Republic is opposed not to monarchy, in the modern European
sense, but to monarchy in the ancient or absolute sense.
Lacedaemon had kings; yet it was no less republican than Athens;
and Rome was called and was a republic under the emperors no less
than under the consuls. Republic, respublica, by the very force
of the term, means the public wealth, or, in good English, the
commonwealth; that is, government founded not on personal or
private wealth, but on the public wealth, public territory, or
domain, or a Government that vests authority in the nation, and
attaches the nation to a certain definite territory. France,
Spain, Italy, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, even Great Britain in
substance though not in form, are all, in the strictest sense of
the word, republican states; for the king or emperor does not
govern in his own private right, but solely as representative of
the power and majesty of the state. The distinctive mark of
republicanism is the substitution of the state for the personal
chief, and public authority for personal or private right.
Republicanism is really civilization as opposed to barbarism, and
all civility, in the old Sense of the word, or Civilian in
Italian, is republican, and is applied in modern tiles to
breeding or refinement of manners, simply because these are
characteristics of a republican, or polished [from .
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