What is the monarch to do when
these unfavourable opinions happen to be in the majority? Is he to
alter his course? Is he to defer to the nation? If so, he is no longer
a despot, but a constitutional king; an organ or first minister of the
people, distinguished only by being irremovable. If not, he must
either put down opposition by his despotic power, or there will
arise a permanent antagonism between the people and one man, which can
have but one possible ending. Not even a religious principle of
passive obedience and "right divine" would long ward off the natural
consequences of such a position. The monarch would have to succumb,
and conform to the conditions of constitutional royalty, or give place
to some one who would. The despotism, being thus chiefly nominal,
would possess few of the advantages supposed to belong to absolute
monarchy; while it would realise in a very imperfect degree those of a
free government; since however great an amount of liberty the citizens
might practically enjoy, they could never forget that they held it
on sufferance, and by a concession which under the existing
constitution of the state might at any moment be resumed; that they
were legally slaves, though of a prudent, or indulgent, master.
It is not much to be wondered at if impatient or disappointed
reformers, groaning under the impediments opposed to the most salutary
public improvements by the ignorance, the indifference, the
intractableness, the perverse obstinacy of a people, and the corrupt
combinations of selfish private interests armed with the powerful
weapons afforded by free institutions, should at times sigh for a
strong hand to bear down all these obstacles, and compel a
recalcitrant people to be better governed.
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