Chapter I

To What Extent Forms of Government are a Matter of Choice.


All speculations concerning forms of government bear the impress, more
or less exclusive, of two conflicting theories respecting political
institutions; or, to speak more properly, conflicting conceptions of
what political institutions are.

By some minds, government is conceived as strictly a practical art,
giving rise to no questions but those of means and an end. Forms of
government are assimilated to any other expedients for the attainment
of human objects. They are regarded as wholly an affair of invention
and contrivance. Being made by man, it is assumed that man has the
choice either to make them or not, and how or on what pattern they
shall be made. Government, according to this conception, is a problem,
to be worked like any other question of business. The first step is to
define the purposes which governments are required to promote. The
next, is to inquire what form of government is best fitted to fulfill
those purposes. Having satisfied ourselves on these two points, and
ascertained the form of government which combines the greatest amount
of good with the least of evil, what further remains is to obtain the
concurrence of our countrymen, or those for whom the institutions are
intended, in the opinion which we have privately arrived at. To find
the best form of government; to persuade others that it is the best;
and, having done so, to stir them up to insist on having it, is the
order of ideas in the minds of those who adopt this view of political
philosophy. They look upon a constitution in the same light