The state divides itself into three powers.

The legislative power determines the universal. The governmental power applies it to particular areas and single cases. The power of the crown makes the final decision. In it, all three come together into one unity. It is the peak and the beginning of the whole. This is how constitutional monarchy arises.

A work of modern times:

This form of state is the work of the modern world. World history shows how it came about.

And the old division?

Monarchy, aristocracy, democracy: This division of the ancients only counts whether one, a few or all rule. For the ancient world it was correct. In the new monarchy these forms are only parts. The monarch is one. In the government a few are active. In legislation, many take part. Which of the old forms is the best is an idle question today.

Montesquieu:

He saw deeply. Democracy rests on virtue. But in a developed society, the virtue of the leaders is no longer enough. Society needs the form of rational law. Aristocracy always stands close to tyranny or chaos, as Roman history shows. Honor as the principle of monarchy fits only the monarchy of the Middle Ages.

Who makes the constitution?

This question makes no sense. It assumes that there is no constitution at all, only a heap of individuals. But if there already is one, we may change it only in the way it itself provides. The constitution arose in time. But we must not regard it as something made. It is what is divine and enduring.

Summary: The state divides itself into legislation, government and the power of the crown. Together they form constitutional monarchy. A constitution is not simply a thing that someone made.

We shall return to this division after we have examined its execution in particular.

§ 540. The guarantee of a constitution, that is, the necessity that the laws be rational and their actualization secured, lies in the spirit of the entire people, namely in the determinacy according to which it has the self-consciousness of its reason (religion is this consciousness in its absolute substantiality), – and then, at the same time, in the actual organization corresponding to it, as the development of that principle. The constitution presupposes that consciousness of spirit, and conversely spirit presupposes the constitution, for actual spirit itself has only the determinate consciousness of its principles in so far as these are present for it as existing. The question of to whom, to what and how organized an authority, the power belongs to make a constitution, is the same as the question of who is to make the spirit of a people. If one separates the representation of a constitution from that of spirit, as though the latter might well exist or have existed without possessing the constitution that corresponds to it, then such an opinion only proves the superficiality of the thought about the connection of spirit, its consciousness of itself, and its actuality. What is called making a constitution in this way has, on account of this inseparability, never occurred in history, any more than the making of a code of laws; a constitution has only developed out of spirit, identical with its own development, and has at the same time, along with it, passed through the stages of formation and the changes necessary through the concept. It is the indwelling spirit and history – and indeed history is only its history –, by which constitutions have been made and are made.

§ 540. The guarantee of a constitution, that is, the necessity that the laws be rational and their actualization secured, lies at the same time in the spirit of the entire people, namely in the determinacy according to which it has the self-consciousness of its reason (religion is this consciousness in its substantiality), – and then in the actual organization corresponding to it, as development of that principle. The constitution presupposes that consciousness of spirit, and conversely spirit presupposes the constitution, for actual spirit itself has only the determinate consciousness of its principles in so far as these are present for it as existing. The question of to whom, to what and how organized an authority, the power belongs to make a constitution, is the same as the question of who is to make the spirit of a people. But if one separates the representation of a constitution from that of spirit, as though the latter might well exist or have existed without making the constitution that corresponds to it, then such an opinion only proves the superficiality of the thought about the connection of spirit, its consciousness of itself, and its actuality. What one calls thus making a constitution has, on account of this inseparability, never occurred in history, any more than the making of a code of laws; a constitution has only developed out of spirit, and in this development has passed through the stages of formation and the changes necessary through the concept. It is the indwelling spirit and history – and indeed history is only its history – which have made and do make constitutions. |