This
belief is not without some justification, since it establishes in
theory, at least, the foundations of government on a base sufficiently
different from that which supposes all power to be the property of one,
and that one to be the representative of the faultless and omnipotent
Ruler of the Universe. With the first of these principles we have
nothing to do, except it be to add that there are propositions so
inherently false that they only require to be fairly stated to produce
their own refutation; but our subject necessarily draws us into a short
digression on the errors of the second as they existed in Venice.
It is probable that when the patricians of St. Mark created a community
of political rights in their own body, they believed their State had
done all that was necessary to merit the high and generous title it
assumed. They had innovated on a generally received principle, and they
cannot claim the distinction of being either the first or the last who
have imagined that to take the incipient steps in political improvement
is at once to reach the goal of perfection. Venice had no doctrine of
divine right, and as her prince was little more than a pageant, she
boldly laid claim to be called a Republic. She believed that a
representation of the most prominent and brilliant interests in society
was the paramount object of government, and faithful to the seductive
but dangerous error, she mistook to the last, collective power for
social happiness.
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