Page:The American Democrat, James Fenimore Cooper, 1838.djvu/17

Rh supposes a new election on the death of the last ruler, if not oftener. In the case of Napoleon, the people elected a dynasty, rather than a prince.

In a republick the chief of the state is always elective. Perhaps this fact is the most accurate technical distinction between a monarchy and this form of government, though the pervading principle of the first is the right of the sovereign, and of the last the right of the community. The term republick, ( respublica) means the public things, or the common weal. Hence the term commonwealth, the word wealth, in its political sense, meaning prosperity in general, and not riches in particular.

If these theoretical distinctions were rigidly respected, it would be easy to infer the real character of a government from its name; but nothing can be less alike than governments ordinarily are, in their action, and in their professions. Thus despotism can scarcely be said to exist in truth, in any part of Christendom; monarchs being compelled to govern according to established laws, which laws are formed on principles reasonably just, while they are restrained in the exercise of their will by an opinion that has been created by the advanced intelligence of the age.

Some kings are monarchs only in name, the power having essentially passed into the hands of a few of their nominal subjects; and, on the other hand, some princes, who, by the constitutional principles of the system, are deemed to be but a part of the state, effectually control it, by means of bribes, rewards, and political combinations, submitting to little more restraint than the nominal despots. Just at this time, Prussia is an instance of the first of these truths, England of the second, and France of the last.

Prussia, though a despotism in theory, is governed