The Prose Works of William Wordsworth: For the First Time Collected, With Additions from Unpublished Manuscripts. In Three Volumes.Wordsworth, William
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The Prose Works of William Wordsworth: For the First Time Collected, With Additions from Unpublished Manuscripts. In Three Volumes.
Wordsworth, William
English literature -- 19th century
My first objection to regal government is its instability, proceeding
from a variety of causes. Where monarchy is found in its greatest
intensity, as in Morocco and Turkey, this observation is illustrated in
a very pointed manner, and indeed is more or less striking as
governments are more or less despotic. The reason is obvious: as the
monarch is the chooser of his ministers, and as his own passions and
caprice are in general the sole guides of his conduct, these ministers,
instead of pursuing directly the one grand object of national welfare,
will make it their chief study to vary their measures according to his
humours. But a minister _may_ be refractory: his successor will
naturally run headlong into plans totally the reverse of the former
system; for if he treads in the same path, he is well aware that a
similar fate will attend him. This observation will apply to each
succession of kings, who, from vanity and a desire of distinction, will
in general studiously avoid any step which may lead to a suspicion that
they are so spiritless as to imitate their predecessor. That a similar
instability is not incident to Republics is evident from their very
constitution.
As from the nature of monarchy, particularly of hereditary monarchy,
there must always be a vast disproportion between the duties to be
performed and the powers that are to perform them; and as the measures
of government, far from gaining additional vigour, are, on the contrary,
enfeebled by being intrusted to one hand, what arguments can be used for
allowing to the will of a single being a weight which, as history shows,
will subvert that of the whole body politic? And this brings me to my
grand objection to monarchy, which is drawn from (THE ETERNAL NATURE OF
MAN.) The office of king is a trial to which human virtue is not equal.
Pure and universal representation, by which alone liberty can be
secured, cannot, I think, exist together with monarchy. It seems madness
to expect a manifestation of the _general_ will, at the same time that
we allow to a _particular_ will that weight which it must obtain in all
governments that can with any propriety be called monarchical. They must
war with each other till one of them is extinguished. It was so in
France and....
I shall not pursue this topic further, but, as you are a teacher of
purity of morals, I cannot but remind you of that atmosphere of
corruption without which it should seem that courts cannot exist.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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