rity uses its Power to crush Established Liberty; and that the forms of the Constitution fail in providing adequate means of resistance. It may happen that Established Authority refuses all concessions, till the sense of practical grievances becomes intolerable, and leads to popular violence. It may happen that when the popular Party is strong, men's minds are inflamed with a Love of Notional Liberty, which no practical concessions can satiate; and then, the popular Party itself violates the Constitution. In these and many other cases, we may have Revolutions, or violent and anomalous Changes in the Constitution. They are, as we have said, cases of necessity; to be justified only by their necessity.

CHAPTER IX.

ACTUAL PROGRESS OF GOVERNMENT IN ANCIENT ROME AND IN ENGLAND.

957. THE history of ancient Rome is an example of a long-continued struggle between an aristooracy and a democracy. According to the views of the most philosophical historians, the Patricians alone had a place in the original constitution of the Roman State. The Senate was the Administrative Council, with the King, and afterwards, with the Consuls, at its head; the Senate and the People (Senatus Populusque Romanus) had the Legislative Authority, exercised in the Comitia Curiata, the Assemblies of the Curies or Wards of the Patrician Houses (Gentes). The Plebs was a populace occupying a portion of the city, but not admitted to any place in the Senate, the Magistracy, or the Comitia, although forming a considerable portion of the army.

Servius Tullius, the sixth King, gave a legal organi zation to the Plebs, by dividing it into thirty Tribes ; and gave it a place in the Constitution, by the institution of Classes divided into Centuries, including, as the army included, Patricians and Plebeians together; and by the introduction of an Assembly of these, Comitia Centuriata, with authority for certain purposes. But it was long before the Plebeians obtained the advantages which such a Constitution seemed to promise them. They were still oppressed and kept under by the Patricians. They were excluded from the Consulship, the Senate, and most Magistracies, and from intermarriage with Patricians. The Patricians had the profitable occupancy of the land (ager publicus), which nominally belonged to the State; and in many cases, lending money to the impoverished Plebeians, acquired personal power over them, in virtue of the severe Roman Laws respecting Debtors.

958. This inequality of Rights and Advantages led to a Sedition, in which the Plebeians began, in a body, to separate themselves from the Roman State. They were brought back by concessions, that the debts of insolvents should be cancelled, and that they should have two magistrates appointed as their protectors; Tribunes of the Plebeians; whose persons should be inviolable, and who should have the power of interposing, so as to arrest any legal proceeding. From this time, the Plebeians, by. struggles of various kinds, obtained many of the Rights from which they had at first been excluded. The practice of voting according to Tribes, in the Comitia Tributa, was employed: and by this means the power of the Plebeians was very greatly increased. Connubium, the intermarriage of Patricians and Plebeians was allowed; the Senate was thrown open to the Plebeians; afterwards it was ordained that of the two Consuls, always one should

be a Plebeian. They succeeded in their attempts to carry Agrarian Laws, for an equal division of the public land. At length the remaining Magistracies were thrown open to Plebeians; the decrees of their assemblies (Plebiscita) were invested with the force of Laws; and the distinction of Patricians and Plebeians ceased to have any political value. The Polity of Rome had been changed by these struggles, from a rigorous Aristocracy, to a combination of Aristocracy and Democracy. This may be looked upon as the golden period of the Roman Constitution. It is at this period that it obtained the admiration of Polybius: who describes the Constitution as exhibiting, in the combined institutions of Consuls, Senate, and Commons, a happy mixture of Regal Power, Aristocracy, and Democracy.

If

959. When Rome had become Mistress of the whole of Italy, new struggles arose, in consequence of the demands of the Italians claiming to be admitted into the privileges of the Roman Constitution. the practice of modern times had been introduced, according to which the Citizens of Free States act their political part by their Representatives, it is possible that Italy might have long flourished under the mixt Roman Constitution. But the attempt to make all Italy one City, in a political sense, soon led to confusion. The Democratic portion of the State was too numerous for orderly action; and mobs of armed men, and armies, soon took its place. The evils of this state of things were so intolerable, that after a few transient changes, the Romans, in order to obtain tranquillity and security, were willing to resign their Liberty. They acquiesced in the sway of the successful General, bestowed upon him all their Constitutional Magistracies, and acknowledged him as their Emperor (Imperator.)

960. The Imperium from which this designation was especially borrowed, was the military power

which the Commander of the Army has assigned to him over his troops in the field. It was of the most absolute kind, and was made obligatory upon each person by an oath (Sacramentum militare), that he would be faithful and obedient to his General, saving the fidelity he owed to the Roman Senate and People. On the destruction of Public Liberty, this Oath was taken to the Emperor, as Commander-in-Chief; but the Clause in favour of the Senate and People was omitted. Instead of being limited to the Soldiers, the oath was extended to all magistrates and citizens, and ultimately to the provincials. thus, the Roman Emperors had unlimited power, both by the accumulation of all civil authority in their persons, and by the military authority thus declared.

And

After

961. Accordingly, the Emperor had legislative as well as executive power. The Roman Jurists say, "Quod Principi placuit legis habet vigorem, utpote quum Lege Regia quæ de Imperio ejus lata est, Populus ei et in eum omne suum imperium et potestatem conferat." Religious as well as Civil authority was given to the Emperor; a sacredness and a kind of divinity were ascribed to him. Christianity became the Religion of the Roman State, high religious dignity was still attributed to the imperial condition. In imitation of the Jewish kings, he was anointed with oil, and consecrated by a priest; he was declared to hold his crown by the Grace of God, and was spoken of as the Vicar of Christ over Christian people. And thus, the monarchical office was elevated to a transcendent supremacy and ideal perfection; it was the Source of Order, Justice, and Right; and absorbed and super

*

Dig. 1., 4. Inst. 1., 2, § 6. Gaius. 1., § 7. The Command of the Emperor has the force of Law; for by the Royal Law respecting his authority, the People gives to him and confers upon him all its authority and power.

seded all other powers and Rights which had existed in the Constitution.

962. Very different from this view of the chief ruler of the State, was that which prevailed among the northern nations who gradually took possession of the provinces of the Roman Empire. In the most considerable of the Germanic tribes, the form of Government was republican. Some of these had a Chief, to whom the Romans gave the name of King; but his authority was very limited. The Supreme Authority of the nation resided in the Freemen of whom it was composed. When a national war was undertaken, one of the Chiefs was selected to command the army, but his authority expired with the return of peace. But when these tribes settled as conquerors in the Roman provinces, they adopted, in many respects, the customs and the legal language of those whom they subjugated. The superiority of the Romans over the Barbarians in intellectual and literary culture, the advantages attendant upon fixed laws, and laws already fixed, strongly promoted this result. And after a time, the servility of men's language infected their thoughts; and the subjects of the kingdoms which arose out of the empire not only spoke, but in some measure thought of their King, as the Romans had been accustomed to do of their Emperor.

963. But there was another especially Germanic element, which modified the feelings of men towards their Chief. Every German Chief had a band of Followers, who had voluntarily attached themselves to him. From him they had received their recognized place as warriors; at his table they feasted; to his service they were devoted. In war, he fought for victory, they for their chief. From an ancient Teutonic word signifying their trustiness to him, they were called Antrustiones. They were also called the Chief's Vassi, his young men, or his