historical and political thought in the seventeenth - RePub - Erasmus ...

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Chapter 8. The science of politics. The Institutiones politicae
In a political dissertation on election and succession that is attributed to
Boxhorn, the same arguments lead to the assertion that ‘monarchy is better
and more perfect than all the other forms of government’. 199 But in opposition
to what he would defend in the 1649 version of the De successione et iure
primogenitorum, 200 Boxhorn writes in this dissertation that the question who
should occupy the monarch’s seat should preferably be decided by means of
election rather than following the logic of succession and primogenitur, ‘since
in election the commonwealth is taken into account rather than the ruling
dynasty’; in succession, on the other hand, it is the other way around. 201 This
just shows that Boxhorn’s standpoint on monarchy is ambivalent to say the
least and that he adjusted it to the occasion.
His defence of polyarchical regimes against Machiavelli’s accusation that
no concord can exist ‘among those equal in power’, however, is quite explicit.
Its starting point is Boxhorn’s trust in the power of consensus by which a
group of people can strive towards a common goal, ‘as if they were one
and ruled as one’. 202 ‘There is no doubt that every internally divided crowd
obstructs the right governing of states, whereas a somehow united one highly
before him, Boxhorn gives a monarchical reading of Tacitus. Lipsius, Politica, II.2, pp. 296-301. See also
Blom, Causality and Morality in Politics, p. 97.
199 Marcus Zuerius Boxhorn, “De electione et successione”, in idem, Varii Tractatus Politici, pp. 548-
49. ‘Non sufficit vero Magistratum in singulis amplissimi Regni ditionibus haberi, singulisque civitatibus
haberi; neque satis consultum est totius Regni administrationem pluribus, praesertim vero vita moribusque
discrepantibus, committere. Multorum enim ejusmodi regimen multa plerumque & innumerabilia
secum trahit mala; imo & aliquando, ob discordias intestinaque inter eos ex discordiis bella, perniciem
atque adeo occassum toti Regno adferre solet. Quare necessum est, ut si unius, à quo reliqui omnes
Magistratus dependeant, quique summa praeditus potestate universis Regni incolis totique multitudini
praesit, & eam ex aequo regat atque gubernet. Monarchiam enim caeteris omnibus Rerumpublicarum
formis meliorem perfectioremque esse existimamus.’ As far as this author’s knowledge goes, this is the
first time that this particular dissertation of Boxhorn got published. The dissertation is also listed in the
‘ordo operum Boxhornii’ that can be found in the 1668 Amsterdam edition of the Institutiones politicae.
200 See chapter 5.
201 Boxhorn, “De electione et successione”, p. 551. ‘Utramque hanc electionem successioni praeferimus.
In ea namque Reipublicae potius, quam regnatricis domus; contra in successione regnatricis
domus potius, quàm Reipublicae ratio habetur.’ Here, Boxhorn has an ideal balance between an elective
and a hereditary monarchy in mind, a concept that Johannes Isacius Pontanus had used to describe and
praise the Danish monarchy. Pontanus, Rerum Danicarum historia, p. 769. ‘Ex his liquere sat puto, regni
Daniae politiam peroptime constitutam: dum ita sit libera Regis election, ut ea non nisi ex regia familia
perficiatur.’ ‘From this I think it sufficiently clear that the constitution of the Danish kingdom is exceedingly
well established: there is an open election of the king, but it is executed only from members of the
royal family.’ Translation taken from Skovgaard-Petersen, Historiography at the Court of Christian IV, IV p.
146. In the Institutiones politicae, however, Boxhorn leaves the question which of the two ways are better,
election or succession, undecided. Boxhorn, Institutiones politicae, II.2.5-6, pp. 266-67.
202 Idem, Institutiones politicae, II.5, p. 326. ‘2. ad concensum, per quem plures ad eundem scopum
tendunt. Possunt itaque plures unius imagine imperare, & tamen uni quasi redditur imperandi ratio,
cum omnes tanquam unus, & unius Imperii omnes habeant rationem.’ In his dispute with Machiavelli
Boxhorn is following the path that Franco Burgersdijk had already laid out. ‘Status Monarchicus haud
dubie optimus est naturâ suâ, quia non est obnoxius dissensioni: & status in quo imperium penes plures
est, eatenus est laudabilis, quatenus ad unitatem reducitur. Haec unitas in consensione & concordia
consistit.’ Burgersdijk, Idea politica, XXI.3, pp. 190-92.