For example, political changes should not
be carried out by the aristocrats combining to subject themselves to
an autocracy, or resolving to fuse all into a democracy, or
conversely; as if it depended on the arbitrary choice and liking of
the sovereign what constitution he may impose on the people. For, even
if as sovereign he resolved to alter the constitution into a
democracy, he might be doing wrong to the people, because they might
hold such a constitution in abhorrence, and regard either of the other
two as more suitable to them in the circumstances.
The forms of the state are only the letter (littera) of the original
constitution in the civil union; and they may therefore remain so long
as they are considered, from ancient and long habit (and therefore
only subjectively), to be necessary to the machinery of the
political constitution. But the spirit of that original contract
(anima pacti originarii) contains and imposes the obligation on the
constituting power to make the mode of the government conformable to
its idea; and, if this cannot be effected at once, to change it
gradually and continuously till it harmonize in its working with the
only rightful constitution, which is that of a pure republic. Thus the
old empirical and statutory forms, which serve only to effect the
political subjection of the people, will be resolved into the original
and rational forms which alone take freedom as their principle, and
even as the condition of all compulsion and constraint.
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