these respects, but
even in any one of them.

What could be more Liberal than the monarchy of Spain up to the
accession of the Bourbon dynasty? the kings never reigning but by the
consent of their subjects, and on the condition of unvarying respect for
their privileges; but never, when once seated on the throne, checked and
embarrassed in carrying through the measures necessary for the
administration of the state. The monarch was a responsible but a free
monarch until these days, when an attempt is being made to deprive him
both of freedom of action and responsibility--almost of utility, and to
render him a tool in the hands of a constantly varying succession of
needy advocates or military _parvenus_, whom the chances of civil war or
the gift of declamation have placed in the way of disputing the
ministerial salaries, without having been able to furnish either their
hearts with the patriotism, or their heads with the capacity, requisite
for the useful and upright administration of the empire. In Spain, the
advocates of continual change, in most cases in which personal interest
is not their moving spring, hope to arrive ultimately at a republic.
Now, no one more than myself admires the theories of Constitutional
governments, of universal political power and of republicanism: the last
system would be the best of all, were it only for the equality it is to
establish. But how are men to be equalised by the manufacturers of a
government? How are the ignorant and uneducated to be furnished with
legislative capacity, or the poor or unprincipled armed against the
seductions of bribery? It is not, unfortunately, in any one's power to
accomplish these requisite preliminary operations; without the
performance of which, these plausible theories will ever lose their
credit when brought to the test of experiment. How is a republic to be
durable without the previous solution of the problem of the equalisation
of human capacities? In some countries it may be almost attained for a
time; in others, never put in motion for an instant. No one more than
myself abhors tyranny and despotism; but, after hearing and reading all
the charges laid at the door of Absolutism during the last quarter of a
century, I am at a loss to account for the still greater evils and
defects, existing in Constitutional states, having been overlooked in
the comparison. The subject is far less free in France than in the
absolute states of Germany: and other appropri