A
political aristocracy has at heart only the interests of its
order, and pursues no line of policy but the extension or
preservation of its privileges. Having little to gain and much
to lose, it opposes every political change that would either
strengthen the crown or elevate the people. The nobility in the
French Revolution were the first to desert both the king and the
kingdom, and kings have always found their readiest and firmest
allies in the people. The people in Europe have no such bitter
feelings towards royalty as they have towards the feudal
nobility--for kings have never so grievously oppressed them. In
Rome the patrician order opposed alike the emperor and the
people, except when they, as chivalric nobles sometimes will do,
turned courtiers or demagogues. They were the people of Rome and
the provinces that sustained the emperors, and they were the
emperors who sustained the people, and gave to the provincials
the privileges of Roman citizens.
Guaranties against excessive centralism are certainly needed, but
the statesman will not seek them in the feudal organization of
society--in a political aristocracy, whether founded on birth or
private wealth, nor in a privileged class of any sort. Better
trust Caesar than Brutus, or even Cato. Nor will he seek them in
the antagonism of interests intended to neutralize or balance
each other, as in the English constitution.
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