The American Democrat/On the Disadvantages of a Monarchy
ON THE DISADVANTAGES OF
A MONARCHY.
A monarchy is liable to those abuses which follow favoritism, the servants of the prince avenging themselves for their homage to one, by oppressing the many.
A monarchy is the most expensive of all forms of government, the regal state requiring a costly parade, and he who depends on his own power to rule, must strengthen that power by bribing the active and enterprising whom he cannot intimidate. Thus the favorites of an absolute prince, in connection with the charges of himself and family, frequently cost the state as much as its necessary expenditures.
It is the policy of a monarchy to repress thought, a knowledge of human rights being always dangerous to absolute, or exclusive power. Thus the people of monarchies are divided into the extremes of society, the intermediate and happiest classes being usually small, and inclined to favor their superiors from apprehension of the brutal ignorance of those below them.
Monarchies are subjected to the wars and to the policies of family alliances, the feelings and passions of the prince exercising a malign influence on the affairs of the state.
In monarchies the people are required to maintain a military force sufficient to support the throne, the system always exacting that the subject should pay the troops that are kept on foot to hold him in subjection.
Truth is trammelled in a monarchy, the system dreading collision with a power so dangerous to all factitious and one-sided theories.
Monarchies, especially those in which the crown possesses a real and predominant power, discourage sincerity and frankness of character, substituting appearances for virtue, and flattery and deception for wholesome facts.
Women often exercise an improper influence, and this from an impure motive, in monarchies, history tracing even wars to the passions of an offended mistress.
The public money is diverted from legitimate objects, to those which support the personal views, passions, caprices, or enmities of the prince.
Monarchies are subject to all those abuses, which depend on an irresponsible administration of power, and an absence of publicity; abuses that oppress the majority for the benefit of a few, and which induce subserviency of character, frauds, flatteries and other similar vices.
If, in this age, monarchies exhibit these results of the system in milder forms, than in other centuries, it is owing to the increasing influence of the people, who may control systems, though in a less degree, indirectly as well as directly.