The Online Library of Liberty

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• Introduction
• De Lolme’s Life and Early Writings
• The Constitution of England
• Later Writings
• Editions of the Constitution of England
• A Note On the Text
• Acknowledgments
• The Constitution of England
• To the King.
• Book I
• Chapter I: Causes of the Liberty of the English Nation.—reasons of the Difference Between the Government of England, and That of France.—in England, the Great Power of the Crown, Under the Norman Kings, Created an Union Between the Nobility and the People
• Chapter II: A Second Advantage England Had Over France:—it Formed One Undivided State.
• Chapter III: The Subject Continued.
• Chapter IV: Of the Legislative Power.
• Chapter V: Of the Executive Power.
• Chapter VI: The Boundaries Which the Constitution Has Set to the Royal Prerogative.
• Chapter VII: The Same Subject Continued.
• Chapter VIII: New Restrictions.
• Chapter IX: Of Private Liberty, Or the Liberty of Individuals.
• Chapter X 1: On the Law In Regard to Civil Matters, That Is Observed In England.
• Chapter Xi 1: The Subject Continued. the Courts of Equity.
• Chapter XII: Of Criminal Justice.
• Chapter XIII: The Subject Continued.
• Chapter XIV: The Subject Concluded.—laws Relative to Imprisonment.
• Book Ii
• Chapter I: Some Advantages Peculiar to the English Constitution. 1. The Unity of the Executive Power.
• Chapter II: The Subject Concluded.—the Executive Power Is More Easily Confined When It Is One.
• Chapter III: A Second Peculiarity.—the Division of the Legislative Power.
• Chapter IV: A Third Advantage Peculiar to the English Government. the Business of Proposing Laws, Lodged In the Hands of the People.
• Chapter V: In Which an Inquiry Is Made, Whether It Would Be an Advantage to Public Liberty, That the Laws Should Be Enacted By the Votes of the People At Large.
• Chapter VI: Advantages That Accrue to the People From Appointing Representatives.
• Chapter VII: The Subject Continued—the Advantages That Accrue to the People From Their Appointing Representatives, Are Very Inconsiderable, Unless They Also Entirely Trust Their Legislative Authority to Them.
• Chapter VIII: The Subject Concluded.—effects That Have Resulted, In the English Government, From the People’s Power Being Completely Delegated to Their Representatives.
• Chapter IX: A Farther Disadvantage of Republican Governments.—the People Are Necessarily Betrayed By Those In Whom They Trust.
• Chapter X: Fundamental Difference Between the English Government, and the Governments Just Described.—in England All Executive Authority Is Placed Out of the Hands of Those In Whom the People Trust. Usefulness of the Power of the Crown.
• Chapter XI: The Powers Which the People Themselves Exercise.—the Election of Members of Parliament.
• Chapter XII: The Subject Continued.—liberty of the Press.
• Chapter XIII: The Subject Continued.
• Chapter XIV: Right of Resistance.
• Chapter Xv 1: Proofs Drawn From Facts, of the Truth of the Principles Laid Down In the Present Work.—1. the Peculiar Manner In Which Revolutions Have Always Been Concluded In England.
• Chapter Xvi 1: Second Difference—the Manner After Which the Laws For the Liberty of the Subject Are Executed In England.
• Chapter Xvii 1: A More Inward View of the English Government Than Has Hitherto Been Offered to the Reader In the Course of This Work.—very Essential Differences Between the English Monarchy, As a Monarchy, and All Those With Which We Are Acquainted.
• Chapter XVIII: How Far the Examples of Nations Who Have Lost Their Liberty, Are Applicable to England.
• Chapter Xix 1: A Few Additional Thoughts On the Attempts That At Particular Times May Be Made to Abridge the Power of the Crown, and On Some of the Dangers By Which Such Attempts May Be Attended.
• Chapter Xx 1: A Few Additional Observations On the Right of Taxation Which Is Lodged In the Hands of the Representatives of the People. What Kind of Danger This Right May Be Exposed To.
• Chapter XXI: Conclusion.—a Few Words On the Nature of the Divisions That Take Place In England.
• Guide to Further Reading
• Bibliography
• De Lolme’s Principal Publications
• Works Cited By De Lolme
• Classical Sources
• Modern Sources

CHAPTER II

The Subject concluded.—The Executive Power is more easily confined when it is one.

Another great advantage, and which one would not at first expect, in this unity of the public power in England,—in this union, and, if I may so express myself, in this coacervation, of all the branches of the Executive authority, is the greater facility it affords of restraining it.

In those States where the execution of the laws is intrusted to several different hands, and to each with different titles and prerogatives, such division, and the changeableness of measures which must be the consequence of it, constantly hide the true cause of the evils of the State: in the endless fluctuation of things, no political principles have time to fix among the People: and public mis-fortunes happen, without ever leaving behind them any useful lesson.

At sometimes military Tribunes, and at others, Consuls, bear an absolute sway;—sometimes Patricians usurp every thing, and at other times, those who are called Nobles (a) ;—sometimes the People are oppressed by Decemvirs, and at others by Dictators.1

Tyranny, in such States, does not always beat down the fences that are set around it; but it leaps over them. When men think it confined to one place, it starts up again in another;—it mocks the efforts of the People, not because it is invincible, but because it is unknown;—seized by the arm of a Hercules, it escapes with the changes of a Proteus.2

But the indivisibility of the Public power in England has constantly kept the views and efforts of the People directed to one and the same object; and the permanence of that power has also given a permanence and a regularity to the precautions they have taken to restrain it.

Constantly turned towards that ancient fortress, the Royal power, they have made it, for seven centuries, the object of their fear; with a watchful jealousy they have considered all its parts—they have observed all its outlets—they have even pierced the earth to explore its secret avenues, and subterraneous works.

United in their views by the greatness of the danger, they regularly formed their attacks. They established their works, first at a distance; then brought them successively nearer; and, in short, raised none but what served afterwards as a foundation or defence to others.

After the great Charter was established, forty successive confirmations strengthened it. The Act called the Petition of Right, and that passed in the sixteenth year of Charles the First, then followed: some years after, the Habeas Corpus Act was established; and the Bill of Rights made at length its appearance.3 In fine, whatever the circumstances may have been, they always had, in their efforts, that inestimable advantage of knowing with certainty the general seat of the evils they had to defend themselves against; and each calamity, each particular eruption, by pointing out some weak place, has ever gained a new bulwark to public Liberty.

To say all in three words; the Executive power in England is formidable, but then it is for ever the same; its resources are vast, but their nature is at length known; it has been made the indivisible and inalienable attribute of one person alone, but then all other persons, of whatever rank or degree, become really interested to restrain it within its proper bounds (a) .

[(a) ]The capacity of being admitted to all places of public trust, at length gained by the Plebeians, having rendered useless the old distinction between them and the Patricians, a coalition was then effected between the great Plebeians, or Commoners, who got into these places, and the ancient Patricians: hence a new Class of Men arose, who were called Nobiles and Nobilitas. These are the words by which Livy, after that period, constantly distinguishes those Men and families who were at the head of the State. [[Titus Livius (Livy) (59 b.c.e.–17 c.e.), whose classic history of the early Roman Republic, Ab urbe condita (From the founding of the city) served for De Lolme, as for many early modern writers, as a major source of information and insight concerning republican political systems as well as Roman history. The political effects of the competition between Rome’s patrician and plebeian ranks formed one of Livy’s central themes, examined at length in books 3–4 and 6–7.

[1. ]De Lolme invokes several institutions of republican Rome to which he refers routinely in later discussion. Two consuls were elected annually by a citizen assembly (comitia centuriata) and served as the chief civil and military magistrates. In later political theory, the office was commonly treated as a monarchic element of Rome’s constitution. Military tribunes were appointed for each of Rome’s military legions and exercised general command of the army. (De Lolme elsewhere refers to the office of plebeian tribunes [tribuni plebis], who protected the property and interests of Rome’s plebeian citizens and had authority to veto any act or decree of the Senate or other magistrates.) The nobles (nobiles) were an elite group of plebeian families whose descendants came to dominate important political offices including, especially, the office of consul. Decemvirs occupied the ten-person board (decemvirate) of the mid-fifth century b.c.e., which produced and authorized the law of the Twelve Tables. During their period in office, the other established Roman magistracies were suspended. Dictators were Roman magistrates who were invested with extraordinary powers and appointed in times of emergency to command the army or perform other specific tasks. The authority of the dictator was limited to a brief period of time and (in theory) ended with the emergency that led to the appointment.

[2. ]In Greek mythology, Proteus was a sea god who could change form at will. Two of his sons, Polygonos and Telegonos, were killed by Hercules.

[3. ]De Lolme refers to parliamentary measures adopted in 1215 (Magna Carta), 1628 (Petition of Right), 1679 (Habeas Corpus Act), and 1688/89 (Bill of Rights), whose significance he discussed above, book 1, especially chapters 2–3.

[(a) ]This last advantage of the greatness and indivisibility of the Executive power, viz. the obligation it lays upon the greatest Men in the State, sincerely to unite in a common cause with the people, will be more amply discussed hereafter, when a more particular comparison between the English Government and the Republican form, shall be offered to the Reader.