X. Government and History
Alexander Pope [Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)] thought that only a fool
would dispute over forms of government. History has a good word to say
for all of them, and for government in general. Since men love freedom,
and the freedom of individuals in society requires some regulation of
conduct, the first condition of freedom is its limitation; make it absolute
and it dies in chaos. So the prime task of government is to establish order;
organized central force is the sole alternative to incalculable and disruptive
force in private hands. Power naturally converges to a center, for it is
ineffective when divided, diluted, and spread, as in Poland under the
liberum veto; hence, the centralization of power in the monarchy by
Richelieu [Richelieu, Armand-Jean du Plessis de, Cardinal (1585-1642)] or
Bismarck [Bismarck, Otto von (1815-98)], over the protest of feudal
barons, has been praised by historians. A similar process has centered
power in the federal government in the United States; it was of no use to
talk of “states’ rights” when the economy was ignoring state boundaries
and could be regulated only by some central authority. Today international
government is developing as industry, commerce, and finance override
frontiers and take international forms.
Monarchy seems to be the most natural kind of government, since it
applies to the group the authority of the father in a family or of the chieftain
in a warrior band. If we were to judge forms of government from their
prevalence and duration in history we should have to give the palm to
monarchy; democracies, by contrast, have been hectic interludes.
After the breakdown of Roman democracy in the class wars of the
Gracchi, Marius, and Caesar, Augustus organized, under what in effect was
monarchical rule, the greatest achievement in the history of statesmanship–
that Pax Romana which maintained peace from 30 B.C. to A.D. 180
throughout an empire ranging from the Atlantic to the Euphrates and from
Scotland to the Black Sea. After him monarchy disgraced itself under
Caligula [Caligula (Caius Caesar Germanicus), Emperor of Rome (r. 37-
