eatest nation (or,
perhaps, after the exploits of Bismarck, I should say one of the two
greatest nations of the Continent) vacillates between the Revolutionary
and the Parliamentary, and now is governed under the Revolutionary
form. France elects its ruler in the streets of Paris. Flatterers may
suggest that the democratic empire will become hereditary, but close
observers know that it cannot. The idea of the Government is that the
Emperor represents the people in capacity, in judgment, in instinct.
But no family through generations can have sufficient, or half
sufficient, mind to do so. The representative despot must be chosen by
fighting, as Napoleon I. and Napoleon III. were chosen. And such a
Government is likely, whatever be its other defects, to have a far
better and abler administration than any other Government. The head of
the Government must be a man of the most consummate ability. He cannot
keep his place, he can hardly keep his life, unless he is. He is sure
to be active, because he knows that his power, and perhaps his head,
may be lost if he be negligent. The whole frame of his State is
strained to keep down revolution. The most difficult of all political
problems is to be solved--the people are to be at once thoroughly
restrained and thoroughly pleased. The executive must be like a steel
shirt of the Middle Ages--extremely hard and extremely flexible. It
must give way to attractive novelties which do not hurt; it must resist
such as are dangerous; it must maintain old things which are good and
fitting; it must alter such as cramp and give pain. The dictator dare
not appoint a bad Minister if he would. I admit that such a despot is a
better selector of administrators than a Parliament; that he will know
how to mix fresh minds and used minds better; that he is under a
stronger motive to combine them well; that here is to be seen the best
of all choosers with the keenest motives to choose. But I need not
prove in England that the revolutionary selection of rulers obtains
administrative efficiency at a price altogether transcending its value;
that it shocks credit by its catastrophes; that for intervals it does
not protect property or life; that it maintains an undergrowth of fear
through all prosperity; that it may take years to find the true capable
despot; that the interregna of the incapable are full of all evil; that
the fit despot may die as soon as found; that the good administration
and all else hang b