Under his protection numerous
communities were formed which knew no one above them but the King.
Obedience to a distant monarch is liberty itself compared with the
dominion of the lord of the neighbouring castle: and the monarch was
long compelled by necessities of position to exert his authority as
the ally, rather than the master, of the classes whom he had aided
in affecting their liberation. In this manner a central power,
despotic in principle though generally much restricted in practice,
was mainly instrumental in carrying the people through a necessary
stage of improvement, which representative government, if real,
would most likely have prevented them from entering upon. Nothing
short of despotic rule, or a general massacre, could have effected the
emancipation of the serfs in the Russian Empire.
The same passages of history forcibly illustrate another mode in
which unlimited monarchy overcomes obstacles to the progress of
civilisation which representative government would have had a
decided tendency to aggravate. One of the strongest hindrances to
improvement, up to a rather advanced stage, is an inveterate spirit of
locality. Portions of mankind, in many other respects capable of,
and prepared for, freedom, may be unqualified for amalgamating into
even the smallest nation. Not only may jealousies and antipathies
repel them from one another, and bar all possibility of voluntary
union, but they may not yet have acquired any of the feelings or
habits which would make the union real, supposing it to be nominally
accomplished.
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