change of circumstances and opinions, have the same progressive effect in rendering modes of Government obsolete as they have upon customs and manners.—Agriculture, commerce, manufactures, and the tranquil arts, by which the prosperity of Nations is best promoted, require a different system of Government, and a different species of knowledge to direct its operations, than what might have been required in the former condition of the world.
As it is not difficult to perceive, from the enlightened state of mankind, that hereditary Governments are verging to their decline, and that Revolutions on the broad basis of national sovereignty and Government by representation, are making their way in Europe, it would be an act of wisdom to anticipate their approach, and produce Revolutions by reason and accommodation, rather than commit them to the issue of convulsions.
From what we now see, nothing of reform in the political world ought to be held improbable. It is an age of Revolutions, in which everything may be looked for. The intrigue of Courts, by which the system of war is kept up, may provoke a confederation of Nations to abolish it: and an European Congress to patronise the progress of free Government, and promote the civilisation of Nations with each other, is an event nearer in probability, than once were the revolutions and alliance of France and America.
Musean translation
Mouseia’s complete machine-assisted Musean translation, made directly from the complete English text of Parts I and II with Paine’s preface, appendix and author’s notes (Conway’s edition, 1894) for fidelity, the author’s force and cadence, and modern clarity.
These two distinct and opposed forms rest on two distinct and opposed foundations: reason and ignorance. Government demands talent and ability, and neither can be inherited. Hereditary succession therefore asks a person to believe what reason cannot accept, a belief that can be established only through ignorance; the more ignorant a country, the better suited it is to this kind of government.
By contrast, government in a well-constituted republic asks no one to believe more than reason allows. A person can see the rationale of the whole system, its origins and its workings. Since it is best supported when best understood, human faculties act boldly and acquire, under this form of government, a gigantic strength of character.
Each form thus moves on a different foundation, one freely through reason, the other through ignorance. We must next ask what gives motion to the kind of government called mixed government, or, as it is sometimes absurdly styled, a government of this, that, and the other.
The driving force of this kind of government must be corruption. However imperfect election and representation may be in mixed governments, they still engage more reason than suits the hereditary part; reason must therefore be bought off. Mixed government is an imperfect version of everything, its discordant parts cemented and soldered together by corruption so that they may act as one. Mr. Burke seems profoundly offended that France, once resolved upon revolution, did not adopt what he calls “A British Constitution”; the regret with which he says so suggests he suspects that the British Constitution needs company to make its defects look less conspicuous.
In mixed governments there is no responsibility: each part covers the others until responsibility disappears, while the corruption that drives the machine also devises its own escape. The maxim that a King can do no wrong puts him in the same secure position as an idiot or a person of unsound mind; responsibility cannot attach to him. It then falls to the Minister, who takes shelter behind a majority in Parliament that he can always command through offices, pensions, and corruption. That majority vindicates itself by the very authority with which it shields the Minister. In this rotation, responsibility is flung away from both the parts and the whole.
A part of government that can do no wrong must, by implication, do nothing: it is merely the instrument of another power, acting on that power’s advice and direction. In mixed governments what passes for the King is the Cabinet. The Cabinet is always part of Parliament, and its members justify in one capacity what they advise and carry out in another. Mixed government thus becomes a perpetual riddle, burdening a country, through the corruption required to solder its parts together, with the expense of maintaining every form of government at once. It resolves at last into government by committee, in which advisers, actors, approvers, defenders, those responsible and those not responsible, are all the same people.
Through this pantomime of changing scenes and characters, the parts help each other undertake what neither would dare do alone. When money must be raised, the seeming multiplicity dissolves, and the parts lavish parliamentary praise upon one another. Each marvels at the other’s wisdom, generosity, and selflessness; together they sigh in pity over the burdens of the Nation.
Nothing of this soldering, praising, and pitying can occur in a well-constituted republic. Representation is equal across the country and complete in itself; however divided into legislative and executive branches, all derive from the same natural source. Its parts are not strangers to one another, as democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy are. With no discordant divisions, there is nothing to corrupt through compromise or confuse through contrivance. Public measures appeal directly to the Nation’s understanding and, standing on their merits, reject flattery directed at vanity. The ceaseless whine over the burden of taxes, however effective in mixed governments, is at odds with the sense and spirit of a republic. If taxes are necessary, they are therefore beneficial; if they need an apology, the apology itself amounts to an indictment. Why, then, is humanity so deceived, or why does it deceive itself?
When people speak of kings and subjects, or divide and combine government under the names monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, what are thinking people to understand by these terms? If two or more separate elements of human power actually existed, we could identify the distinct origins to which those terms would apply. But there is only one human species, and therefore only one element of human power: humanity itself. Monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy are creatures of the imagination; a thousand more could be invented as readily as three.
The Revolutions of America and France, together with signs elsewhere, make clear that the world’s judgment on systems of government is changing, and revolutions lie beyond the reach of political calculation. The timetable that people assign to great changes is too mechanical to measure the force of the mind or the speed of reflection that generates revolutions. The revolutions already before us have shaken every old government; once thought less likely than a general European revolution would seem now, they are also more astonishing.
Survey the misery of humanity under monarchical and hereditary governments: people dragged from their homes by one power or driven out by another, impoverished more by taxes than by enemies. It becomes clear that these systems are bad, and that the principles and structure of governments everywhere must be transformed.
What is government but the management of a Nation’s affairs? It is not, and by its nature cannot be, the property of any particular person or family. It belongs to the entire community that pays to sustain it. Force and cunning may have usurped it as an inheritance, but usurpation cannot change what is right. Sovereignty belongs by right to the Nation alone, never to an individual. A Nation always possesses an inherent, indefeasible right to abolish any form of government it finds unsuitable and establish one suited to its interests, disposition, and happiness. The fanciful and barbarous division of people into Kings and subjects may suit courtiers, but not citizens; the principle on which governments are now founded rejects it. Every citizen shares in sovereignty and therefore can acknowledge no personal subjection; obedience is owed only to the laws.
When people consider government, they must assume it knows all the matters over which it exercises authority. Seen in this light, the republican system established by America and France embraces an entire Nation; the knowledge needed for the good of every part is gathered at the center formed by those parts through representation. Old governments, however, are built to exclude knowledge as well as happiness: government by Monks who know nothing beyond their Convent walls is as reasonable as government by Kings.
What once passed for Revolutions were scarcely more than changes of personnel or local circumstances. They rose and fell as a matter of course; neither their existence nor their fate affected places beyond their birthplace. What we now witness in the Revolutions of America and France is the restoration of the natural order: a system of principles as universal as truth and human existence, uniting moral and political happiness with national prosperity.
“I. Men are born and always remain free and equal in their rights. Civil distinctions, therefore, can rest only on public utility.
“II. The purpose of every political association is to preserve the natural and imprescriptible rights of man; these rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.
“III. The nation is fundamentally the source of all sovereignty; no Individual, or Any Body Of Men, can possess authority unless it is expressly derived from the nation.”
Nothing in these principles inflames ambition and plunges a Nation into disorder. They are designed to summon wisdom and ability into service of the public good, not the profit or aggrandizement of particular groups or families. Monarchical sovereignty, the enemy of humanity and the source of misery, is abolished; sovereignty returns to its natural and original home, the Nation. Were this true across Europe, the cause of wars would disappear.
Henry the Fourth of France, a man of generous and benevolent spirit, is credited with proposing, about the year 1610, a plan to abolish war in Europe. His plan was to establish a European Congress—or, as French authors call it, a Pacific Republic—by appointing delegates from the various Nations to serve as a court of arbitration in disputes between nations.
Had this plan been adopted when proposed, the taxes paid by England and France, as two of its parties, would each have been at least ten millions sterling annually less than they were at the start of the French Revolution.
To understand why it was not adopted—and why a Congress has been convened only to end a war after years of fruitless expense, rather than to prevent one—we must consider the interests of Governments as distinct from the interests of Nations.
Whatever produces taxes for a Nation also produces revenue for its Government. Every war ends with higher taxes, and thus higher revenue; whatever the outcome of wars as they are now begun and concluded, Governments gain power and advantage. War, productive as it is, readily supplies the pretext of necessity both for taxes and for appointments to offices and positions. It thus becomes a central part of the system of old Governments. To establish any means of abolishing war, however advantageous to Nations, would deprive those Governments of their most lucrative branch. The trivial causes for which wars are waged show how eager Governments are to preserve the system of war, and reveal the motives behind their actions.
Why are Republics not plunged into war, if not because their form of government cannot sustain an interest apart from that of the Nation? Even Holland, an ill-constructed Republic with worldwide commerce, went nearly a century without war. The moment France changed its form of government, republican principles of peace, domestic prosperity, and economy arose with the new Government; the same cause would have the same effects in other Nations.
War is the system of Government under the old construction. The hostility Nations feel toward one another is merely what their Governments’ policies stir up to sustain that system. Each Government accuses the other of treachery, intrigue, and ambition to inflame its own Nation’s imagination and incite it to hostilities. Humanity is not naturally its own enemy: a false system of Government makes it so. Rather than denounce the ambition of Kings, then, we should denounce the principle of their Governments; rather than try to reform an individual, a Nation should wisely set about reforming the system.
Whether the forms and maxims of Government still in use suited the world when they were first established is not the question here. The older they are, the less they can answer to present conditions. Time and changes in circumstance and opinion render forms of Government obsolete just as they do customs and manners. Agriculture, commerce, manufacturing, and the peaceful arts that best advance the prosperity of Nations demand a different system of Government, and different knowledge to guide it, from what an earlier world may have required.
The enlightened condition of humanity makes it easy to see hereditary Governments approaching their decline, while Revolutions founded broadly on national sovereignty and representative Government gain ground in Europe. Wisdom would anticipate their arrival, bringing about Revolutions through reason and accommodation rather than leaving them to violent upheaval.
In light of what we now see, no political reform should be judged improbable. This is an age of Revolutions, when anything may happen. Court intrigues, which sustain the system of war, may provoke a confederation of Nations to abolish it. A European Congress to support the advance of free Government and foster peaceful relations and civilization among Nations is nearer to possibility than the revolutions and alliance of France and America once seemed.
Plain English translation
Mouseia’s complete Plain English edition, made independently and directly from the complete English text of Parts I and II with Paine’s preface, appendix and author’s notes (Conway’s edition, 1894).
These two different and opposing forms of government rest on different and opposing foundations: reason and ignorance. Running a government takes talent and ability, and neither is inherited. So hereditary succession requires people to believe something reason cannot support. It can only be established through ignorance. The less educated a country is, the better suited it is to this kind of government.
By contrast, a well-designed republic asks people to believe nothing their reason cannot accept. They can see why the whole system exists, where it came from, and how it works. The better they understand it, the stronger it becomes. Under this form of government, people can use their abilities confidently and develop remarkable strength of character.
Each system, then, works on a different basis. One moves freely with the help of reason; the other depends on ignorance. Next we must ask what keeps the kind of government called a mixed government moving. Sometimes it is laughably described as a government of this, that, and the other thing.
The driving force of this kind of government must be corruption. Even when elections and representation are flawed in mixed governments, they allow more use of reason than suits the hereditary part. So that reason has to be bought off. A mixed government is a flawed mixture of everything. Corruption holds its conflicting parts together so they can act as one. Mr. Burke seems very upset that France, once it decided on revolution, did not adopt what he calls “A British Constitution.” The regret in his words suggests he suspected the British Constitution needed another flawed constitution beside it to make its own faults seem less conspicuous.
In mixed governments no one is accountable. The parts shield one another until responsibility disappears, and the corruption that keeps the system running also provides a way out for those involved. The rule that a King can do no wrong gives him the same protection from responsibility as a person unable to think or understand their actions. Responsibility then falls to the Minister. He hides behind a majority in Parliament, which he can always secure by handing out positions and pensions and through corruption. The majority, in turn, claims the same authority to justify itself that it uses to protect the Minister. As responsibility goes round in this circle, no part and no government as a whole accepts it.
If one part of a government can do no wrong, that suggests it does nothing at all. It is merely an instrument controlled by another power and acts on that power's advice and orders. What people call the King in a mixed government is really the Cabinet. The Cabinet is always part of Parliament, and its members use their role in one body to justify what they advised and did in the other. The result is a government that never makes sense. A country must pay, through the corruption needed to join the parts, the cost of supporting every form of government at once. In the end it is government by a committee. The same people advise, act, approve, justify, bear responsibility, and claim not to be responsible.
In this theatrical arrangement the parts switch roles and help each other do things that neither would dare do alone. When money is needed, their apparent differences disappear, and members of Parliament praise one another extravagantly. Each expresses astonishment at the other's wisdom, generosity, and selflessness. Then all of them sigh with pity over the nation's burdens.
None of this patching together, mutual praise, or show of pity can happen in a well-designed republic. Representation is equal across the country and complete in itself. However power is divided into legislative and executive branches, all of it comes from the same natural source. Its parts are not strangers to each other as democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy are. Since they do not have conflicting identities, there is nothing to buy off through compromise or obscure through clever schemes. Public policies speak for themselves to the nation's understanding. They stand on their merits and need no flattery aimed at people's vanity. Constantly moaning about the burden of taxes may work in a mixed government, but it conflicts with the sense and spirit of a republic. If taxes are necessary, they bring benefits. If they need an apology, the apology itself admits there is something wrong with them. Why, then, are people deceived, and why do they deceive themselves?
When people are called kings and subjects, or when government is described as a combination of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, what are reasonable people supposed to understand? If human power really had two or more distinct sources, we could see where each of those terms applied. But there is only one kind of human being and therefore only one source of human power: people themselves. Monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy are inventions of the imagination. Anyone could invent a thousand such categories as easily as three.
The American and French Revolutions, and signs in other countries, make it clear that views about systems of government are changing around the world. Revolutions cannot be predicted by ordinary political calculations. People often calculate how much time and what circumstances great changes require. That approach is too mechanical to measure the mind's power or how quickly thought can produce revolutions. The revolutions that have already happened have shaken all the old governments. Once, those revolutions seemed even less likely, and more astonishing, than a Europe-wide revolution seems now.
Look at people's miserable condition under hereditary monarchy. One power drags them from home and another drives them away, while taxes make them poorer than enemies do. Clearly those systems are bad. The principles and structure of governments need a general revolution.
What is government but the management of a nation's affairs? By its very nature it cannot be the property of one person or family. It belongs to the whole community that pays for it. Force and manipulation may have turned government into an inherited possession, but that seizure cannot change who has the right to it. Sovereignty belongs by right to the nation alone, not to any individual. A nation always has an inherent right that cannot be taken away: it can abolish any form of government it finds unsuitable and establish one that fits its interests, character, and happiness. The strange and brutal division of people into Kings and subjects may suit courtiers, but it does not suit citizens. The principles on which governments are now founded reject it. Every citizen shares in sovereignty. No citizen, therefore, can accept personal subjection to another, and each owes obedience only to the laws.
When people think about government, they must assume it understands all the matters over which it has power. The republican system established by America and France includes the whole nation. Through representation, all its parts create a center containing the knowledge needed to serve each part's interests. But old governments are built in a way that excludes knowledge as well as happiness. Government by monks who knew nothing of the world beyond the walls of a convent makes as much sense as government by kings.
What used to be called revolutions were usually no more than changes of leaders or local conditions. They came and went as a matter of course. Neither their existence nor their outcome mattered beyond the place where they happened. But the American and French Revolutions show us something different: a renewal of the natural order. They offer principles as universal as truth and human existence, joining moral happiness to political happiness and national prosperity.
“I. Men are born free and equal in their rights, and they always remain so. Differences in civil status can therefore be based only on what benefits the public.
“II. Every political association exists to protect people's natural rights, which can never be lost through the passage of time. These rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.
“III. The nation is the source of all sovereignty. No individual or group can have any authority unless it comes expressly from the nation.”
These principles will not throw a nation into turmoil by stirring up ambition. They are meant to bring out wisdom and ability and put them to work for the public good, not to enrich or raise the standing of certain groups or families. Monarchical sovereignty, an enemy to humanity and a source of suffering, is abolished. Sovereignty returns to its natural and original place: the nation. If this happened throughout Europe, it would remove the cause of wars.
Henry the Fourth of France, a broad-minded and kindhearted man, is said to have proposed a plan to end war in Europe around the year 1610. Under his plan the nations would send delegates to a European Congress, or what French writers call a Pacific Republic. This congress would act as a court to settle disputes between nations.
If that plan had been adopted when proposed, England and France, two of the countries involved, would each have paid at least ten millions sterling less in annual taxes than they did when the French Revolution began.
To understand why the plan was not adopted, we need to separate the interests of governments from those of nations. Instead of creating a congress to prevent war, nations have called one only to end a war after years of wasted expense.
Whatever forces a nation to pay taxes also brings revenue to its government. Every war ends with higher taxes and therefore higher government revenue. Under the present way of starting and ending wars, governments gain power and serve their own interests whatever the outcome. War is profitable. It readily provides an excuse to raise taxes and give people jobs and offices. It has therefore become a central part of old government systems. Ending war might greatly benefit nations, but it would take away one of those governments' richest sources of income. The trivial reasons for which they make war show how eager governments are to keep this system going and reveal their motives.
Why do republics avoid war? Because their form of government gives rulers no interests separate from the nation's. Even Holland, despite being a poorly designed republic with worldwide trade, went nearly a century without war. As soon as France changed its form of government, the new government adopted republican principles of peace, prosperity at home, and careful spending. The same cause would bring the same results in other nations.
In old-style governments, war is part of the system. The hostility nations feel toward one another comes from their governments' policies, which stir it up to keep that system alive. Each government accuses the other of treachery, scheming, and ambition. In this way it excites its people's imagination and drives them toward conflict. People are not naturally enemies of other people. They become enemies through a false system of government. So instead of denouncing the ambition of kings, we should denounce the principle behind such governments. Rather than trying to reform one ruler, a nation should wisely reform its system.
The question here is not whether the forms and rules of government still in use suited the world when they were first established. The older they are, the less likely they are to fit the present. Time and changes in circumstances and opinions make forms of government obsolete, just as they make customs and manners obsolete. Agriculture, commerce, manufacturing, and peaceful pursuits do the most to bring prosperity to nations. They need a different system of government, directed by different knowledge, from any that may have been needed in earlier times.
It is easy to see, in an age when people are better informed, that hereditary governments are declining. Revolutions based broadly on national sovereignty and representative government are advancing in Europe. It would be wise to prepare for them and bring about change through reason and compromise, rather than leaving it to violent upheaval.
Judging by what we see now, no political reform should be dismissed as unlikely. This is an age of revolutions, when anything may happen. The schemes of royal courts that keep war going may push nations to join forces to end it. A European Congress that supports the spread of free government and helps nations become more civilized in their dealings with one another is more likely now than the revolutions and alliance of France and America once seemed.