Yet when the state delegates the full or
chief governing power to the king, and makes him its sole or
principal representative, he may, with sufficient accuracy for
ordinary purposes, be called sovereign. Then, understanding by
the ministry or government the legislative and judicial, as well
as the executive functions, whether united in one or separated
into distinct and mutually independent departments, the English
distinction will express accurately enough, except for strictly
scientific purposes, the distinction between the state and the
government.
Still, it is only in despotic states, which are not founded on
right, but force, that the king can say, L'etat, c'est moi, I am
the state; and Shakespeare's usage of calling the king of France
simply France, and the king of England simply England, smacks of
feudalism, under which monarchy is an estate, property, not a
public trust. It corresponds to the Scottish usage of calling
the proprietor by the name of his estate. It is never to be
forgotten that in republican states the king has only a delegated
sovereignty, that the people, as well as God, are above him. He
holds his power, as the Emperor of the French professes to hold
his, by the grace of God and the national will--the only title by
which a king or emperor can legitimately hold power.
The king or emperor not being the state, and the government,
whatever its form or constitution, being a creature of the state,
he can be dethroned, and the whole government even virtually
overthrown, without dissolving the state or the political society.
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