[clxiv. 268]

1820. Sept. 5. 1822 Aug. 9 Inapplicable or Superseded

Emancipation Spanish /Constitut Code/

Summary

? Corruptive influence?

or ? Domination impossible?

GG. If you cannot exclude Monarchy, minimize its power.

If Naples prefers your Constitutional Monarchy to a Republic, it /Monarchy/ is best for her: if Sicily prefers a Republic to your Constitutional Monarchy, it /a Republic/ is best for her. Would to God I /Oh that I could but see/ both countries united in any form! united under a Constitutional Monarchy, or under a Republic, or the one under the one form of government the other under the other. At this distance I can not take upon me to be sure /to say/ that these men were in the wrong, who in Spanish America used their endeavours to establish a Constitutional Monarchy under a different Monarch in preference to a Republic. To /For/ all Candidates for office /who look to office/ true it is that a Monarchy is beyond comparison better than a Republic and for the same reason a mixt Monarchy better than a pure one. True. But in this or that particular State it follows not that mixt Monarchy only because it is best for the influential few is relatively a bad one: for if no better is to be had it is best for the subject many likewise. In a Republic there are no needless or overpaid offices, because there is no Corrupter-General to employ the pay of them in paying /luring/ the Representatives of the people to betray their trust, and join with him in plundering their constituents. In a pure Monarchy though the pride and vanity of the Monarch [...?] needless Offices, it is only through the /his/ indolence and negligence of the Monarch if there be any overpaid ones: for as there exists no man to whom any declared resistance can be opposed to his will can be opposed, so there is no one in whose instance resistance requires to be softened. As to a republic, so it be at once practicable and palatable what makes me prefer it to a mixt Monarchy is that not only a /is the best/ mixt Monarchy is not only not so good as a republic at the first, but that by its very nature it is destined to grow worse and worse: worse and worse till by repose it sinks into a pure Monarchy, as ours has so long been sinking, or by convulsion rises into a republic, as ours, if ever it rises at all, seems destined to rise. A republic (bating extraneous accident such as all governments and all men are exposed /liable/ to) will in proportion as it changes, grow better and better, because there is something to make it better till it arrives at the best and nothing in it to make it worse. A pure Monarchy can not grow worse, because /for/ it is at all times at the worst. A mixt Monarchy alone is by its very nature destined to change, and that only one way, namely by less bad to worse. It is made worse and worse, by every man added to the army under the Monarch, and by every penny added to the taxes. By the every man it is made the more tyrannical; by the every penny it is made the more corrupt, and by every armed man not only the more tyrannical but the more corrupt: for to encrease the army is to encrease not only force but patronage.