The Constitution of England

Chapter XV

220 u c h a p t e r x v 1 u Proofs drawn from Facts, of the Truth of the Principles laid down in the present Work.—1. The peculiar Manner in which Revolutions have always been concluded in England. It may not be sufficient to have proved by arguments the advantages of the English Constitution: it will perhaps be asked, whether the effects correspond to the theory? To this question (which I confess is extremely proper) my answer is ready; it is the same which was once made, I believe, by a Lacedemonian, Come and see. If we peruse the English History, we shall be particularly struckwithone circumstance to be observed in it, and which distinguishes most advantageously the English Government from all other free governments; I mean the manner in which Revolutions and public commotions have always been terminated in England. If we read with some attention the History of other free States, we shall see that the public dissensions that have taken place in them, have constantly been terminated by settlements in which the interests only of a few were really provided for; while the grievances of the many were hardly, if at all, attended to. In England the very reverse has happened, and we find Revolutions always to have been terminated by extensive and accurate provisions for securing the general liberty. The History of the ancient Grecian Commonwealths, but above all of 1. This chapter first appeared in the original English-language edition of 1775. chapter xv 221 the Roman Republic, of which more complete accounts have been left us, afford striking proof of the former part of this observation. What was, for instance, the consequence of that great Revolution by which the Kings were driven from Rome, and in which the Senate and Patricians acted as the advisers and leaders of the People? The consequence was, as we find in Dionysius of Halicarnassus,2 and Livy, that the Senators immediately assumed all those powers, lately so much complained of by themselves, which the Kings had exercised. The execution of their future decrees was intrusted to two Magistrates taken from their own body, and entirely dependent on them, whom they called Consuls, and who were made to bear about them all the ensigns of power which had formerly attended the Kings. Only, care was taken thattheaxesandfasces,3 thesymbols of the power of life and death over the Citizens, which the Senate now claimed to itself, should not be carried before both Consuls at once, but only before one at a time, for fear, says Livy, of doubling the terror of the People (a). Nor was this all: the Senators drew over to their party those Men who had the most interest at that time among the People, and admitted them as Members into their own body (b); which indeed was a precaution they could not prudently avoid taking. But the interests of the great Men in the Republic being thus provided for,theRevolutionended.ThenewSenators, as well as the old, took care not to lessen, by making provisions for the liberty of the People, a power which was now become their own. (a) “Omnia jura (Regum) omnia insignia, primi Consules tenuere; id modò cautum eft ne si ambo fasces haberent, duplicatus terror videretur. Tit. Liv. lib. ii. § 1. [[Titus Livius (Livy) Ab urbe condita, book 2, chapter 18. De Lolme’s English text provides an approximate translation of the passage quoted in his note.]] (b) These new Senators were called conscripti: hence the name of Patres Conscripti, afterwards indiscriminately given to the whole Senate.—Tit. Liv. ibid. [[The patres conscripti , who started to be made senators at the time of the expulsion of the Tarquinkings in 510 b.c.e., were not members of the patrician class that composed the originalRoman senate. The term conscripti was used to distinguish these senators from the patricians (patricii ). See Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, book 2, chapter 1.10–11.]] 2. Greek historian and rhetorician of the late first century b.c.e., whose Antiquitates Romanae charted the history of Rome from its mythic beginnings to the period of the First Punic War in 264–241 b.c.e. 3. On the “axes and fasces,” see above, book 2, chapter 3, p. 157, note a. 222 book ii Nay, they presently stretched this power beyond its former tone; and the punishments which the Consul inflicted...