The Two Great Republics: Rome and the United States Part 14

An interesting incident connected with the raising of the money for the campaign against Brutus and Ca.s.sius was the refusal of the Roman women at this time to pay their share of the taxes demanded of the Roman citizens for the support of the armies to be raised against Brutus and Ca.s.sius.

Hortensia, the daughter of a great orator, was their spokesman. The burden of her plea was that this was a family quarrel, a civil war, not one for the defense of Rome. "Let war with the Gauls or the Parthians come," she said, "and we shall not be inferior to our mothers in zeal for the common safety, but for civil wars may we never contribute nor even a.s.sist you against one another. Why should we pay taxes, when we have no part in the honors, the commands, the statecraft for which you contend against one another with such harmful results?"

The campaign resulted in the complete destruction of all the armies opposed to the triumvirate, the most decisive battle of the campaign being that at Philippi. How Antony and Octavius again quarreled after their common enemy had been overthrown, how the destruction of Antony resulted from his infatuation for Cleopatra, and how Octavius at length secured the undisputed rule of the Roman world need not here be described.

The date of the beginning of the reign of Octavius Caesar as Emperor of Rome is generally taken as 31 B.C. Like his predecessor, Octavius Caesar endeavored to preserve as far as possible the empty forms of republican rule.

In the overthrow of the early Roman kingdom the power of the kings had mainly pa.s.sed to the consuls, but partially to other officials, and some of the powers possessed by the early consuls had been gradually taken away from them and given to other newly created officials, such as the censors and praetors. For centuries there had been a continued policy of division of powers; this policy was now suddenly reversed, and governmental powers of all kinds reunited in a single official.

This was accomplished by conferring upon Octavius Caesar, for life, each of the various offices known in the government of the Roman republic. Octavius Caesar became life censor, life consul, and life tribune. The appointment of his colleagues in all these offices was likewise in his power. The cycle of governmental change had now been completed, and the Roman emperor possessed all the old powers of the Roman kings. In the field of legislation it is indeed probable that the power of the emperor was greater than that of his early predecessors.

"The old popular a.s.semblies for a period after the establishment of the Empire still went through the form of pa.s.sing acts, which had been prepared by the real governing power, but in addition to this the Emperor was given the power of direct legislation by his own authority.

"Laws which owed their force to the authority of the Emperor were known as Const.i.tutiones and may be divided into four princ.i.p.al cla.s.ses, as follows:

"1. Edicts, which were public ordinances, of universal application throughout the Empire. These had the authority of laws, inasmuch as they were generally enforced and applied to all. In the earlier reigns they were frequently renewed, and they derived their authority from the Emperor as the praetorian edict did from the praetor. Gradually they came to be held as permanently binding the real ground of their permanent force, custom was overlooked, and the imperial authority was regarded as such ground.

"2. Decrees, which were decisions in judicial cases brought before the Emperor as final court of appeal. Inasmuch as they were interpretations of law, they were regarded as binding upon all courts.

"3. Rescripts, which were decisions upon questions of law submitted by courts and private persons. They were closely connected with the pontifical interpretations.

"4. Mandates, which were directions to officials in the exercise of their offices. These, by repet.i.tion in the various instructions sent out from time to time by the Emperor, became a source of general law. They were theoretically in force only during the lifetime of the Emperor from which they proceeded; but they became of permanent force because of repet.i.tion and custom." (Lee's _Historical Jurisprudence_.)

There are writers who look with favor upon this establishment of the Roman empire, just as there are those of the same caliber who, if some form of a dictatorship should be subst.i.tuted for our present republican form of government, would be loudest in their approval of the change. Dr. Hirschfeld, of the University of Berlin, gives us the following roseate picture of the benefits which Rome received from the change:

"The reorganization of the government by Augustus, open to criticism as it is in many respects, was a blessing to the Roman empire. The view which prevailed under the republic, that the provinces had been conquered only to be sucked dry by senators and knights, governors, and tax-farmers in league or in rivalry of greed (we have one example out of hundreds in Verres, condemned to immortality by the eloquence of Cicero), this view was laid aside with the advent of the empire, and even if extortion did not wholly cease in the senatorial provinces, yet the provincial administration of the first two centuries A.D. is infinitely superior to the systematic spoliation of the republic. The governors are no longer masters armed with absolute authority, constrained to extort money as fast as possible from the provincials committed to their charge in order to meet debts contracted by their own extravagance and, more especially, by that bribery of the populace which was indispensable to their advancement. They are officials under strict control, drawing from the government salaries fully sufficient to their needs. It was a measure imperatively called for by the altered circ.u.mstances of the time and fraught with most important consequences to create, as Augustus did, a cla.s.s of salaried imperial officials and definitely break with the high-minded but wrong-minded principle of the republic by which the higher posts were bestowed as honorary appointments, and none but subordinate officials were paid, thus branding the latter with the stigma of servitude.

"It is true that the cautious reformer adopted into his new system of government the old names and the offices which had come down from republican times, with the exception of the censorship and the dictatorship, which last had long been obsolete. But these were intended from the outset to lead but a phantom existence and to take no part in the great task of imperial administration. Augustus drew his own body of officials from the knightly cla.s.s, and under the unpretentious t.i.tles of procurator and praefect practically committed the whole administration of the empire to their hands, reserving, apart from certain distinguished sinecures in Rome, and Italy, for the senators the praefecture of the city, all the great governorships except Egypt, and the highest commands in the army. The handsome salaries--varying in the later days of the empire from 600 to 3,600 ($3,000 to $18,000)--and the great influence attached to the procuratorial career, which opened the way to the lofty positions of praefect of Egypt and commander of the praetorian guards at Rome, rendered the service very desirable and highly esteemed.

"While the high-born magistrates of the republic entered upon their one year's tenure of office without any training whatsoever, and were, of course, obliged to rely upon the knowledge and trustworthiness of the permanent staff of clerks, recorders and cashiers in their department, there grew up under the empire a professional cla.s.s of government officials who, schooled by years of experience and continuance in office and supported by a numerous staff recruited from the imperial freedmen and slaves, were in a position to cope with the requirements of a world-wide empire. These procurators, some as governors-in-chief of the smaller imperial provinces, some as a.s.sistants to the governors of the greater, watched over the interests of the public exchequer and the emperor's private property, or looked after the imperial buildings and aqueducts, the imperial games, the mint, the corn supply of Rome, and the alimentary inst.i.tutions, the legacies left to the emperors, their castles and demesnes in Italy and abroad,--in short, everything that fell within the vast and ever widening sphere of imperial government. Meanwhile the exchequer of the senate dwindled and dwindled, till it finally came to be merely the exchequer of the city of Rome."

There is scarcely any event which takes place upon this earth which produces unmixed evil or unmixed good. There is some slight element of truth in some of the statements of the last quotation. There was some temporary restraint placed upon the dishonesty and cruelty of the Roman tax collectors; and there was undoubtedly a permanent improvement in the ability of the men holding the minor positions under the Roman government, through the introduction of what may be called a civil-service system. But the contention that the establishment of the empire was for the benefit either of the Roman citizens or of the Roman subjects is too ridiculous to merit even a denial. To show the ridiculousness of such a statement it is only necessary to point to the history of the Roman empire during the half century following the death of Octavius Caesar. Corrupt as the administration of the government often was under the republic, and cruel as were the successful factional leaders on a few occasions, such conditions as existed in Rome under the emperors Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero could never have existed under the republic.

The character of the Roman empire was a most anomalous one. In the history of the empire we find the unparalleled situation of an absolute despotism without any hereditary n.o.bility and even without any well-established principle as to the descent of the royal power to the children of the deceased emperor. Under the most despotic days of the empire any Roman citizen might rise to any position of power or dignity under the emperor; nay, more than this, any subject of the Roman empire, no matter how low his origin or condition in society, might be thrust, by a lucky turn of the wheel of fortune, into the imperial purple itself.

The Roman emperors came from every strata of society, and from every portion of the Roman empire. At different times we see the son of a slave, a Syrian sun priest, a Dacian peasant, seated in the chair of the Caesars; but this state of affairs in no way alleviated or excused the evils which the empire brought upon its subjects. The exploitation of the millions at the hands of a favored few is not rendered more defensible by the fact that any individual has the chance, by extraordinary ability, extraordinary dishonesty, or extraordinary good fortune, to raise himself out of the ranks of the exploited into those of the exploiters.

The history of Rome, therefore, cannot be so perverted as to teach the lesson which some seem to draw from it, that the subst.i.tution of a despotism for popular rule may, under some circ.u.mstances, be a benefit to the community. It is never by the destruction of liberty that the evils of popular rule can be eliminated. In the past, in the present, and in the future, the only remedy for the evils of liberty is more liberty; and the lesson which should be learned from the fall of the Roman republic is that any country, where the privileged cla.s.ses are suffered to retain their unjust privileges at the expense of the community, must in the end suffer some such terrible penalty as that paid by Rome under the tyranny and misrule of the Roman empire.

CHAPTER XIII

THE COMPARISON

The comparisons between the history and problems of the Roman republic and those of our own country have been sometimes directly referred to, sometimes merely indicated, in the course of this book. While it is hoped that the reader has been able to follow the train of ideas suggested by the author, and to apply the lessons taught by the story of the fall of the Roman republic to aid in the solution of the American problems of to-day, it is thought advisable, in this final chapter of the book, to combine and summarize the difficult problems of economics, civics, and politics antic.i.p.ated in Roman experience.

First of all comes the lesson, so often taught by Roman history, so often already referred to in this book, that political equality is never by itself sufficient to secure either the protection of the weaker members of society or the general welfare of the community.

Political equality means nothing unless supplemented by laws which secure economic justice.

The oft-repeated cry that politics and business should be kept separate is the product of a shallow, unreasoning, or hypocritical mind--generally the latter. This cry is the argument of the stand-patter, of the man who trembles for the existence of the United States Const.i.tution and of American inst.i.tutions when any proposal is made to pa.s.s a law in the interests of the ma.s.s of the community, but who can view with complacency the enactment of statutes for the benefit of certain favored cla.s.ses. Economic problems and special privileges were among the greatest problems and dangers in the Roman republic, as they are in America to-day.

When we come to the exact form of the economic questions, differences, of course, begin to appear. Tariffs, trusts, regulation of commerce, were never great political questions in the days of the Roman republic. The greatest source of scandal and cla.s.s favoritism at Rome was to be found in the management and distribution of the public lands. This particular problem was one which our country, for nearly a century of national existence, was able to handle, in the main, wisely and honestly. The great body of that vast expanse of rich farming land, which was once the greatest a.s.set of the United States, was disposed of to actual settlers, who have played an important part in the development of our wonderful West. Recently, however, corruption even along this line has begun to manifest itself in America. Pa.s.sing over the numerous charges of actual corruption which have been made, it is to be regretted that the United States government has of late shown a decided disposition to favor great interests rather than ordinary individuals in the management of the public resources. An extremely indefensible discrimination is to be found in the act of July 1, 1902, which established the form of civil government for the Philippine Islands. Section 15 of this act, in providing for the management of the public lands, provided that no more than sixteen hectares of such land can be disposed of to any one individual, while a corporation may acquire as much as 1,024 hectares.

From the standpoint of pure governmental science the most interesting comparison between Rome and the United States lies in the elaborate and complicated system of checks and balances to be found in each government. The framers of each system seem generally to have been thinking more of securing perfect brakes than of installing sufficient operating power. It is a mere hackneyed remark to say that the most prominent characteristic of the work of the Federal Const.i.tutional Convention was the system of checks and balances it developed, while this same principle was carried to such an extreme in the organization of the Roman government that it almost seems strange to an outside observer that at times the resisting power of the "brakes" did not prove more powerful than the operating power of the government, with the result of a total failure of all government, and chaos, or anarchy.

The most interesting of the "checks" in the Roman government was the veto power of the tribunes--interesting alike for its contemporary importance at Rome, and perhaps even more so for the great and strangely directed influence which it has had upon the later development of governmental inst.i.tutions throughout the world.

The veto power of the Roman tribune was an innovation in government.

It was, however, a political idea which was destined to take deep root, and to be copied by countries whose very beginnings were, as yet, far in the future. There is to-day no const.i.tutional government in whose organization the veto power is not found in some form; in the great majority of modern governments the veto power occupies a most prominent place.

The modern veto power has departed far from that of the Roman tribune, both in practice and theory. The veto power of the latter was merely a check upon power; the modern veto power is both a check upon power and a positive power in the hands of the official to whom it is given.

The Roman veto was given to an officer who had no power except of a negative character; it could be interposed against executive acts and judicial proceedings as well as against legislative enactments.

The modern veto power is directed solely against legislative acts and is put in the hands of the executive department of the government.

Against the legislative department it is a check, but to the executive department it is a grant of positive power. In the United States the veto is more a club in the hands of the executive department than a check upon the legislative. The veto power also tends to break down the dividing line between the executive and the legislative departments. In the United States the President and the governors of the different states in reality const.i.tute a third branch of the respective legislative departments.

The story of the Gracchi is replete with suggestions of comparisons with modern conditions. The failure of these reformers was primarily due to the lack of steadfast perseverance on the part of the ma.s.s of their followers. It is this same phenomenon which does more than any other to bring about the failure of needed and widely supported reforms at the present time in our country. It is always much easier to win the support of a majority of voters to a reform measure than it is to retain such majority during the tedious delays which the opponents of reform are so adept in producing. Delay is always the great weapon of the supporters of any special interest which is attacked. The beneficiaries from unfair discriminations or special interests, and their allies, never desert the fight from weariness, no matter how long it may be continued; but once the first spell of enthusiasm has pa.s.sed away, the supporters of the reform gradually drop by the wayside. How many times have we seen the people vote time after time in support of a certain reform only to weaken at the crisis, and allow the ultimate victory to rest with the supporters of special interests! For ill.u.s.tration we need only cite the long contest in the metropolis of the West for a fair deal to the people from the street-car companies, where after nine years of contest the majority of the voters, at the critical contest, deserted the mayor, who had resolutely stood for the principles for which the voters had declared year after year, and gave to the companies a contract giving them all that they had even dared to hope for.

The deposition of the tribune Marcus Octavius is without question the first historical application of the principle of the recall of public officials. This precedent was never again followed at Rome, and the recall of public officers never became a part of the Roman political system. Such an expedient, in fact, could never have been necessary at Rome, except in very extreme cases, on account of the very short terms of office for which all Roman officials were elected. The only states of this country which follow the Roman example in this respect are some of the New England states.

The actions of the Roman proletariat in so consistently supporting the grain laws of Gaius Gracchus, and in so soon disregarding his proposals for the allotment of the public land, are very typical of the att.i.tude of a vast element in every community. The too great concern for the present and the too great disregard for the future are among the greatest obstacles to be overcome by those who attempt to line up the people of any community in the support of true constructive reforms.

Side by side with the lack of true proportion in the view taken by the majority of men, of the relative importance of different measures, stand the constant errors made by the people in their judgment of the character and objects of different politicians.

The tribune Carbo, the successor of Tiberius Gracchus as the leader of the popular party, may stand as a typical representative of a never-changing type of politician.

No one can read of this life without being inevitably reminded of some politician of his own acquaintance or locality. It is but another proof of how slowly human nature changes, despite the vast changes in the external conditions with which mankind is surrounded.

The law proposed by Carbo furnished an ill.u.s.tration of that cla.s.s of laws directed against the rich, so often brought forward by demagogues, not because of any justice in the law, not even because of any benefit which the law will confer upon the people at large, but merely for the purpose of winning popular favor and political office.

Such laws are generally supported by unrestrained and indiscriminating abuse. It is the proposed laws and attacks of this character which generally lead to a reaction, and in the end work to the benefit of the cla.s.ses against which they are directed.

The whole story of Carbo is one well calculated to present in vivid colors all that is lowest and most despicable. To the faults and errors already referred to must be added the charge of absolute insincerity. To Carbo the rights of the people and the popular cause were dear only as a means by which he could acquire power and money for himself. When it was for his interest, he became the servile tool of the senatorial party. America to-day has her full share of politicians who use popular measures only as a ladder for their own rise; or, even worse, who seek the leadership of a popular cause with the premeditated purpose of betraying it, at the proper moment, to the special interests. Where the purpose at first is sincere, the advocate of the object frequently deserts the cause when greater gain to him may be had by a surrender.

The impossibility of the voters being able to discriminate between the true reformer and the unscrupulous demagogue is shown time and again in the political history both of Rome and the United States. There has always been a cla.s.s of politicians without character, without honesty, without any pretense of truthfulness, without any ability of a kind to be of value to the public, but possessed of an almost superhuman ability to deceive the public and to advertise themselves. Examples of this cla.s.s may be found in Roman history in such men as Carbo and Caesar; striking examples in recent American history will readily occur to every one. Notably in munic.i.p.al politics in the great American cities, this aspect often appears.

It is not only in great but also in smaller things that we see the ever-recurring resemblances between Roman and American conditions.

Cicero's complaint, "Let me tell you that there is no cla.s.s of people so hara.s.sed by every kind of unreasonable difficulty as candidates for office," finds a responsive chord in every modern American politician.

His account of his campaign for the consulship at Rome, as well as the historical record of other Roman political contests, shows many points of similarity between the details of the problems and methods of ancient and modern political battles.

Political expenditures, in the latter days of the Roman republic, had become an even greater evil than is the case in the United States to-day. It is interesting, though alarming, to note that the greater political freedom became at Rome, the greater became the amount of political expenditures and the greater the power of money in elections. A similar alarming phenomenon has recently been noticed in this country in the greater increase of political expenditures which have followed the introduction of the direct primaries, and the consequent greater difficulties of the candidate for office not possessed of a large fortune.

Innumerable other points of resemblance might be mentioned to complete the comparison between Roman and American political conditions. A strong point in the Roman character (at least during the greater part of the republican period) is found in the fact that foreign hostilities always produced a cessation, or at least a laxation, of domestic political hostilities. This was in striking contrast with the general rule in Grecian cities, where one political faction or another would generally seize the opportunity offered by the external difficulties of their state to advance their selfish individual interests at the expense of the public. The public att.i.tude in America has always resembled the Roman rather than the Grecian att.i.tude.

Perhaps this att.i.tude in America has sometimes been carried too far, and resulted in too great a degree of credit and support being given to the party in power, for victories won by the united efforts of members of all political parties in the country.

The effect of a mere name, both in Rome and in the United States, has always been unduly great. The charge (even when entirely unsupported) that a Roman politician was aiming to make himself a king was generally sufficient to drive him from power; though the Romans finally calmly submitted to the rule of an absolute ruler under the new t.i.tle of emperor. The efficiency of denunciation by calling names, instead of by argument, is known and made use of in American politics.