Page:The American Democrat, James Fenimore Cooper, 1838.djvu/65

 ON THE ADVANTAGES OF AN ARISTOCRACY.

The aristocratical form of government, though in an unmitigated form one of the worst known, has many advantages when tempered by franchises. This latter is the real polity of Great Britain, though it is under the pretence of a monarchy. No government, however, can properly be called a monarchy, in which the monarch does not form a distinct and independent portion of the state. The king of England, by the theory of the constitution, is supposed to hold a balance between the lords and the commons, whereas he, in truth, may be said merely to hold a casting vote between the several factions of the aristocracy, when the forces of these factions neutralize each other.

Aristocracies have a facility in combining measures for their interests that is not enjoyed by democracies. The power being in the hands of a few, these few can act with a despatch and energy, which, though unequaled by those of a monarchy, commonly have the material advantage of better agents. In an aristocracy, influence among the aristocrats themselves depending chiefly on the manly qualities, history shows us that the public agents are usually more chosen for their services than in a monarchy, where the favor of the prince is the chief requisite for success; it may therefore be assumed that the higher qualities of those who fill the public trusts, in an aristocracy, more than neutralize the greater concentration of a monarchy,