IV.III. Influence of the Reformation on Political Development

In tracing the course of the political development of the period, we observe in the first place the consolidation of Monarchy, and the Monarch invested with an authority emanating from the State. The incipient stage in the rise of royal power, and the commencement of that unity which the states of Europe attained, belong to a still earlier period. While these changes were going forward, the entire body of private obligations and rights which had been handed down from the Middle Age, still retained validity. Infinitely important is this form of private rights, which the organic constituents of the executive power of the State have assumed. At their apex we find a fixed and positive principle — the exclusive right of one family to the possession of the throne, and the hereditary succession of sovereigns further restricted by the law of primogeniture. This gives the State an immovable centre. The fact that Germany was an elective empire prevented its being consolidated into one state; and for the same reason Poland has vanished from the circle of independent states. The State must have a final decisive will: but if an individual is to be the final deciding power, he must be so in a direct and natural way, not as determined by choice and theoretic views, etc. Even among the free Greeks the oracle was the external power which decided their policy on critical occasions; here birth is the oracle — something independent of any arbitrary volition. But the circumstance that the highest station in a monarchy is assigned to a family, seems to indicate that the sovereignty is the private property of that family. As such that sovereignty would seem to be divisible; but since the idea of division of power is opposed to the principle of the state, the rights of the monarch and his family required to be more strictly defined. Sovereign possession is not a peculium of the individual ruler, but is consigned to the dynastic family as a trust; and the estates of the realm possess security that that trust shall be faithfully discharged, for they have to guard the unity of the body politic. Thus, then, royal possession no longer denotes a kind of private property, private possession of estates, demesnes, jurisdiction, etc., but has become a State-property — a function pertaining to and involved with the State.

Equally important, and connected with that just noticed, is the change of executive powers, functions, duties and rights, which naturally belong to the State, but which had become private property and private contracts or obligations — into possession conferred by the State. The rights of seigneurs and barons were annulled, and they were obliged to content themselves with official positions in the State. This transformation of the rights of vassals into official functions took place in the several kingdoms in various ways. In France, e.g., the great Barons, who were governors of provinces, who could claim such offices as a matter of right, and who like the Turkish Pashas, maintained a body of troops with the revenues thence derived — troops which they might at any moment bring into the field against the King — were reduced to the position of mere landed proprietors or court nobility, and those Pashalics became offices held under the government; or the nobility were employed as officers — generals of the army, an army belonging to the State. In this aspect the origination of standing armies is so important an event; for they supply the monarchy with an independent force and are as necessary for the security of the central authority against the rebellion of the subject individuals as for the defence of the state against foreign enemies. The fiscal system indeed had not as yet assumed a systematic character — the revenue being derived from customs, taxes and tolls in countless variety, besides the subsidies and contributions paid by the estates of the realm; in return for which the right of presenting a statement of grievances was conceded to them, as is now the case in Hungary. — In Spain the spirit of chivalry had assumed a very beautiful and noble form. This chivalric spirit, this knightly dignity, degraded to a mere inactive sentiment of honor, has attained notoriety as the Spanish grandezza. The Grandees were no longer allowed to maintain troops of their own, and were also withdrawn from the command of the armies; destitute of power they had to content themselves as private persons with an empty title. But the means by which the royal power in Spain was consolidated, was the Inquisition. This, which was established for the persecution of those who secretly adhered to Judaism, and of Moors and heretics, soon assumed a political character, being directed against the enemies of the State. Thus the Inquisition confirmed the despotic power of the King: it claimed supremacy even over bishops and archbishops, and could cite them before its tribunal. The frequent confiscation of property — one of the most customary penalties — tended to enrich the treasury of the State. Moreover, the Inquisition was a tribunal which took cognizance of mere suspicion; and while it consequently exercised a fearful authority over the clergy, it had a peculiar support in the national pride. For every Spaniard wished to be considered Christian by descent, and this species of vanity fell in with the views and tendency of the Inquisition. Particular provinces of the Spanish monarchy, as e.g. Aragon, still retained many peculiar rights and privileges; but the Spanish Kings from Philip II downwards proceeded to suppress them altogether.

It would lead us too far to pursue in detail the process of the depression of the aristocracy in the several states of Europe. The main scope of this depressing process was, as already stated, the curtailment of the private rights of the feudal nobility, and the transformation of their seigneurial authority into an official position in connection with the State. This change was in the interest of both the King and the People. The powerful barons seemed to constitute an intermediate body charged with the defence of liberty; but properly speaking, it was only their own privileges which they maintained against the royal power on the one hand and the citizens on the other hand. The barons of England extorted Magna Charta from the King; but the citizens gained nothing by it, on the contrary they remained in their former condition. Polish Liberty too, meant nothing more than the freedom of the barons in contraposition to the King, the nation being reduced to a state of absolute serfdom. When liberty is mentioned, we must always be careful to observe whether it is not really the assertion of private interests which is thereby designated. For although the nobility were deprived of their sovereign power, the people were still oppressed in consequence of their absolute dependence, their serfdom, and subjection to aristocratic jurisdiction; and they were partly declared utterly incapable of possessing property, partly subjected to a condition of bond-service which did not permit of their freely selling the products of their industry. The supreme interest of emancipation from this condition concerned the power of the State as well as the subjects — that emancipation which now gave them as citizens the character of free individuals, and determined that what was to be performed for the Commonwealth should be a matter of just allotment, not of mere chance. The aristocracy of possession maintains that possession against both — viz. against the power of the State at large and against individuals. But the aristocracy have a position assigned them, as the support of the throne, as occupied and active on behalf of the State and the common weal, and at the same time as maintaining the freedom of the citizens. This in fact is the prerogative of that class which forms the link between the Sovereign and the People — to undertake to discern and to give the first impulse to that which is intrinsically Rational and Universal; and this recognition of and occupation with the Universal must take the place of positive personal right. This subjection to the Head of the State of that intermediate power which laid claim to positive authority was now accomplished, but this did not involve the emancipation of the subject class. This took place only at a later date, when the idea of right in and for itself arose in men’s minds. Then the sovereigns relying on their respective peoples, vanquished the caste of unrighteous-ness; but where they united with the barons, or where the latter maintained their freedom against the kings, those positive rights or rather wrongs continued.

We observe also as an essential feature now first presenting itself in the political aspect of the time, a connected system of States and a relation of States to each other. They became involved in various wars: the Kings having enlarged their political authority, now turn their attention to foreign lands, insisting upon claims of all kinds. The aim and real interest of the wars of the period is invariably conquest.

Italy especially had become such an object of desire, and was a prey to the rapacity of the French, the Spaniards, and at a later date, of the Austrians. In fact absolute disintegration and dismemberment has always been an essential feature in the national character of the inhabitants of Italy, in ancient as well as in modern times. Their stubborn individuality was exchanged for a union the result of force, under the Roman dominion; but as soon as this bond was broken, the original character reappeared in full strength. In later times, as if finding in them a bond of union otherwise impossible — after having escaped from a selfishness of the most monstrous order and which displayed its perverse nature in crimes of every description — the Italians attained a taste for the Fine Arts: thus their civilization, the mitigation of their selfishness, reached only the Grade of Beauty, not that of Rationality — the higher unity of Thought. Consequently, even in poetry and song the Italian nature is different from ours. Improvisation characterizes the genius of the Italians; they pour out their very souls in Art and the ecstatic enjoyment of it. Enjoying a naturel so imbued with Art, the State must be an affair of comparative indifference, a merely casual matter to the Italians. But we have to observe also that the wars in which Germany engaged, were not particularly honorable to it: it allowed Burgundy, Lorraine, Alsace, and other parts of the empire to be wrested from it. From these wars between the various political powers there arose common interests, and the object of that community of interest was the maintenance of severalty — the preservation to the several States of their independence — in fact the “balance of power.” The motive to this was of a decidedly “practical” kind, viz. the protection of the several States from conquest. The union of the States of Europe as the means of shielding individual States from the violence of the powerful — the preservation of the balance of power, had now taken the place of that general aim of the elder time, the defence of Christendom, whose centre was the Papacy. This new political motive was necessarily accompanied by a diplomatic condition — one in which all the members of the great European system, however distant, felt an interest in that which happened to any one of them. Diplomatic policy had been brought to the greatest refinement in Italy, and was thence transmitted to Europe at large. Several princes in succession seemed to threaten the stability of the balance of power in Europe. When this combination of States was just commencing, Charles V was aiming at universal monarchy; for he was Emperor of Germany and King of Spain to boot: the Netherlands and Italy acknowledged his sway, and the whole wealth of America flowed into his coffers. With this enormous power, which, like the contingencies of fortune in the case of private property, had been accumulated by the most felicitous combinations of political dexterity — among other things by marriage, — but which was destitute of an internal and reliable bond, he was nevertheless unable to gain any advantage over France, or even over the German princes; nay he was even compelled to a peace by Maurice of Saxony. His whole life was spent in suppressing disturbances in all parts of his empire and in conducting foreign wars. The balance of power in Europe was similarly threatened by Louis XIV. Through that depression of the grandees of his kingdom which Richelieu and after him Mazarin had accomplished, he had become an absolute sovereign. France, too, had the consciousness of its intellectual superiority in a refinement of culture surpassing anything of which the rest of Europe could boast. The pretensions of Louis were founded not on extent of dominion, (as was the case with Charles V) so much as on that culture which distinguished his people, and which at that time made its way everywhere with the language that embodied it, and was the object of universal admiration: they could therefore plead a higher justification than those of the German Emperor. But the very rock on which the vast military resources of Philip II had already foundered — the heroic resistance of the Dutch — proved fatal also to the ambitious schemes of Louis. Charles XII also presented a remarkably menacing aspect; but his ambition had a Quixotic tinge and was less sustained by intrinsic vigor. Through all these storms the nations of Europe succeeded in maintaining their individuality and independence.

An external relation in which the States of Europe had an interest in common, was that sustained to the Turks — the terrible power which threatened to overwhelm Europe from the East. The Turks of that day had still a sound and vigorous nationality, whose power was based on conquest, and which was therefore engaged in constant warfare, or at least admitted only a temporary suspension of arms. As was the case among the Franks, the conquered territories were divided among their warriors as personal, not heritable possessions; when in later times the principle of hereditary succession was adopted, the national vigor was shattered. The flower of the Osman force, the Janizaries, were the terror of the Europeans. Their ranks were recruited from a body of Christian boys of handsome and vigorous proportions, brought together chiefly by means of annual conscriptions among the Greek subjects of the Porte, strictly educated in the Moslem faith, and exercised in arms from early youth. Without parents, without brothers or sisters, without wives, they were, like the monks, an altogether isolated and terrible corps. The Eastern European powers were obliged to make common cause against the Turks — viz.: Austria, Hungary, Venice and Poland. The battle of Lepanto saved Italy, and perhaps all Europe, from a barbarian inundation.

An event of special importance following in the train of the Reformation was the struggle of the Protestant Church for political existence. The Protestant Church, even in its original aspect, was too intimately connected with secular interests not to occasion secular complications and political contentions respecting political possession. The subjects of Catholic princes become Protestant, have and make claims to ecclesiastical property, change the nature of the tenure, and repudiate or decline the discharge of those ecclesiastical functions to whose due performance the emoluments are attached (jura stolae). Moreover a Catholic government is bound to be the brachium seculare of the Church; the Inquisition, e.g. never put a man to death, but simply declared him a heretic, as a kind of jury; he was then punished according to civil laws. Again, innumerable occasions of offence and irritation originated with processions and feasts, the carrying of the Host through the streets, with-drawals from convents, etc. Still more excitement would be felt when an Archbishop of Cologne attempted to make his archiepiscopate a secular princedom for himself and his family. Their confessors made it a matter of conscience with Catholic princes to wrest estates that had been the property of the Church out of the hands of the heretics. In Germany, however, the condition of things was favorable to Protestantism in as far as the several territories which had been imperial fiefs, had become independent principalities. But in countries like Austria, the princes were indifferent to Protestants, or even hostile to them; and in France they were not safe in the exercise of their religion except as protected by fortresses. War was the indispensable preliminary to the security of Protestants; for the question was not one of simple conscience, but involved decisions respecting public and private property which had been taken possession of in contravention of the rights of the Church, and whose restitution it demanded. A condition of absolute mistrust supervened; absolute, because mistrust bound up with the religious conscience was its root. The Protestant princes and towns formed at that time a feeble union, and the defensive operations they conducted were much feebler still. After they had been worsted, Maurice the Elector of Saxony, by an utterly unexpected and adventurous piece of daring, extorted a peace, itself of doubtful interpretation, and which left the real sources of embitterment altogether untouched. It was necessary to fight out the battle from the very beginning. This took place in the Thirty Years’ War, in which first Denmark and then Sweden undertook the cause of freedom. The former was compelled to quit the field, but the latter under Gustavus Adolphus — that hero of the North of glorious memory — played a part which was so much the more brilliant inasmuch as it began to wage war with the vast force of the Catholics, alone — without the help of the Protestant states of the Empire. The powers of Europe, with a few exceptions, precipitate themselves on Germany — flowing back towards it as to the fountain from which they had originally issued, and where now the right of inwardness that has come to manifest itself in the sphere of religion, and that of internal independence and severalty is to be fought out. The struggle ends without an Ideal result — without having attained the consciousness of a principle as an intellectual concept — in the exhaustion of all parties, in a scene of utter desolation, where all the contending forces have been wrecked; it issues in letting parties simply take their course and maintain their existence on the basis of external power. The issue is in fact exclusively of a political nature.

In England also, war was indispensable to the establishment of the Protestant Church: the struggle was in this case directed against the sovereigns, who were secretly attached to Catholicism because they found the principle of absolute sway confirmed by its doctrines. The fanaticized people rebelled against the assumption of absolute sovereign power — importing that Kings are responsible to God alone (i.e. to the Father Confessor)— and in opposition to Catholic externality, unfurled the banner of extreme subjectivity in Puritanism — a principle which, developing itself in the real world, presents an aspect partly of enthusiastic elevation, partly of ridiculous incongruity. The enthusiasts of England, like those of Munster, were for having the State governed directly by the fear of God; the soldiery sharing the same fanatical views prayed while they fought for the cause they had espoused. But a military leader now has the physical force of the country and consequently the government in his hands: for in the State there must be government, and Cromwell knew what governing is. He, therefore, made himself ruler, and sent that praying parliament about their business. With his death however his right to authority vanished also, and the old dynasty regained possession of the throne. Catholicism, we may observe, is commended to the support of princes as promoting the security of their government— a position supposed to be particularly manifest if the Inquisition be connected with the government; the former constituting the bulwark of the latter. But such a security is based on a slavish religious obedience, and is limited to those grades of human development in which the political constitution and the whole legal system still rest on the basis of actual positive possession; but if the constitution and laws are to be founded on a veritable eternal Right, then security is to be found only in the Protestant religion, in whose principle Rational Subjective Freedom also attains development. The Dutch too offered a vigorous opposition to the Catholic principle as bound up with the Spanish sovereignty. Belgium was still attached to the Catholic religion and remained subject to Spain: on the contrary, the northern part of the Netherlands — Holland — stood its ground with heroic valor against its oppressors. The trading class, the guilds and companies of marksmen formed a militia whose heroic courage was more than a match for the then famous Spanish infantry. Just as the Swiss peasants had resisted the chivalry of Austria, so here the trading cities held out against disciplined troops. During this struggle on the Continent itself, the Dutch fitted out fleets and deprived the Spaniards of part of their colonial possessions, from which all their wealth was derived. As independence was secured to Holland in its holding to the Protestant principle, so that of Poland was lost through its endeavor to suppress that principle in the case of dissidents.

Through the Peace of Westphalia the Protestant Church had been acknowledged as an independent one — to the great confusion and humiliation of Catholicism. This peace has often passed for the palladium of Germany, as having established its political constitution. But this constitution was in fact a confirmation of the particular rights of the countries into which Germany had been broken up. It involves no thought, no conception of the proper aim of a state. We should consult “Hippolytus a lapide” (a book which, written before the conclusion of the peace, had a great influence on the condition of the Empire) if we would become acquainted with the character of that German freedom of which so much is made. In the peace in question the establishment of a complete particularity, the determination of all relations on the principle of private right is the object manifestly contemplated — a constituted anarchy, such as the world had never before seen; — i.e. the position that an Empire is properly a unity, a totality, a state, while yet all relations are determined so exclusively on the principle of private right that the privilege of all the constituent parts of that Empire to act for themselves contrarily to the interest of the whole, or to neglect that which its interest demands and which is even required by law — is guaranteed and secured by the most inviolable sanctions. Immediately after this settlement, it was shown what the German Empire was as a state in relation to other states: it waged ignominious wars with the Turks, for deliverance from whom Vienna was indebted to Poland. Still more ignominious was its relation to France, which took possession in time of peace of free cities, the bulwarks of Germany, and of flourishing provinces, and retained them undisturbed.

This constitution, which completely terminated the career of Germany as an Empire, was chiefly the work of Richelieu, by whose assistance — Romish Cardinal though he was — religious freedom in Germany was preserved. Richelieu, with a view to further the interests of the State whose affairs he superintended, adopted the exact opposite of that policy which he promoted in the case of its enemies; for he reduced the latter to political impotence by ratifying the political independence of the several parts of the Empire, while at home he destroyed the independence of the Protestant party. His fate has consequently resembled that of many great statesmen, inasmuch as he has been cursed by his countrymen, while his enemies have looked upon the work by which he ruined them as the most sacred goal of their desires — the consummation of their rights and liberties.

The result of the struggle therefore was the forcibly achieved and now politically ratified coexistence of religious parties, forming political communities whose relations are determined according to prescriptive principles of civil or [rather, for such their true nature was] of private right.

The Protestant Church increased and so perfected the stability of its political existence by the fact that one of the states which had adopted the principles of the Reformation raised itself to the position of an independent European power. This power was destined to start into a new life with Protestantism: Prussia, viz., which making its appearance at the end of the seventeenth century, was indebted, if not for origination, yet certainly for the consolidation of its strength, to Frederick the Great; and the Seven Years’ War was the struggle by which that consolidation was accomplished. Frederick II demonstrated the independent vigor of his power by resisting that of almost all Europe — the union of its leading states. He appeared as the hero of Protestantism, and that not individually merely, like Gustavus Adolphus, but as the ruler of a state. The Seven Years’ War was indeed in itself not a war of religion; but it was so in view of its ultimate issues, and in the disposition of the soldiers as well as of the potentates under whose banner they fought. The Pope consecrated the sword of Field-Marshal Daun, and the chief object which the Allied Powers proposed to themselves, was the crushing of Prussia as the bulwark of the Protestant Church. But Frederick the Great not only made Prussia one of the great powers of Europe as a Protestant power, but was also a philosophical King — an altogether peculiar and unique phenomenon in modern times.

There had been English Kings who were subtle theologians, contending for the principle of absolutism: Frederick on the contrary took up the Protestant principle in its secular aspect; and though he was by no means favorable to religious controversies, and did not side with one party or the other, he had the consciousness of Universality, which is the profoundest depth to which Spirit can attain, and is Thought conscious of its own inherent power.