The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1869-01-30
COLUMBIA, s. G.
Saturday Morning. January so. 1869.
Tho instability OF Governments.

presses It's great admlratlOn OF that ruler,
and its regret that when he dies the whole
system of government which has produced
signal benefits for France may have to come
to an end. This, however, is the cardinal
defect of such system, and it may be as
well for those, if such there are, who con-
from contingent future of anarchy in this
country, to bear in mind the fact that, how
ever, when confided to wise and rigorous
hands, such system may suit many of the
great exigencies of political life, it has no
element of durability. end is exposed, when
the ruler dies, to the precise peril of civil
convulsions and strife from which his abso-
lutte sway was but temporary relief
bridge, as it were, from one revolution to
another. Europe at this time presents several
varieties of executive governments, promi-
nent among which is that just mentioned.
and which is popularly called "Cmsarism, y
where the sovereign, like Napoleon, is
elected by the people to the throne, and
sustained by large army. Where the
monarch thus created is Cromwell or q
Napoleon, the machinery of government
can be made to work with great power, and
the ship of state be propelled forward in
career of extraordinary prosperity and
splendor. But when the helmsman is re-
moved, there is no certainty for the future.
When Cromwell died, his whole fabric of
government gradually fell to pieces, and the
same brief tenure of one precarious life is
the weakness of all similar political struc-
lures, even when they are created by the
vote Of the people, But it would seem, rs
the Baltimore Sun remarks, SO far as Eu-
rope is concerned, that mutability is the
prevailing characteristic of all its govern
ment institutions. The political reccnstruc-
tion of the contingent established by few
leading powers, fifty three or four years ago,
has vanished like the 'baseless fabric of q
dream" The allied sovereigns undertook
not only to establish boundaries between
States and regulate their mutual relations,
but to prescribe also the relation between
monarchs and subjects-the former to be
hereditary sovereigns, reigning by Divine
right, and the latter, if behaving properly,
to have the prospect of some privileges to-
ward constitutional rights in the future
But time and change have rubbed sponge
over the slate on which these paternal
governments were chalked out in 1916, and
only one or two of them have remained
without essential modification The here
dltary constitutional monarchies, so called
which were at one time attempted to be
sown broadcast over Europe, seem to be in
condition SO precarious that they may at
any moment be cast into the revolutionary
fire and remodeled. A philosophical Eng
lish observer says:
ASA rule, the European constitutional
sovereign does not merely reign, but more
or less governs also. Consequently, the ex-
listing practice is compromise; there is a
constant struggle going on between the
popular branch which asks for more and the
sovereign who tries to keep what he has got
a struggle only to be decided in the long
run by hayonets, domestic or foreign. For
executive purposes the plan works we'll only
SO long as there is reasonable harmony be-
tween the two coordinate powers, the SOW
ereign and his Legislature. The best secu-
rity for this in the long run lies in the he
reditary attachment of the people to the
dynasty. And this was counted on as an
element by those who predicted the success
and permanency of constitutionalism. But
fate has decreed otherwise. There is not q
constitutional country in Europe, excepting
Austria and one or two inferior German
States, and Prussia for part only of her
dominions, in which q native, long seated
family occupies the throne. In all the others
the dynasty has been placed there by revo
luton or by foreign interference, or at best
by distant connection or recent foreign in
termarriage. Ancestral reverence, there
fore, is nearly out of date Kings and roya
families are expedients only, and are so re-
garded. Consequently there is no sense o
permanercy; nothing to count on. Aut
there is not u sovereign house TINS crcum