Zera Fink

The Classical Republicans

To Filmer's contentions that monarchy is the form of government appointed by God, that royal power is absolute because sovereignty is indivisible, that states originated out of the expansion of families, and that kings exercised their power by right of inheritance from the paternal power bestowed by God on the head of a family, Sydney replied that the people are sovereign and may set up any form of government they choose, that government rests on a compact, that a king is a king only as long as he observes the law, that when he fails to do so he may be deposed and the people alter the government in any way they wish, and that absolutism had no basis in the law of God or nature or the constitution of England. These contentions remind one of nothing so much as Milton's arguments in the First defense. It is, in fact, no exaggeration to sav that Sydney in these matters answered Filmer with the very theories with which Milton had replied to Salmasius. Such ideas, of course, were not inconsistent wich the acceptance of limited monarchy, but they had been prominently associated in the past with republicanism, and they had a republican ring about them. Moreover, they contained a justification of republicanism if men chose to have a republic, and a vindication of the right to set up one even if doing so involved rebellion against an established monarchy.

But if these contentions indicate that Sydney's statement that he opposed only absolutism should be disregarded, there are others) which leave no doubt that it must be. The Discourses abound in arguments which, ostensibly directed against absolutism, apply with equal force to all forms of monarchy. One of the most insistently urged of Sydney's points is that monarchies do not put the best man or men at the head of the stare. Because of the hereditary principle, the head of a monarchy might be 'a child, a fool, a superannuated dotard, or a madman.' 'Those governments only deserve praise,' he wrote, 'who put the power into the hands of the best men.' Assuming that the head of the stare would also be the head of the armed forces, he found monarchies especially defective in time of war. Nor could a wise and good council supply the defects of young, foolish, or ill-disposed kings, for such rulers would choose men as foolish or corrupt as themselves. Even if wise and honest men were chosen, the situation would be little better, for there would always be a variety of opinions among them, and a weak or vicious prince would choose the worst of several proposed courses. Good monarchs were rare, and when they were found, their virtues perished with them. History showed that greatness and goodness were not inherited by their descendants. In France at one time ten base and slothful kings had succeeded one another in a row. Even the best constituted of states were broken by a succession of two or three weak or evil rulers. Not only do such arguments apply to limited monarchy, but Sydney frequently could not restrain himself from pointing out that they apply. The defect that nature did not insure the transmission of a good king's virtues to his progeny was not only 'a breach never to be repaired,' but 'a disease...not only in absolute monarchies, but in those also where any regard is had to succession of blood, though under the strictest limitations.'

It is, however, only when we come to Sydney's further remarks on the disruptive character of the hereditary principle that we grasp the full measure of his repudiation of monarchy. This principle he found uncertain in meaning and open to varying interpretations. It had been understood in at least five different ways in as many different countries. Even when one of these was chosen, it was beset by constant ambiguities, and hence was productive of an unending scries of struggles over the succession. Wars over this matter had made the history of monarchies a record of civil strife. By consequence, monarchy as a form of government, whether absolute or limited, was lacking in stability. France seemed to Sydney to afford a striking illustration of his point, but the miseries of England from this cause surpassed all others. But it was nor only wars made to secure the succession that disturbed the peace of monarchies; they were sub)cct to civil wars between a reigning king and those who thought they had a right to his title. It was a nice question 'whether the most frequent and bloody wars do arise from the quarrels of divers competitors for crowns, before anyone gain the possession of them, or afterwards, through the fears of him that would keep what he has gained, or the rage of those who would wrest it from him.'

A second fundamental thing which makes no less clear Sydney's rejection of monarchy is his remarks on the nature of man. 'Man,' he wrote, 'is of an aspiring nature, and apt to put too high a value on himself. They who arc raised above their brethren, though but a little, desire to go farther, and if they gain the name of king, they think themselves wronged and degraded, when they arc not suffered to do what they please. In these things they never want masters; and the nearer they come to a power that is not easily restrained by law, the more passionately they desire to abolish all that opposes it.' Even when a prince was virtuous and began by desiring nothing more than the power allowed him by law, he was subject to greater temptations to invade the liberty of his subjects than human nature could be expected to withstand. 'The strength of his own affections,' Sydney declared, 'will ever be against him. Wives, children, and servants will always join with those enemies that arise in his own breast to pervert him; if he has any weak side, any lust unsubdued, they will gain the victory. He has not searched into the nature of man, who thinks that anyone can resist when he is thus on all sides assaulted.' Monarchy, in short, by the very constitution of human nature, tended always to degenerate into tyranny. It was a defective form of government because in the most important place of all it was lacking in those adequate restraints on the defects of human nature which all the classical republicans saw as an essential of any well-contrived government.