Chapter V.

Double Character Of The Government.

What power seeks in the employment of capital punishment is security. I have shown that this it does not find; but that it often finds what it does not seek, and what it should and always does wish to avoid.

There are some simple truths which no one disputes, which good sense immediately admits, and yet which are no sooner admitted than forgotten. The reason is, perhaps, that being adopted without debate, we are not led to think of their consequences.

Here is a truth of this kind. Every government has a double character. Charged with maintaining public order and justice, and conducting the affairs of the state, it represents the social interest. Formed of men, and thus liable to the passions and vices of our nature, it has, besides, a personal interest, which is, to execute its will, and preserve at any price its existence.

That these two characters are united in power, that the one is legitimate, and the other illegitimate, and that institutions have for their object the constraining of the government to act by the former, and to fortify the people from the perils of the latter, who will deny? Who would even insinuate a doubt? Power itself would not dare to do so. But in this instance power forgets what it would not for a moment deny.

From the fact, that it is only called upon to act in the social interest, while it still preserves a distinct personal interest, proceeds this consequence, that all it does in virtue of the former character fortifies it, and all it does in that of the latter weakens it.

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However frequently misunderstood, this is evident. I do not speak of legitimacy, nor of justice, nor of any moral obligation. Independently of every motive of this kind, it is clear that if power acts only for its own sake, in the sole interest of its will or durability, it separates itself from society, courts a risk of detection, and if detected, exposes itself to being forsaken or even attacked by that general force from which its own has sprung.

That prudence prescribes to power to show itself ever in its social, and dissemble its individual aspect, and that it is of importance to its existence to appear on every occasion the representative of the public interest, and not the minister of its own, would serve to show, if it were necessary to show, its continual efforts to appear what it is not, and to pass for the organ of society even when it acts against its wants or wishes.

To abjure its personal, in order to retain its social character, would be, on the part of power, an act of the highest virtue. To convince the people that it acts only in the general interest, and binds up its destiny in theirs, would be its greatest art. To keep itself apart, preoccupied with its own affairs, and in all the nakedness of its distinct existence, would be foolish and perilous in the extreme.

There was a time when governments could so act with less danger. When they drew their revenues from their own domains, when they possessed their places of war like an estate, when they formed armies of adventurers, attracted by the pay alone, and pledged to serve everywhere, then power had a separate existence, and a distinct form from that of society. If skilful, it still tried to identify itself with the country, and so received from it a much greater strength; but if incapable or passionate, it could isolate itself at least for a time, to live on its own funds, and preserve some reality whilst losing its public character, and allowing its personal sentiments and interests to predominate in its acts and language.

But this time is past: power, which cannot live of itself, can no longer live by itself. Everything draws it towards society. Does it want money!--society must give it: laws?--society must approve of them. If it acts, its acts arc judged; if it speaks, its words are commented on: the public weighs constantly upon it by the rule of necessity. As the representative of society, its strength may be great, greater than ever; but if special and isolated, it is a cipher. Alone to-day, it will be nothing tomorrow.

It has, then, the greatest interest in avoiding every appearance of egotism, and in making its public character obviously predominate over its individual one.

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But there are traits which belong to one more than the other of these characters, symptoms which reveal the latter, but not the former. The employment of capital punishment politically is of this kind. It announces the predominance of the personal existence of power over its social existence, and shows it to be occupied with itself, and combating a peril which perhaps threatens only itself. And what is more natural? When we look at history, and ask why so much blood has been shed on the political scaffold, it is seldom that the spirit of past society rises to reply, 'That blood was shed for me.' Governments almost always present themselves alone to give account of these punishments: their own passions, faults, interests, commanded them; and next to the victims themselves, society suffered most. I know that the prospect of this future responsibility troubles power but little, and less because it is perverse, than because, like men, it is reckless; but we have at least gathered from it this knowledge, that the necessities of a power which kills, often false with regard to itself, are almost always so with regard to society; and that if it must kill in its own defence, that defence is necessary merely because it willed those things which suited no interest but its own.

This knowledge, little disseminated formerly, and almost confined to moralists, is now popular; it has become a sort of instinct, which reveals to us, in all their extent, the position and the illusions of power. When it is said that the illusions of what we call monarchy are dissipated, and its prestiges vanished, we know not how much to believe. It is not, however, in reality, a question of illusions and prestiges; it is that things themselves are changed: every sphere of existence or of action is enlarged; and that which was particular has become general, not only for society and its guarantees, but for the government and its profit. The citizen whose affairs took him little from his corporation, whose thoughts rarely wandered beyond the walls of his town, now knows himself to be engaged and compromised in affairs of the highest importance, and in the most complicated deliberations. The words _judgment of the state, political necessity_, which formerly struck upon his ear without his comprehending their sense, although he admitted their dominion, awaken ideas within him which trouble, and sentiments which agitate him. He has indeed reason to be moved more than formerly; for this government, which then had its sphere apart, higher and greater, but also more special and restricted, has itself become much more general, more directly, more universally associated with the interests and life of every citizen. Does it require money?--It demands it from all. Does it make laws?--They are for all. Has it fear?--All maybe its object. The distinctions in the nature of great and small exist no longer for power: its relations are with the magistrates of a village, as well as with the chiefs of the state; it has to produce an effect everywhere, and everywhere receives some motive of action. {288} And what is astonishing in the fact of the condition of government and the disposition of the people having changed? These changes are reciprocal, and correspond with each other. If power is no longer a mystery to society, the reason is, that society has ceased to be so to power: if authority meets everywhere with minds that pretend to judge it, it is because it comes into daily contact with these minds: if they demand that its conduct shall be on every occasion legitimate, it is because it has the disposal of all the strength of the country: if the public busies itself more with the government, government likewise acts over a very different public, and power is enhanced as well as liberty.

Of what, then, do you complain? Have you so little ambition that this displeases you! It is true you have lost the independence which belongs to a private life: your passions, and your personal interests, can no more have a place in the new order which surrounds you; you may not listen to their voice without its being known, nor obey their dictates without the reproach of failing in your mission. But what a mission is yours! If you are in harmony with society, the whole of society is concentrated and reflected in you. It is whilst offering itself entirely to you, that it asks you to live only for it. Formerly, you could confide only in a factitious policy, emanating from the ideas or desires of a single man, and tormenting nations to adapt them to designs they knew nothing about. But now policy must be true--that is to say, national--and that restrains the capricious actions or arbitrary conceptions of individuals. But what strength, what lustre, what energy belongs to a true national policy! What power is the best--that which represents the interests and the will of a people, or that which accomplishes only the thoughts, and responds only to the interest, of a man! I own I have no hesitation in deciding.

Hesitation, however, is of little consequence. I only insist at present upon this new state of society, to prove that power is not free to choose; and that if its conduct were to appear dictated by the necessities of its personal situation, rather than those of the social, which should be manifested in it, it would soon fall into a profound weakness; for society would soon be aware that it was separated from the fate as well as interest of the public, and acted only for itself. And how can it be supposed that capital punishment, employed politically, will not awaken this idea in society! There are fearful times, I know, when the people themselves call for and excuse it. I do not believe nations to be secure from those frightful maladies which engender human passions and errors. But a crisis of this kind is rare, and not of long duration; and it is precisely when it does take place that capital punishment becomes most odious. Remember the burst of kindly feeling with which France turned towards the emigrants in spite of all mistrust, past animosities, and every possible prejudice, the revolutionary policy was overturned, because it could neither become just nor remain cruel. {289} Since that period, capital punishment has been in political hands a weapon which compromises power more than serves it, and to which power has scarcely ever recourse but when in peril on its own account and from its own errors. It might be said that society, terrified by what it has seen, will no longer accept the responsibility of any political punishment, but is determined to believe that if it must be employed, government alone has need of an instrument which its own faults have rendered necessary. And that is especially true of a government which is not of yesterday, but has already held out, and is able to take its true position. If it were now only struggling into life, we might think with regret that it had not had time to become known, or to dissipate by its wisdom the perils surrounding it, and that examples were still necessary, and the severities of to-day only the forerunners of peace tomorrow. But if the government has been long enough established, if legal means and leisure have not faded in their influence, if it has been able to show itself wise, and become strong by its harmony with the public, then conspiracies cannot spring up again, nor punishments recommence, without society immediately repelling from itself both the necessity and the blame. Then power is again invested with this personal and isolated character which destroys it: it is no longer social power; and society, instead of seeing its own reflection, beholds only an interest which is not its own, wants which it disavows, and intentions in which it has no share. The justice of such a government is not true justice, and its necessities are not real necessities.

There is, in fact, in political chastisements, as in other things, a true justice and necessity, often distinct from legal justice and the necessities of power. Governments have long given up troubling themselves on the subject. In barbarous times--and their duration was long--legal justice did not seem to have been required at all; the personal necessities of power being sufficient. When attacked, it had every right to defend itself, and the execution of a conspirator called for little more delay or formality than the death of an enemy. By degrees, however, legal justice was introduced into public policy, the people began to think, and power was forced to admit that there were other things besides war, and that against crimes of this nature, as of every other, laws, forms, proofs, and judgments were necessary. This was an immense progress, and it is now approaching its consummation. But the career of progress is not yet stayed--the public cry is still, Go on! The laws which regulate the chastisement of political crimes may be insufficient or even bad; and the necessities which deliver up culprits to the laws may be false. {290} Society goes the length of supposing this more especially when the question is of capital punishment. Suspecting that power is isolated from it, and looks to its own interest alone, it is at the same time convinced that that interest does not suffice to legitimise punishments, and that power has not the right of defending itself at all risks. Sufficiently enlightened to know that infallible justice does not belong to any law, and that were laws even without fault in themselves, the faults of men would corrupt them in their administration, society now neither relies upon the personal wants of power nor upon the legality of its processes. It would have these wants founded on reason, and these processes in equity. Whether it obtains this or not, its demands continue; for it is aware of the justice of the debt, and though refused, it is not forgotten. Moreover, has not one political condemnation, legally pronounced, succeeded better in our days in convincing the people of its necessity and justice, than the most arbitrary executions of former times? Let not power mistake this new exaction of the public; for it is a powerful and irrevocable one, and is allied to all the progress, and all the moral wants of civilisation and of the human mind. Let it not flatter itself in thinking to escape by taking refuge behind the laws: it has long rejected their yoke, and now it would make them a shield when beaten on an open field, and would possess itself of the citadels armed against it, and then think itself inviolate. But it will be pursued to this asylum, which will be shown to have been profaned more than once by deceit and iniquity. It may plead that the punishment was legal; but it will be asked if it was just or necessary. Is it, indeed, so politically? And in what case, and under what conditions? We must descend to these questions, for the public thought itself descends to them, and will have an answer. A government which would give itself no concern in such questions, but say with Pilate--'I wash my hands of the blood of this man: see ye to it,' such governments would soon learn that they do not escape; that no deceit, no laws, can save from impending danger a power at once egotistical and hypocritical, which, in separating itself from society and truth, makes for itself a justice which is not true justice, and a necessity which is not the necessity of the country.

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