Some might wonder why a reactionary such as Joseph de Maistre (1753 – 1821), who lived so long ago, and in a time so different from our own, has any significant thought for us to consider today. It is because he represents, with Burke, one of the major “conservative” responses to the modern, “liberal” political project, that he can provide to us many questions to this project. Even if we do not agree with him, it would be rather foolish to ignore these questions. If they are left unanswered, or, if worse, it is believed that we should not even bother to examine the weaknesses behind the views which underlie the foundation for modern political theory, it would only go to show how dogmatic our political views have become.
As a Catholic, I believe there is another reason why it is important for me to come to terms with his political thought. His understanding of sovereignty was not limited to the secular realm: he believed its validity was also true when addressing religious questions. Some of his ideas helped shape the framework by which Catholics (and even non-Catholics, such as Vladimir Solovyov) have come to understand the authority of the Pope. He wrote a popular explanation for papal infallibility in his book, Du Pape, a work whose influence can be felt throughout the nineteenth century and even at Vatican I [1]. While how much of his influence can be seen in the decrees of Vatican I can be debated, that he had any influence its declaration of papal authority should make his thought important enough for Catholics to consider it, and recognize its strengths, even if they do not want to follow his theories.
If one wanted to condense de Maistre’s political theory, one would reduce it to four fundamental axioms. For this essay, we will primarily examine them as they are found in his “Study on Sovereignty” and “The Generative Principle of Political Constitutions,” both which can be found in The Works of Joseph de Maistre. ed. and trans. Jack Lively (New York: Macmillan Company, 1965). After establishing these principles, we will then briefly examine how he develops them to question the new, “liberal” political thought of his time.
The first principle forming de Maistre’s views is that that there is no one governmental system which best suits the needs of every nation and every people. One can not impose the wrong kind of political system upon a given people and expect it to be successful. “Rousseau saw quite correctly that no one should ask what is the best form of government in general, since none is suitable for every nation. Each nation has its own, as it has its own language and character, and this government is the best for it,” (Study on Sovereignty, 126). He then tells us that, “The best government for each nation is that which, in the territory occupied by this nation, is capable of producing the greatest possible sum of happiness and strength, for the greatest possible number of men, during the longest possible of time,” (ibid, 126).
His second belief is that the force of law is better when it is unwritten, when it is left to the general, unstated guidelines which shape the moral force of a nation, than when it is placed down in some specific constitution or decree. “One of the gravest errors of a century which embraced them all was to believe that a political constitution could be written and created a priori, whereas reason and experience agree that a constitution is a divine work and that it is precisely the most fundamental and essentially constitutional elements in a nation’s laws that cannot be written,” (Essay on the Generative Principle of Political Constitutions, 147). The true constitution of a nation is unwritten. Once it is written down, it is liable to be challenged, and its meaning will be changed by sophistical debate, slowly eroding the rights and privileges that a nation believed it affirmed by writing them down. “Indeed, supposing that a law of this importance exists only because it is written, it is certain that whatever authority has written it will have the right to annul it; the law would not therefore have that aura of sanctify and immutability that distinguishes truly constitutional laws. The essence of a fundamental law is that no one has the right to abolish it: but how is it beyond human power if it has been made by someone?” (ibid, 147). If a constitution is to be written, its formations are best to be the unwritten declarations of the rights already believed by a given nation. They should not be generated by some philosopher thinking they know what is best. The unwritten constitution, which will always be behind any written constitution, is formed through experience, and no one can a priori determine the needs that a people will need, or the way in which history will shape that people. Moreover, if one finds it is necessary to write down the rights and privileges of a people, there is a fundamental problem which needs to be addressed: “the very act of writing them down, later on, is the surest sign that their real force has gone,” (ibid, 152). Thus, he believes that, “the weakness and fragility of a constitution is in direct relationship to the number of written constitutional articles,” (ibid, 151).
As a third principle, he believes that all governmental authority rests upon the shoulder (if a monarchy) our shoulders (if a nation is ruled by some group) of a final, absolute authority, which does not allow anyone any authority to question its own exercise of authority. “Every species of sovereignty is absolute of its nature, however the powers are organized, whether vested in one pair of hands are divided,” (Study of Sovereignty, 112). Even if one can, with their private opinion, disagree with one’s sovereign, this does not eliminate that in practicality, this authority can not be denied. “The sovereign cannot therefore be judged; if he could, the power possessing this right would be sovereign….” (ibid, 112). Of course, he believes that this authority should not be abused, and, indeed, he understood that if it were, a response could be had. “While I might be forced to agree that one has the right to murder Nero, I would never accept that one has the right to judge him; for the law by virtue of which he would be judged would have been made either by himself or by some other person, which would suppose either a law made by a sovereign against himself, or some sovereign above the sovereign, two equally inadmissible suppositions,” (ibid., 113). He tries to establish a principle of sovereign authority because he believes it is need in order to guarantee that each government is allowed to act so as to promote the welfare of its people – if there is no final, indisputable arbitrator of justice, there can be no justice. Yet, he understands the concerns that most people should have with this. What if there is a sovereign who demands some great evil? Theoretically, by the power of a state and its sovereignty, there can be no one within who has the authority to dispense the general dictates of sovereignty. He agrees that there might come a time when one’s obligation to an authority needs to be dispensed with, but how can this be? If it is the people who determine this, then sovereignty is made naught. The answer, he insists, requires that some religious authority has the power to grant this dispensation, for that sacred authority would be, by its nature, a greater authority than some national sovereign. From his Catholic sentimentality, he thinks the answer lies with the Pope, who historically exercised his spiritual powers to keep the temporal powers in check (see his work, Du Pope for his lengthy exploration of this idea).
This takes us to his last principle: that sovereignty, while it is exercised by humanity, has its authority from the providential will of God. If God is the one who grants sovereignty, it is God who can demand more allegiance than the sovereign and dispense one’s obligations to that sovereign. Moreover, it is God who, working through human instruments, guides the history of humanity and the different circumstances which shape the unwritten constitutions of each nation. In saying this, he wants to make it clear, providence prompts and guides humanity, but humanity itself has a role in its own development. “Since God has not thought it appropriate to use supernatural agents in the establishment of states, it is certain that all developments have come about through human agencies. But saying that sovereignty does not derive from God because he has made use of men to establish it is like saying that he is not the creator of man because we all have a father and a mother” (Study on Sovereignty, 94). God works through us; but he prompts the nations to form the laws and governments they need. God and humanity work together; but if a human sovereign tries to contradict the work of providence, then he or she will weaken the character of his or her nation, and this will be a step towards its eventual elimination. “The more human reason trusts itself and tries to rely on its own resources, the more absurd it is and the more it reveals its lack of power” (ibid., 105). The amount of God’s work in the development of a nation helps determine how long it can last. “No human institution can last if it is not supported by the hand which supports all things, that is to say, if it is specially consecrated to Him in its origins. The more it is penetrated by the divine principle, the more durable it will be” (The Generative Principle of Political Constitutions, 170). But once a nation turns upon God and tries to be all it can be by human agency alone, then God will say “thy will be done,” and that nation will eventually collapse upon itself.
De Maistre’s thought was shaped by the events he lived through. Early on in his life, he was more supportive of modern political thought, until he saw the consequences of it in the French Revolution. History demonstrates the fruit of human activity, and when human activity ends in as disastrous a situation as the French Revolution, the principles which brought it about must be questioned and seen as at fault. There can be no question about it – his political thought is reactionary But this only enhances the value of it. His ire with Rousseau and the democratization of Rousseau’s thought, and especially with Rousseau’s social contract theory, manifests itself in the way de Maistre tries to reduce it by showing, by its nature, it is self-contradictory and absurd. “It is said that the people are sovereign; but over whom? – over themselves, apparently. The people are thus subject. There is something equivocal if not erroneous here, for the people which command are not the people which obey” (Study on Sovereignty, 93). Moreover, following classical principles, he believes that one cannot be human without social relations; therefore it is absurd to suggest there ever can be a time or way for humans to be simple individuals without some sort of societal makeup. “Thus, properly speaking, there has never been a time previous to society for man, because, before the formation of political societies, man was not a complete man, and because it is ridiculous to seek the characteristics of any being whatever in the embryo of that being,” (ibid, 96). God, through providence, has made sure that our societal nature was met in some fashion at all times and all places.
Each political system one might establish has its strengths and weaknesses. History has, he admits, shown much good in a democracy (although it has never existed in its pure form). “At its best, it eclipses all others, and the marvels it works seduce even the calmest and most judicious of observers,” (Study on Sovereignty, 121-2). But it is a system, he believes, which best works with a small group of people, and its glory, while bright, is also always short lived. “Democracy has one brilliant moment, but it is a moment and it must pay dearly for it,” (ibid. 127). It is short lived, in part, because it has a weakened authority to act out in justice: the dictates of the many determine this justice: famous criminals are turned into spectacles for the people. Their trials and punishments are made to satiate the blood lust and inordinate desires of the populace. Obscure criminals, even if their crime is far worse, are more likely to be treated with leniency, because the populace has little to no care about what happens to them (see ibid. 122).
He makes one more astute point, and this can help explain why he believes it is impossible to establish one form of government as the best. In reality, they all follow similar principles. “Properly speaking, all governments are monarchies which differ only in whether the monarch is for life or for a term of years, heredity or elective, individual or corporate; or, if you will (for it is the same idea in other terms), all governments are aristocratic, composed of a greater or smaller number of rulers, from democracy, in which this aristocracy is composed of as many men as the nature of things permit, to monarch, in which the aristocracy, inevitable under every government, is headed by a simple man topping the pyramid and which undoubtedly constitutes the most natural government of man” (ibid., 127).
For de Maistre, the problem he is concerned with primarily is not the form of government a particular nation takes as much as how that government is formed. While in his writings he demonstrates his personal preference for monarchies, with the strengths he perceives in them, his ideas should cause one to question some of the foundations of modern political theory. Do we really want to write laws and constitutions to guide the foundations of our society? What good do they really do? If we impose our national interests upon another, do we not doom that society to oblivion, because we will try to force what works within our cultural formation upon one which differs significantly from it? Can others really follow the dictates of our own national heritage? Will they not, as de Maistre points out, argue about the meaning of any imposed constitution? Will they not end up transforming it by their interpretation, annulling the original intent and significance of it? Has that not already happened with every other written constitution – be it the constitution of the former Soviet Union, to the constitution of the United States of America?
Notes
[1] See, for example, John W. Padberg, S.J., “Cardinal Louis-Edouard-Désiré Pie,” pages 39– 60 in Varieties of Ultramontanism. ed. Jeffrey Von Arx, S.J. (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1998), Richard A. Lebrun, “Joseph de Maistre in the Anglophone World,” pages 271 – 289 in Joseph de Maistre’s Life, Thought and Influence: Select Studies. ed. Richard A. Lebrun. (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2001), and Herman J. Pottmeyer. Towards a Papacy in Communion: Perspectives from Vatican Councils I & II. .trans. Matthew J. O’Connell ( New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1998).
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