By: Hegel (Simple)

Hegel (Simple) — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 11:01:22 +0000

§ 329: The monarch decides on war and peace

Toward the outside the state is a single subject. So the relation to other states belongs to the power of the crown.

What does this mean?

The monarch alone commands the army. He keeps up relations with other states through envoys. He makes war, peace and treaties.

Shouldn’t the estates decide?

They keep influence, above all over money. In England no one can wage an unpopular war. But people often think monarchs follow passion more than chambers do. That is not true. Whole peoples often let passion carry them away even more. In England the whole people pushed for war several times. Only later did they sober up.

Also, the relations with many states are so delicate that only the head of the state can handle them.

Summary: Relations with the outside, war and peace, belong to the power of the crown. Peoples often follow passion even more than their monarchs do. Only the head of the state can handle delicate relations.

By: Eduard Gans (Additions)

Eduard Gans (Additions) — Wed, 29 May 1833 14:27:39 +0000

In almost all European countries the individual apex is the princely power, which has to attend to relations with the outside. Where there are constitutions with estates, the question can arise whether war and peace should not be concluded by the estates, and in any case they will retain their influence, particularly with regard to financial means. In England, for example, no unpopular war can be waged. But if one thinks that princes and cabinets are more subject to passion than chambers, and therefore seeks to place the decision over war and peace into the hands of the latter, it must be said that whole nations can often be roused to enthusiasm and set into passion even more than their princes. In England the whole people has more than once pressed for war and, so to speak, compelled the ministers to wage it. The popularity of Pitt arose from the fact that he knew how to hit upon what the nation wanted at that time. Only later did the cooling of feeling here produce the awareness that the war was useless and unnecessary and had been begun without any reckoning of the means. The state, moreover, stands in relation not only to one other, but to several, and the entanglements of these relations become so delicate that they can be handled only from the apex.

Comments on: 329

By: Hegel (Simple)

By: Eduard Gans (Additions)