HKB
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Often appears with: monarchy and royal succession · forms of government · war powers · veto authority · tyranny and conspiracy · servility · reason and the intellect · president vs king · political legitimacy and consent · origin of justice · opportunity for political schemes · mourning and grief
Usually: argument (5) · censure (4) · skepticism (2) · ambition and its cost (1) · rivalry (1) · sudden reversal of fortune (1) · detachment (1)
“What answer shall we give to those who would persuade us that things so unlike resemble each other? The same that ought to be given to those who tell us that a government, the whole power of which would be in the hands of the elective and periodical servants of the people, is an aristocracy, a monarchy, and a despotism.” Alexander Hamilton; John Jay; James Madison, The Federalist Papers · insight
Hamilton concludes by listing key differences between the elected President and the hereditary British king—term length, accountability, veto strength, military and war powers, treaty and appointment authority—then rejects claims that they are alike.
of Great Britain. But to render the contrast in this respect still more striking, it may be of use to throw the principal circumstances of dissimilitude into a closer group. The President of the United States would be an officer elected by the people for FOUR years; the king of Great Britain is a perpetual and HEREDITARY prince. The one would be amenable to personal punishment and disgrace; the person of the other i…
He continues that hereditary monarchy is a burlesque that reduces kingship to an animal role and condemns debates between hereditary and elective monarchy as missing the deeper issue of election and representation.
any office hereditary that required wisdom and abilities to fill it? And where wisdom and abilities are not necessary, such an office, whatever it may be, is superfluous or insignificant. Hereditary succession is a burlesque upon monarchy. It puts it in the most ridiculous light, by presenting it as an office which any child or idiot may fill. It requires some talents to be a common mechanic; but to be a king requir…
Burke argues that people can be drawn into a court-centered plan of government, especially when the monarch’s favorable circumstances create opportunities for those seeking power beyond natural influence.
man's hopes must come in time to govern every man's conduct; till at last the servility became universal, in spite of the dead letter of any laws or institutions whatsoever. How it should happen that any man could be tempted to venture upon such a project of Government, may at first view appear surprising. But the fact is that opportunities very inviting to such an attempt have offered; and the scheme itself was no…
He traces government’s rise from early societies choosing strongest leaders to forming justice through laws, then explains how hereditary rulers fall into luxury, producing tyranny, conspiracies, and shifts through popular license and back to monarchy.
since no precaution he may take can prevent it from sliding into its contrary, by reason of the close resemblance which, in this case, the virtue bears to the vice. These diversities in the form of Government spring up among men by chance. For in the beginning of the world, its inhabitants, being few in number, for a time lived scattered after the fashion of beasts; but afterwards, as they increased and multiplied, …
Mill argues that representative government is not inherently worse than monarchy in producing ignorance or incapacity, since hereditary monarchies often rely on bureaucracies unless societies are especially turbulent.
speak more moderately, insufficient mental qualifications, in the controlling body; secondly, the danger of its being under the influence of interests not identical with the general welfare of the community. The former of these evils, deficiency in high mental qualifications, is one to which it is generally supposed that popular government is liable in a greater degree than any other. The energy of a monarch, the st…