I cannot conclude this without making some applications of my three principles.
1st Question.] It is a question whether the laws ought to oblige a subject to accept a public employment. My opinion is that they ought in a republic, but not in a monarchical government. In the former, public employments are attestations of virtue, depositions with which a citizen is entrusted by his country, for whose sake alone he ought to live, to act, and to think, consequently lie cannot refuse them.[55] In the latter, public offices are testimonials of honour; now such is the capriciousness of honour that it chooses to accept none of these testimonies but when and in what manner it pleases.
The late King of Sardinia[56] inflicted punishments on his subjects who refused the dignities and public offices of the state. In this he unknowingly followed republican ideas: but his method of governing in other respects sufficiently proves that this was not his intention.
2nd Question.] Secondly, it is questioned whether a subject should be obliged to accept a post in the army inferior to that which he held before. Among the Romans it was usual to see a captain serve the next year under his lieutenant.[57] This is because virtue in republics requires a continual sacrifice of our persons and of our repugnances for the good of the state. But in monarchies, honour, true or false, will never bear with what it calls degrading itself.
In despotic governments, where honour, posts, and ranks are equally abused, they indiscriminately make a prince a scullion, and a scullion a prince.
3rd Question.] Thirdly, it may be inquired, whether civil and military employments should be conferred on the same person. In republics I think they should be joined, but in monarchies separated. In the former it would be extremely dangerous to make the profession of arms a particular state, distinct from that of civil functions; and in the latter, no less dangerous would it be to confer these two employments on the same person.
In republics a person takes up arms only with a view to defend his country and its laws; it is because he is a citizen he makes himself for a while a soldier. Were these two distinct states, the person who under arms thinks himself a citizen would soon be made sensible he is only a soldier.
In monarchies, they whose condition engages them in the profession of arms have nothing but glory, or at least honour or fortune, in view. To men, therefore, like these, the prince should never give any civil employments; on the contrary, they ought to be checked by the civil magistrate, that the same persons may not have at the same time the confidence of the people and the power to abuse it.[58]
We have only to cast an eye on a nation that may be justly called a republic, disguised under the form of monarchy, and we shall see how jealous they are of making a separate order of the profession of arms, and how the military state is constantly allied with that of the citizen, and even sometimes of the magistrate, to the end that these qualities may be a pledge for their country, which should never be forgotten.
The division of civil and military employments, made by the Romans after the extinction of the republic, was not an arbitrary thing. It was a consequence of the change which happened in the constitution of Rome; it was natural to a monarchical government; and what was only commenced under Augustus[59] succeeding emperors[60] were obliged to finish, in order to temper the military government.
Procopius, therefore, the competitor of Valens the emperor, was very much to blame when, conferring the pro-consular dignity[61] upon Hormisdas, a prince of the blood royal of Persia, he restored to this magistracy the military command of which it had been formerly possessed; unless indeed he had very particular reasons for so doing. A person that aspires to the sovereignty concerns himself less about what is serviceable to the state than what is likely to promote his own interest.
4th Question.] Fourthly, it is a question whether public employments should be sold. They ought not, I think, in despotic governments, where the subjects must be instantaneously placed or displaced by the prince.
But in monarchies this custom is not at all improper, by reason it is an inducement to engage in that as a family employment which would not be undertaken through a motive of virtue; it fixes likewise every one in his duty, and renders the several orders of the kingdom more permanent. Suidas very justly observes that Anastasius had changed the empire into a kind of aristocracy, by selling all public employments.
Plato[62] cannot bear with this prostitution: "This is exactly," says he, "as if a person were to be made a mariner or pilot of a ship for his money. Is it possible that this rule should be bad in every other employment of life, and hold good only in the administration of a republic?" But Plato speaks of a republic founded on virtue, and we of a monarchy. Now, in monarchies (where, though there were no such thing as a regular sale of public offices, still the indigence and avidity of the courtier would equally prompt him to expose them to sale) chance will furnish better subjects than the prince's choice. In short, the method of attaining to honours through riches inspires and cherishes industry,[63] a thing extremely wanting in this kind of government.
5th Question.] The fifth question is in what kind of government censors are necessary. My answer is, that they are necessary in a republic, where the principle of government is virtue. We must not imagine that criminal actions only are destructive of virtue; it is destroyed also by omissions, by neglects, by a certain coolness in the love of our country, by bad examples, and by the seeds of corruption: whatever does not openly violate but elude the laws, does not subvert but weaken them, ought to fall under the inquiry and correction of the censors.
We are surprised at the punishment of the Areopagite for killing a sparrow which, to escape the pursuit of a hawk, had taken shelter in his bosom. Surprised we are also that an Areopagite should put his son to death for putting out the eyes of a little bird. But let us reflect that the question here does not relate to a criminal sentence, but to a judgment concerning manners in a republic founded on manners.
In monarchies there should be no censors; the former are founded on honour, and the nature of honour is to have the whole world for its censor. Every man who fails in this article is subject to the reproaches even of those who are void of honour.
Here the censors would be spoiled by the very people whom they ought to correct: they could not prevail against the corruption of a monarchy; the corruption rather would be too strong against them.
Hence it is obvious that there ought to be no censors in despotic governments. The example of China seems to derogate from this rule; but we shall see, in the course of this work, the particular reasons of that institution.
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1. Plutarch, Solon.
2. Ibid.
3. Philolaus of Corinth made a law at Athens that the number of the portions of land and that of inheritances should be always the same. -- Aristotle, Politics, ii. 7, 12.
4. Laws, xi.
5. Cornelius Nepos, preface. This custom began in the earliest times. Thus Abraham says of Sarah, "She is my sister, my father's daughter, but not my mother's." The same reasons occasioned the establishing the same law among different nations.
6. De specialibus legibus qu? pertinent ad pr?ceptar Decalogi.
7. x.
8. Athenis dimidium licet, Alexandri? totum. -- Seneca, De Morte Claudii.
9. Plato has a law of this kind. Laws, v.
10. Aristotle. ii. 7.
11. Solon made four classes: the first, of those who had an income of 500 minas either in corn or liquid fruits; the second, of those who had 300, and were able to keep a horse; the third, of such as had only 200; the fourth, of all those who lived by their manual labour. -- Plutarch, Solon.
12. Solon excludes from public employments all those of the fourth class.
13. They insisted upon a larger division of the conquered lands. -- Plutarch, Lives of the ancient Kings and Commanders.
14. In these, the portions or fortunes of women ought to be very much limited.
15. The magistrates there were annual, and the senators for life.
16. Lycurgus, says Xenophon, De Repub. Laced?m., 10. § 1, 2, ordained that the senators should be chosen from amongst the old men, to the end that they might not be neglected in the decline of life; thus by making them judges of the courage of young people, he rendered the old age of the former more honourable than the strength and vigour of the latter.
17. Even the Areopagus itself was subject to their censure.
18. De Repub. Laced?m., 8.
19. We may see in the Roman History how useful this power was to the republic. I shall give an instance even in the time of its greatest corruption. Aulus Fulvius was set out on his journey in order to join Catiline; his father called him back, and put him to death. -- Sallust, De Bello Catil., xxxiv.
20. In our days the Venetians, who in many respects may be said to have a very wise government, decided a dispute between a noble Venetian and a gentleman of Terra Firma in respect to precedency in a church, by declaring that out of Venice a noble Venetian had no pre-eminence over any other citizen.
21. It was inserted by the decemvirs in the two last tables. See Dionysius Helicarnassus, x.
22. As in some aristocracies in our time; nothing is more prejudicial to the government.
23. See in Strabo, xiv., in what manner the Rhodians behaved in this respect.
24. Amelot de la Houssaye, Of the Government of Venice, part III. The Claudian law forbade the senators to have any ship at sea that held above forty bushels. -- Livy, xxi. 63.
25. The informers throw their scrolls into it.
26. See Livy, xlix. A censor could not be troubled even by a censor; each made his remark without taking the opinion of his colleague; and when it otherwise happened, the censorship was in a manner abolished.
27. At Athens the Logist?, who made all the magistrates accountable for their conduct, gave no account themselves.
28. It is so practised at Venice. -- Amelot de la Houssaye, pp. 30, 31.
29. The main design of some aristocracies seems to be less the support of the state than of their nobility.
30. It is tolerated only in the common people. See Leg. 3, Cod. de comm. et mercatoribus, which is full of good sense.
31. Testament polit.
32. Barbaris cunctatio servilis, statim exequi regium videtur. -- Tacitus, Annals., v. 32.
33. Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, and other histories.
34. Testament polit.
35. Edifying Letters, coll. ii, p. 315.
36. Continuation of Pufendorf, Introduction to the History of Europe, in the article on Sweden, 10.
37. According to Sir John Chardin, there is no council of state in Persia.
38. See Ricaut, State of the Ottoman Empire, p. 196.
39. See concerning the inheritances of the Turks, Ancient and Modern Sparta. See also Ricaut on the Ottoman empire.
40. Collection of Voyages that Contributed to the Establishment of the East India Company, i. The law of Pegu is less cruel; if there happen to be children, the king succeeds only to two-thirds. Ibid., iii, p. 1.
41. See the different constitutions, especially that of 1722.
42. See Justin.
43. See the of laws as relative to the nature of the climate. xiv, below.
44. Laquilletiere, Ancient and Modern Sparta, p. 463.
45. The same may be said of compositions in regard to fair bankrupts.
46. There was no such establishment made till the Julian law, De Cessione bonorum; which preserved them from prison and from an ignominious division of their goods. -- Cod., ii. tit. 12.
47 They seem to have been too fond of confiscations in the republic of Athens.
48. Authentica bona damnatorum. -- Cod. de bon. proscript. seu damn.
49. De la Republique, v. 3.
50. Ut esse Phoebi dulcius lumen solet Jamjam cadentis -- Seneca, Troas, V. i. 1.
51. Collection of Voyages that Contributed to the Establishment of the East India Company, i, p. 80.
52. Laws, xii.
53. Leg. 6, § 2; Dig. ad leg. Jul. repet.
54. Munuscula.
55. Plato, in his Republic, viii, ranks these refusals among the marks of the corruption of a republic. In his Laws, vi, he orders them to be punished by a fine; at Venice they are punished with banishment.
56. Victor Amadeus.
57. Some centurions having appealed to the people for the employments which they had before enjoyed, "It is just, my comrades," said a centurion, "that you should look upon every post as honourable in which you have an opportunity of defending the republic." -- Livy, dec. 5, xlii, 34.
58. Ne imperium ad optimos nobilium transferretur, Senatum militia vetuit Gallienus, etiam adire exercitum. -- Aurelius Victor, De C?saribus.
59. Augustus deprived the senators, proconsuls, and governors of the privilege of wearing arms. -- Dio, xxxiii.
60. Constantine. See Zozimus, ii.
61. Ammianus Marcellinus, xxvi, Et Civilia, more veterum, et bella recturo.
62. Republic, viii.
63. We see the laziness of Spain, where all public employments are given away.
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