My hopes all flat, Nature within me seems And I shall shortly be with them that rest. Harrington died September 11, 1677, having lived a little more than sixty-six years. It is now time to consider the theories for which the Oceana still challenges our respect and admiration. The work is divided into a number of principal parts. The first is preliminary, treating of the general principles of government. Another shows more specifically the true art of making a commonwealth. Descending now to particulars, the author displays what he deems to be the true model for the commonwealth of England, under the name of "Oceana," and finally groups together the supposed benefits to be derived from his scheme. Beginning with the true nature of government, he declares it to be an "empire of laws and not of men." This had been asserted, it is true, by philosophers of antiquity, but it had been forgotten or disowned. He reasserted it continually, brought it into notice, and made it the corner-stone of his system. To this may probably be traced the famous declaration in the constitution of Massachusetts, part 1, article 30: In the government of this commonwealth, the legislative department shall never exercise the executive and judicial powers, or either of them; and the executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them; . . . to the end it may be a government of laws and not of men. Still, he continues, the fundamental laws may vary and be wise or unwise. Wherever they vest power, there is empire. Empire is either foreign or domestic. The latter, domestic empire, is founded on property, real or personal, land or money. Where the land is in the hands of one, there is a monarchy; where it is owned by the few, there is an aristocracy; where it is controlled by many, you have a commonwealth. Accordingly the throne of England began to shake when a great law 1 was passed in the time of King Edward I, permitting the nobility 1 Quia Emptores, 18 Edw. I, c. I. to sell their estates. The same force is not attributed to money, because of its fugitive nature. This balance in land is termed by him an "agrarian" balance, and without it in some form a government, he argues, has no long lease of life. In a democracy it would seem that the ownership of land should be much subdivided, and a class of small freeholders introduced. Here he touches upon the allowance of interest upon money in its relation to public policy. He says that interest (or usury) may sometimes be impolitic, as where the land allotments of the citizens are small, and the loan may overbalance the estate in the land. This was the real ground of the Mosaic prohibition. But in a country where merchandise is exercised it is so far from being destructive that it is necessary, else that which might be of profit to the commonwealth would rest unprofitably in private purses, there being no man that will venture his money but through hope of some gain, which, if it be so regulated that the borrower may gain more by it than the lender, usury (interest) becomes a mighty profit to the public and a charity to private men; in which sense we may not be persuaded by them that do not observe these different causes that it is against scripture.1 These "men that do not observe" were probably such men as Bishop Jewel, who denounced in the most violent manner all interest as unscriptural and diabolical. His tirades are approved even to-day by a person so noted as John Ruskin. Following this general line of thought, Harrington declares that it is not quite safe for a country to plant colonies abroad and to give the colonists full ownership of land; for, as he says, it gives a root to liberty abroad that may spring up foreign and savage, and be hostile to the mother-state. Speaking of some existing colonies, he says with remarkable foresight : They are yet babes that cannot live without sucking the breasts of their mother-cities; but such as I mistake if, when they come of age, they do not wean themselves; which causes me to wonder at princes, that like to be exhausted in that way. 1 Treatise on the Prerogative of Popular Government, p. 246. It is not, however, in his view a complete statement to affirm that empire rests upon dominion over property. One must also have regard to the principles of authority, which are internal and founded upon "the goods of the mind." If any legislator can unite these in his government with those of fortune, he comes nearest to the work of God, whose government consists of heaven, the domain of the spirit; and earth, the domain of the body. It is sad to observe that the principles of power and authority"the goods of the mind and of fortune" - do not meet or twine in the wreath or crown of empire. He now rises to a high plane and bursts out into an eloquent passage: Wherefore if we have anything of piety or prudence, let us raise ourselves out of the mire of private interest to the contemplation of virtue, and put a hand to the removal of this evil from under the sun — this evil, against which no government that is not secured can be good — this evil, from which the government that is secure must be perfect. We have wandered the earth to find out the balance of power; but to find out that of authority, we must ascend nearer heaven or to the image of God, which is the soul of man. He next affirms, that true political liberty consists in the empire of law and not in the mere fact of the existence of freedom. There must be security for its continuance. Here he crosses the path of the philosopher Hobbes, who had maintained that liberty is the same, whether the commonwealth be monarchical or popular. Hobbes had illustrated his ideas by saying that on the turrets of the city of Lucca in Italy there is inscribed in great characters the word libertas, yet no man can thence infer that a particular man has more liberty or immunity from the service of the commonwealth there than in Constantinople. Harrington aptly rejoined that this was but the case of the mountain in labor bringing forth an equivocation. He maintained a fine and accurate distinction to this effect that no one obtains his liberty from the law, but rather by the law. The source of his liberty is from the God of nature; it is only made practically secure by the rule that no man can be controlled but by law, and that law, too, framed by every private man, which by that means comes to be the liberty of the commonwealth. At this stage of his discussion, he perceives that an objection will be raised to his theories highly difficult to answer. In fact, the core of the question is not yet reached. The objector will say: How will you bring it about that men, even in a popular government, will be willing to abandon their own individual interest and follow that course which is for the general advantage? Of course it would be a fine thing to persuade every man in a popular government not to carve for himself that which he desires most, but to be mannerly at the public table and to give the best from himself to decency and the common interest. In connection with this question, he hints at a great law of self-sacrifice. We may join with him in thinking that this is more truly the lamp of that framework we call popular government, than of the buildings which men frame with their hands for habitation or worship. His principal reliance is upon the establishment of such laws or orders as may give the upper hand in all cases to common rights or interests, notwithstanding "the nearness of that which sticks to every man in private." But how can the people to be governed be trusted to establish these great primordial laws? At this point he is driven to take refuge in the power of a single legislator to establish a constitution for his people after the ancient pattern set by Solon and Lycurgus. Referring to the then existing condition of England, he would expect that Cromwell would abdicate his one-man power and formally establish a commonwealth. This must be representative in any large state. The wise and the able men will naturally and necessarily come to the front, and the others, by an equal law of necessity, will yield to them. He goes so far as to say that if, in a hap-hazard way, you should bring twenty men together to form a commonwealth, about onethird would either be wise or at least less foolish than the rest, and that these upon acquaintance would be discovered and would lead the herd. There is thus a natural aristocracy of intellectual and moral worth, diffused by God through the whole body of mankind to this end and purpose, and therefore such as the people have not only a natural but a positive obligation to make use of as their guides. These men form a natural senate, on which the legislator in establishing his government could lay hands. Their function would be to discuss, debate, give advice, and enlighten the people. The rest of the community would be represented by a popular body or assembly, whose office it would be to adopt or reject the advice given. Debating by the natural aristocracy, and selection by the people of the truth disclosed by their debates, is thus the great law of popular government. He says: "There is a party-a refined party - a nation in a nation, that must and will govern.' As a matter of detail, the senators were to be worth £100 per year, and to be elected by the people in their precincts.2 Here we have the germ of a property qualification for legislators. Harrington here struck out a great and novel truth, though we should now give it a wider application than he made of it. We would deem it impracticable to have two representative assemblies organized in such diverse ways. We would, however, agree that a large part of the duty of representative assemblies is not merely to pass laws but to discuss great and fundamental principles, while the discussions are to be submitted to the people for the purpose of moulding and guiding their general opinion. The value of this function of a popular assembly can scarcely be overestimated. Harrington failed to regard it from this modern point of view, as the immense capacities of the press in disseminating such information were then wholly unrecognized and unknown and in fact discountenanced and proscribed. Three great practical measures are now recommended with a view to the preservation of an equilibrium in a popular govern ment. 1. There must be a law limiting the amount of land which any man can own. In his own words, there must be a perpetual law, establishing and preserving the balance of dominion by such a distribution, "that no one man or number of men within the compass of the few or the aristocracy can come to overpower the whole people by their possessions in land." This is but a 1 Valerius and Publicola, p. 485. 2 Ibid., p. 483. |