Johannes Althusius: Politica - Hubertlerch.com - HubertLerch.com

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people in electing a king or supreme magistrate have reserved certain power to themselves. …
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[ § 18 ] For it is the nature of
the rights of sovereignty that whoever has one of them is considered to have the others necessarily, for he cannot have the use
of one of them unless the others are also granted to him. For they are connected and unitary. It is therefore necessary that their
exercise belong to one and not to many at the same time, except that the many by mutual consent and concord can act as if
they were one in the administration of these rights. For one realm cannot have two kings, as one earth cannot have two suns.
And two supreme powers or imperia cannot exist at the same time. …
[§ 23] Bartholomaeus Keckermann has a somewhat different view from mine on the mixed constitution and order of the
commonwealth.
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He does not rightly understand what he calls my opinion of the mixed state. For it is evident from the
preceding things and from my entire political teaching that there is no type of magistrate that is immune from mixture. I do not
recognize in this political association any pure and simple state. Because of the weakness of human nature such a state could not
endure for long or be well suited for social life. Therefore, as water without some mixture of earth would be tasteless and devoid
of nourishment, so such simple and imaginary states as the Platonic and Utopian polities would be useless for social life. Nor has
my opinion ever been different: what is the optimum, and what is the measure of everything else, ought to be the beginning of
the discussion. I have attempted to advance from the things that are more general and better known, by which everything that
follows receives illumination, to less well known particulars, and finally to the most special matters of all, which so depend upon
the things that have gone before that without them they cannot be understood. For the law of method requires this procedure. …
[§ 30] Monarchy is thought by many persons to be better and more useful than the other kinds of magistrate.
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The reasons
they give are principally the following: (1) Authority in one man is more conspicuous, and at the same time engenders more
respect and love, than in a multitude. (2) Monarchy is more agreeable to nature in that one creature always dominates and rules
the others of its kind, just as one soul rules the body, and one God the world. (3) This government is more readily adapted both
for acquiring advice and for carrying it out without divulging secrets. (4) This state is not as readily subject by its nature to
change and confusion. Whence history indicates that republics have not endured as long as monarchies. (5) Monarchy is older, for
it dates from the beginning of the human race.
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(6) God used this form in the government of his people.
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(7) One man can
better and more easily turn the rudder on a boat than can many. (8) Monarchy follows the example of wise peoples. (9) There
are many disadvantages of other forms of commonwealth, and to the extent that they possess real advantages they have the
likeness of a monarchy, or else approach closely to it. For no one, as Christ testifies, can serve two masters, much less many
masters. [§ 31] Nor can anyone easily satisfy the judgment and will of many. Nevertheless, this monarchical form of the
commonwealth is greatly infested by plots and snares that are very often planned and carried out by subjects against their
monarch.
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[§ 32] A polyarchic supreme magistrate is one in which those who are furnished by the subjects with equal or the same
supreme imperium rule and administer the rights of sovereignty. That is to say, the succession of administration is communicated
among a number of persons. … [§ 45 ] This polyarchic magistracy can be either aristocratic or democratic. [§ 46] It is
aristocratic when to a few noble or wealthy optimates, or to certain others, are given jointly and indivisibly the supreme
imperium over the remaining subjects both individually and corporately, as well as the use of the rights of sovereignty. [§
47] The nature of aristocracy requires that the power and right of ruling belong jointly, indivisibly, and continuously to a number
of partners equally, and that this form of government be protected by special laws against monarchy and democracy. …
[§ 57] The state or magistrate is democratic when certain persons selected alternately and successively from the people for
definite periods of time rule all the others both individually and corporately in the name of the associated body of the realm, or
of all the inhabitants thereof. Thus they exercise the rights of sovereignty and supreme power according to the votes of the entire
people gathered by centurial divisions, by tribes, or by curia. … [§ 61] The nature of democracy requires that there be liberty
and equality of honors, which consist in these things: that the citizens alternately rule and obey, that there be equal rights for all,
and that there be an alternation of private and public life so that all rule in particular matters and individuals obey in all matters.
… [§ 62] It is also necessary that democracy by its nature enjoy special and pre-eminent arrangements by which it is protected
against monarchy and aristocracy. …
[§ 83] And these are the things about political art ( ars) 15 that I have thought ought to be discussed. I cannot be persuaded to
treat separately, as other political scientists do, the causes that lead to the destruction of the association or the overthrow of the
commonwealth. For as a straight line shows up a crooked one, and virtue casts light on vice, so also an association rightly and
legitimately constituted is an indicator of vice, corruption, and evil. Nevertheless, I do not judge it to be alien to political art that
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