I am far from condemning, in cases of extreme exigency, the
assumption of absolute power in the form of a temporary
dictatorship. Free nations have, in times of old, conferred such power
by their own choice, as a necessary medicine for diseases of the
body politic which could not be got rid of by less violent means.
But its acceptance, even for a time strictly limited, can only be
excused, if, like Solon or Pittacus, the dictator employs the whole
power he assumes in removing the obstacles which debar the nation from
the enjoyment of freedom. A good despotism is an altogether false
ideal, which practically (except as a means to some temporary purpose)
becomes the most senseless and dangerous of chimeras. Evil for evil, a
good despotism, in a country at all advanced in civilisation, is
more noxious than a bad one; for it is far more relaxing and
enervating to the thoughts, feelings, and energies of the people.
The despotism of Augustus prepared the Romans for Tiberius. If the
whole tone of their character had not first been prostrated by
nearly two generations of that mild slavery, they would probably
have had spirit enough left to rebel against the more odious one.
There is no difficulty in showing that the ideally best form of
government is that in which the sovereignty, or supreme controlling
power in the last resort, is vested in the entire aggregate of the
community; every citizen not only having a voice in the exercise of
that ultimate sovereignty, but being, at least occasionally, called on
to take an actual part in the government, by the personal discharge of
some public function, local or general.
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